The Irrationalist

The Irrationalist by Buffam, Suzanne. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780982237632.

“Buffam’s often deadpan tone is like a magical dustpan that sweeps up the strangest observations and ideas, all worlds to themselves. Her ‘Little Commentaries’—‘On Piñatas,’ ‘On Fountains,’ and ‘On Vanishing Acts’ (to name only a few)—are absolute gems, kin to Anne Carson’s town poems and Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit. Buffam’s poems tug at new corners of the brain. They’re marvelous.” - Matthea Harvey “Buffam begins with a world that ends, a world that is always ending. This is not despair, but a shrewd mind behind an honest eye that in wry observation creates out of small poems a book of knowledge, ‘Little Commentaries,’ which show there is no wisdom unsharpened by wounding wit. That motion is an essential motion, and these are essential poems.” - Dan Beachy-Quick “These poems try to achieve something almost impossible: not to betray the ironic today while celebrating the interiority of a serious meditation. And they succeed in doing it. What a treat!” - Adam Zagajewski