Green Revolver Analysis
The verses in Green Revolver, the first published collection by Worthy Evans, resulted from a spontaneous outpouring of poems, pent up during a fourteen-year hiatus from the craft during which Evans worked as a professional reporter, writer, and editor. Evans's narrative poems are grounded in concrete images of our shared reality and explore a range of imaginative versions of the poet as confident or frightened, loving or hateful, bold or timid, lost or profound. His poetic strategy remains the same throughout the entire book to create one theme, and consist of devices such as point of view, imagery, and repetition; all used flawlessly, and broken into three parts, to create one cohesive collection. The one thing that makes this collection
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His readers may find themselves asking, throughout all of part one and throughout the entirety of the book, “who is the speaker?” He calls himself a “he,”and his narrative is specific and seems singular. Yet in one poem he refers to himself as Jeffrey, and in others he is Raoul, Stephen, Rogers, Leeny, Mr. Thompson. At times his wife, or girlfriend is Dorothy, Monica, Dora, Oma, Charlene, and Mona; and at times he has a daughter named Jennie, a son named Jeremy or Lonnie, a job, neighbors, and hobbies. And all of these things evolve or switch. The poet is a shape-shifting trickster with the voice of a schmuck in the cubicle next door. He might be an angle, he could be a villain. He might be both. The point being, is that his incredible use of point-of-view takes the generic nature of contemporary life and makes nothing more or less important than anything else. The monotone voice that can be heard when reading every line presents each idea and poem without judgment, prejudice, or even a sense of difference. Just the facts. Just what the readers wants to hear. Worthy has done this so that each poem becomes a little narrative, a story, something we can relate to which makes for one great
His readers may find themselves asking, throughout all of part one and throughout the entirety of the book, “who is the speaker?” He calls himself a “he,”and his narrative is specific and seems singular. Yet in one poem he refers to himself as Jeffrey, and in others he is Raoul, Stephen, Rogers, Leeny, Mr. Thompson. At times his wife, or girlfriend is Dorothy, Monica, Dora, Oma, Charlene, and Mona; and at times he has a daughter named Jennie, a son named Jeremy or Lonnie, a job, neighbors, and hobbies. And all of these things evolve or switch. The poet is a shape-shifting trickster with the voice of a schmuck in the cubicle next door. He might be an angle, he could be a villain. He might be both. The point being, is that his incredible use of point-of-view takes the generic nature of contemporary life and makes nothing more or less important than anything else. The monotone voice that can be heard when reading every line presents each idea and poem without judgment, prejudice, or even a sense of difference. Just the facts. Just what the readers wants to hear. Worthy has done this so that each poem becomes a little narrative, a story, something we can relate to which makes for one great