CATWISE CLOCK

Garden of Rain (Le Jardin de Pluie) by Mike
Maggio
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Reviewed by Marianne Szlyk
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In his most recent collection of poems, D.C.-area poet Mike Maggio continues his
exploration of free verse. This journey begins with “I’ve Forgotten Who I Am,” a
dreamlike, four-page narrative of the speaker’s journey from “quaint shops/[where he]
rummage[s] through abandoned bric-a-brac” to hunger to homelessness to wartime to
political dissidence. The narrative reflects his engagement with politics and
multiculturalism, developing concerns raised in his earlier chapbook Oranges from
Palestine (1996) and his satirical novel The Wizard and the White House (2014).
Beginning at home as the speaker searches through old photographs, the journey soon
expands to scenes that may be in this country or elsewhere, perhaps even within the poet.
However, more importantly for this collection, it initiates a search for intimacy as
Maggio attempts to engage with the photographs, a homeless man, a woman who feeds
the hungry, partisans who have just won a war, and a young boy who “leads [the poet]
across the wasteland/to a wayfaring tree.”
Many of the works in this collection rework the topic of intimacy, starting with the
second poem, “The Prison of St. Desire” that portrays lovers as prisoners. Indeed,
Maggio’s “Ode to Spring” addresses the season as a reluctant lover whose “slender
tongue/ [could] spark a bit of warmth/between these snow-white cheeks.” “You Really
Don’t Love Me” hovers between the possibility of addressing a long-time partner or
perhaps a country whose processed food, TV, and schools show its lack of love for the
speaker. A later poem, “You Came Running,” takes the form of a more straightforward