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There Are No Solid Gold Dancers Anymore

by Adrienne Weiss

As our ever-growing digital presence continues to erode the boundaries between private and public life, the distinction between recognizable public figures and those who enjoy a more anonymous existence also becomes thinner and increasingly complicated. With the rise of Internet celebrity as a viable option for people of all stripes, Adrienne Weiss’s new collection feels both oddly archaic and extremely appropriate.

The poems explore the lives, careers, and vulnerabilities of early film stars, vaudeville performers, and more contemporary famous personalities. They also examine the relationship between fans and the objects of their admiration, and the ways ordinary people build their own “glamorous” internal narratives. The dark side of fame is examined ruthlessly; seldom is the attention of the audience strictly benevolent. About Princess Diana, Weiss writes, “The gaze of the world has yet to preserve you like a bust.” Elsewhere, the Scarecrow turns his resentment toward Dorothy, who knows he and his companions are nothing more than  “a small, quotidian / part of her legend, like scrap parts.”

The stories Weiss presents – of lives set apart, lifted onto pedestals, or constantly assaulted by scrutiny – don’t appear as alien or other; rather, the weight of collective observation and the often brutal experience of living in the public eye comes across as a closely relatable experience. The reader identifies with Oprah or the Cowardly Lion, and is intimately aware of the potential to become “a name on future’s lip.” Perhaps it’s not that there are no Solid Gold dancers anymore; perhaps when each of us is gilded, precious metal becomes devalued.

If, however, the text is read not as a tribute to the glamour of the past, but an attempt to seek out a new definition of fame in a world where each of us has a massive potential audience, There Are No Solid Gold Dancers Anymore becomes more resonant. This reading is hinted at rather than openly invited, a whisper suggested by the sometimes indefinite, always intimate voice of the speaker in these poems, but that breath of suggestion is often enough.

 

Reviewer: Natalie Zina Walschots

Publisher: Nightwood Editions

DETAILS

Price: $18.95

Page Count: 80 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 978-0-88971-294-2

Released: March

Issue Date: 2014-4

Categories: Poetry

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