[Below, Muratori notes that I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head "showcases a talented surrealist."]

Komunyakaa's poems [in I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head] create and populate a world in which the linchpins of common sense and everyday appearances come loose, "where simple / answers fall like ashes / through an iron grate." Photographers airbrush the truth, Cinderella wakes up in a California pleasure dome. Even individual poems take on phantasmagoric dimensions akin to Bosch's busy but fascinating paintings as the poet reels off catalogs of apocalyptic events: "A white goat / is staring into windows again. / Bats clog the chimney like rags. / An angel in the attic / mends a torn wing." The invention is considerable, and though the accretion of wild images and preposterous characters eventually wears thin, this volume showcases a talented surrealist whose future work will warrant close attention.