WILLIAM SHATNER
by C. McAllister Williams
Alice Blue Books, 2010
$10.00, Limited Edition Chapbook
As the crowd around a car accident, WILLIAM SHATNER draws your eye to the devastation that surrounds its savior. Shatner is the subject. Shatner is the object. Shatner is not what you think he is. WILLIAM SHATNER marries biblical verse with Us Weekly, producing a journey for salvation that doubles as a gossip column through the arc of the poems. Williams tells us “william shatner is a ghost. by ghost i mean / he is a great television. in the city square, / william shatner has become multitudes. / or so says my souvenir tee shirt.” Be warned yet assured. WILLIAM SHATNER polishes its brass knuckles before punching you in the face.
—A. Minetta Gould