Reviewed by Kathleen Bednarek
Comin’ ‘Round: Selected Writings
By James Sherry
Chax Press
ISBN: 9781946104557, 270 pages, April 2025
Comin’ ‘Round is a freewheeling collection of Sherry’s writings spanning 52 years. And I was drawn to learn more about his approach to writing because the text was singular. It seemed like more of an exploration than a collection. In a 2022 interview with Tupelo Quarterly, Sherry posited: “Rather than evaluating poems like a contest and building an evaluative hierarchy of judgments, a pyramid of good, better, best, that largely supports individual opinions and separate social groups, what about understanding difference in poetries like a taxonomy?” This freeing, holistic approach resonates throughout Comin’ ‘Round. At times, the poems engage with an energetic movement—what Charles Bernstein, likened to a form of dancing. At other times the writing operates in more lengthy discourse.
The collection opens with Lazy Sonnets (1970-1972), introducing dreamy irony. The first poem, “To The Reader” admonishes: “…remember I’m the laziest.” This subtle humor reappears throughout. Sherry’s work aligns with Language poetry and elements of surrealism, employing avant-garde juxtapositions that invite readers to impose their own coherence. For example, in “About” (from Popular Fiction, 1981-1985): “Space is made for a subject by delineating around it./The subject is what’s left over: Not the thing, but what’s about it.”
Comin’ ‘Round creates a ring of truth—sometimes resisting closed readings but inviting associative or nonlinear comprehension. Its contrapuntal flexibility feels interactive rather than overwrought. Sherry’s materiality remains accessible due to his open spirit. Revisiting his Tupelo Quarterly interview, it is again worth highlighting his perspective: “Rather than viewing a poem as a single, impenetrable, jewel-like object, I imagine it as an intricate, multi-layered web of connections—shifting, overlapping, and interacting in varying intensities—all of which shape the poem’s form and meaning.” This viewpoint surfaces with inquiry like in “Ambition (for Kenko)”: “Why don’t I conform to propriety/and custom to be (finally) free of them?” Or in “West Indies Exercise Book”: “What genres can go together? How many are necessary to make an inclusive global language? What is synergy here?”
Later works critically examine capitalist toxicity and America’s jingoistic policies. Vivid imagery—fish floating in Manhattan’s financial district lobbies—roots surrealism in reality, furnishing a diabolique. In The Word I Like White Paint Considered and Our Nuclear Heritage, Sherry uses epigraphs to great effect. A 1930s Scott Towel ad absurdly asks: “Is your/ Washroom breeding/ Bolsheviks?” while Bob Hope’s lyrics joke: “Will you be my little geranium,/ Until we are both blown up by uranium.” Such dark humor contrasts with meditations on destruction. “Live Action Language” confronts readers with startling juxtapositions—Brahmaputra suture versus sutra, a greengrocer polishing an apple to reveal a mushroom cloud’s reflection. Sherry merges the ordinary with the apocalyptic, underscoring life’s fragility within a disposable culture.
At times the collection made me reflexively smile through wordplay—the avant-garde turned playful and endearing. The collection’s mystifying moments resolve in turns to declarations, sustaining an intricate resistance to language’s limitations. From “Epistle Apology”: “To accept that complexity does not have to be unified or that unification is packaging language for consumption is to understand both the plan and the intention…”
In recent work, Sherry expands his focus, exploring poetry as an ecosystem empowered by exchanges with the world. For example his latest full-length book included in the collection, Selfie: Poetry, Social Change & Ecological Connection, explores how poetry can reach those resistant to facts (e.g., climate change), as facts alone often fail to shift beliefs.
Comin’ ‘Round captures Sherry’s expansiveness, reflecting an artist’s breadth of vision, while dedicating himself to fostering literary community both in his ethos of connection through his own writing and in his support of fellow writers through his Segue reading series and publishing work. Sherry’s circularity invites, questions and encourages. It’s a unique and purposeful mix. Comin’ ‘Round shows that a belief in the radical power of language creates, in response, ever vital poetry.
About the reviewer: Kathleen Bednarek is a writer living in Pennsylvania. She is a current MFA student and has a MA in Poetry from Wilkes University.