American Odyssey

American Odyssey is a poetic journey that began when Alan Catlin saw Mary Ellen Mark’s life study of three young girls standing by a Coney Island boardwalk. He was struck by how, through this powerful photo, we immediately know where these girls have been, where they are going, and where they will end up. Marks’ work focuses on the human element—the dispossessed, the children of the streets, the prostitutes here and aboard—with complete honesty and compassion. After first exploring Mark’s work, Catlin then travels across a series of canvasses—satiric, imaginary, exaggerated—that all focus on humans experiencing some sort of physical or psychic pain. By the end of the book, with the REQUIEM exhibit of photographs by photographers killed in Vietnam, humans are still present but dwarfed by the war that engulfs them. These poems address silence and pain, and they offer redemption. Maybe.