How's Things

The last of a monthlong challenge in January 2023 to publish four books of poetry, How's Things fuses the playfulness of experimental poetry with the quiet observations of imagism. It likewise braids an innovative approach to formalism (see "Last Words" and other anagrammed titles) with a quasi-confessional-romantic mode. These poems are by turns personal and hermetic, suggesting an author who both wants to explore the ways in which language masks, makes and maintains the self, while also deconstructing the implications of such orders. Throughout each poem, regardless of which mode(s) he assumes, Ravnikar brings a philosophical verve that aims to leave the reader stunned.

The poems in this collection at times meditate on the lyric absurd, even as others situate themselves in a fragile realism. By asking the reader to imagine themselves feeling comfortable inhabiting an unpredictable register, Ravnikar seeks to question notions of obscurity and accessibility. The author here allows themselves and trusts the reader to connect the transparent and the opaque in his quest to shrink classist elevations of particular approaches to 'style.'