Brett Fletcher Lauer

Lynn Melnick. Univ. of Texas, $26.95 (264p) ISBN 978-1-4773-2267-3 Poet Melnick (Refusenik) delivers a riveting blend of cultural criticism and memoir in this paean to Dolly Parton, “an icon of feminine strength.” Melnick first heard Parton at age 14 in 1988 while she was checking into a drug rehabilitation program.

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split and I with no way to make her come back and everywhere the world is bare bright bone white crystal sand glistens dope death dead dying and jiving drove her away made her take her laughter and her smiles and her softness and her midnight sighs— Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah...

Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.