Core Samples from the World

A foreigner with poetry as his passport, Pushcart/Whiting award winner Gander (Eye Against Eye) takes "core samples" of the cultures he finds on journeys to China, Mexico, Chile, and Bosnia and Herzegovina and presents them in a blend of poetry, haibun (a Japanese form of essay-poem), and photography (by a trio of others). "Did you know Bosnia is the only country without a McDonald's?" a new friend in Sarajevo asks him; while in San Luis Potosí, another man points out Julieta, owner of "the most famous legs in Mexico," since they were caught on video when tossed into the air by a renegade bull. In Beijing, Gander marvels at what "appears to be a casino boat on the lake," ornate and beautiful, "carved from ocherous marble." But not all is easygoing: "At dinner, the Santiago poet averts her face from the gringo…. A synecdoche, he is taken for his government…. With suspicion at the threshold of dialogue, there is always a word blocking the first word."