Charles Rammelkamp reviews Landscapes of the Exiled by Alan Catlin in the March 21 edition of London Grip.
Nobody does Armageddon like Alan Catlin. His latest collection is divided into three parts: “Landscapes,” which takes place on a fictionalized Block Island, the tourist destination off the coast of Rhode Island; “Exiles,” a surrealistic landscape of its own, that feels mostly like the American southwest but any bleak location will do; and “Dark Comes Early in the Mountains,” a dreamscape in which the speaker mourns his lost muse Gladys. All three suites of poems add up to an apocalyptic vision, but it’s the longest, middle section, “Exiles,” that holds the collection together.
