Something I Expected to Be Different

Poetry. Tomaz Salamun wrote about Joshua Beckman's first book, THINGS ARE HAPPENING (winner of the APR Honickman First Book Prize in 1998), This book seduced me on the spot. I instantly started longing to become friends with the world in it. It's fresh, it's new, its fairness makes me grateful for reading it. Beckman's new book, SOMETHING I EXPECTED TO BE DIFFERENT, traverses a space of meditative consciousness and day to day life with an elated and disjointed lyricism. The speakers in these long poems move through a world awash with inconsistency and confusion, trying to make sense of their surroundings and their desires. Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He lives in Staten Island, New York.