Where We Live

On the basis of memory, Peter Makuck has built us his world. The poetry is in the building, the use of language, intimate, exact, colorful. Each poem has its own reality, its own unexpected and moving truth

There are many poets writing now who live such comfy, middle-class lives that they will put on a proletarian mask, pump their poems with violence—anything to give their work a little energy. In vain. The mask is cellophane, the violence as phony as a cop show on TV. Makuck’s uneasiness about class difference is genuine; the blood that flows in his poetry is red and necessary. His poems convince because they are so complicated and complete: his imagery has contrast; the violence is tempered with uncertainty and tenderness. If his poems are sometimes bloody, they remind us that where we live we have to kill to eat

One of the most dynamic poets writing today. Makuck sees places moments and places where the human spirit dwells . . . Concentrating on certain critical moments in his life, Makuck’s lines are filled with joyful images