Momentary Songs

Poetry. Gay & Lesbian Studies. A moment is an inside flutter, a reflection, a civil relapse. George Albon’s MOMENTARY SONGS sound the possibilities of forwardness and hope in a surrounding twilight of unprecedented venality. Using a variety of registers–lyrical inquiry, Blakean exhortation, the satirical spiel of Morgenstern’s Gallows Songs–they search for alternative states (public ones, affective ones) as well as offer a probe on what has come to pass: In this eclipse are we the inclement for placing it? ‘Avuncular spotted drones, ‘ be warned. Not since Guston did Nixon has the resource of art been turned on the throne with such hopeful scurrility. Albon’s MOMENTARY SONGS are hymns for the unchurched ‘pioneers/of the bottom edge, ‘ who know ‘all midnights are false’ and want back their stars. I’m taking my news from the other George–resistance isn’t futile, it’s the ‘sunlight is information’ age and Minerva’s owl sings ‘coup due.’–Rodney Koenek