Distributed for Tupelo Press
Today in the Taxi
Sean Singer’s radiant and challenging body of work involves, much like Whitman’s, nothing less than the ongoing interrogation of what a poem is. In this way his books are startlingly alive… I love in this work the sense that I am the grateful recipient of Singer’s jazzy curation as I move from page to page. Today in the Taxi is threaded through with quotes from Kafka, facts about jazz musicians, musings from various thinkers, from a Cathar fragment to Martin Buber to Arthur Eddington to an anonymous comedian. The taxi is at once a real taxi and the microcosm of a world—at times the speaker seems almost like Charon ferrying his passengers, as the nameless from all walks and stages of life step in and out his taxi. I am reminded of Calvino’s Invisible Cities, of Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn… Today in the Taxi is intricate, plain, suggestive, deeply respectful of the reader, and utterly absorbing. Like Honey and Smoke before it, which was one of the best poetry books of the last decade, this is work of the highest order.
—Laurie Sheck
—Laurie Sheck
Table of Contents
1
One-tenth 2
Antivenom 3
B Sharp Blues 4
Burnt Plastic 5
Azabache (Black) 6
Backs and Necks 7
Drive (dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) 8
Days of Winter 9
"Fire Unknown Even to Yourself" 10
Ambulance 11
Glossed Over 12
Night on Earth (dir. by Jim Jarmusch, 1991) 13
Compass 14
Confusion 15
An Imperfect Glass 16
Limbo 17
Schism 18
Rites 19
Divide By Zero 20
Doubt 21
2
Keyhole 23
Who’s Sorry Now 24
Dirt 25
Stretching Out to the Milky Way 26
E Minor Sonata 27
Uncomfortable 28
Tensions 29
Taxi Driver (dir. by Martin Scorsese, 1976) 30
Real Gone 31
Layers 32
Ice Freezes Red 33
City 34
Empty 35
Floating 36
Oar and Petals 37
Bottomless Vat 38
The Entire City 39
Form Is the Shape of Content 40
Before You Put It In Reverse, Touch Second 41
Harlem River Drive 42
3
Pink Gloves 44
Voyagers 45
Glands and Nerves 46
Paterson (dir. by Jim Jarmusch, 2016) 47
Invisible Screen 48
Purple Death 49
Verse 50
Under the Same Black Sky 51
Strawberry 52
The Smallest Increase 53
Sadness 54
Neural Housekeeping 56
Powers 57
Sapphire Needle 58
Road 59
Meetings and Avoidings 60
India 61
Peace of Mind 62
Two Waves, Brightly Lit 63
Look to the Side 64
Take Hold of It 65
One-tenth 2
Antivenom 3
B Sharp Blues 4
Burnt Plastic 5
Azabache (Black) 6
Backs and Necks 7
Drive (dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) 8
Days of Winter 9
"Fire Unknown Even to Yourself" 10
Ambulance 11
Glossed Over 12
Night on Earth (dir. by Jim Jarmusch, 1991) 13
Compass 14
Confusion 15
An Imperfect Glass 16
Limbo 17
Schism 18
Rites 19
Divide By Zero 20
Doubt 21
2
Keyhole 23
Who’s Sorry Now 24
Dirt 25
Stretching Out to the Milky Way 26
E Minor Sonata 27
Uncomfortable 28
Tensions 29
Taxi Driver (dir. by Martin Scorsese, 1976) 30
Real Gone 31
Layers 32
Ice Freezes Red 33
City 34
Empty 35
Floating 36
Oar and Petals 37
Bottomless Vat 38
The Entire City 39
Form Is the Shape of Content 40
Before You Put It In Reverse, Touch Second 41
Harlem River Drive 42
3
Pink Gloves 44
Voyagers 45
Glands and Nerves 46
Paterson (dir. by Jim Jarmusch, 2016) 47
Invisible Screen 48
Purple Death 49
Verse 50
Under the Same Black Sky 51
Strawberry 52
The Smallest Increase 53
Sadness 54
Neural Housekeeping 56
Powers 57
Sapphire Needle 58
Road 59
Meetings and Avoidings 60
India 61
Peace of Mind 62
Two Waves, Brightly Lit 63
Look to the Side 64
Take Hold of It 65