Bill Neumire was good enough to provide the first review of Gil McElroy's LAOS (Some Julian Days) (2018) in Vallum 16:1, "Connections," which was just released at the beginning of the month. Thanks so much! To see the full review, you have to pick up a copy of the issue, but the three-page review includes:
The speaker of these poems, though framed in a clipped, military aura, is a judgmental observer offering a tint of sadness in abstraction. It’s musical and emotionally effective, and he even becomes touchingly connected, or at least desiring of connection in lines like, “[t]he / very knowing / of you…” and “[t]ouching, / touching the ugly / of each other” from section 2457712. The continuous structure rings similar to Leaves of Grass or other projects of continuation, but unlike Whitman, it’s not an inclusively democratic gesture; rather, the language is quirky, Cummings-like in its jarring utterances that remain committed to sound, to alliteration, internal rhyme, and slant rhyme.
