Poetry Reviews
By Grace Cavalieri
SEPTEMBER 2015 BEST
BOOKS
++++++++++++++
The Hour of the Poem by David Bristol.
New Academia/Scarith. 61 pages.
Bristol uses “the poem” to find “the poem.’ Each of us approaches difficulty and
fidelity in our
own individual way. This is what the book’s about. Each page describes an
emotional “poetry
encyclical” in the making, all the time while conjuring the poem.
“The poem” is the protagonist here operationally managed by its writer. There’s
a vital energy in
each line—success, failure, rejection—the poem becomes lover, arbiter, holder of
fate. Bristol
works with words at the core level and makes a great difference by believing in
himself enough
to show the locking and unlocking of words. The working conditions of a poet are
his narrative
and Bristol puts a shine on how we become who we are as writers. In wrestling
with the angels,
David Bristol does not submit; and he may just convert a few to his stunning
kind of
minimalism.
I am writing this without me.
I do not know what the words are.
The words trip over themselves.
I try to unpile them.
Because I want to.
This is here.
I prefer it not be me.
I would have no hand in this.
It could be free.
I could be free.2
Everything could be free.
Instead there is obligation and gesture.
I think kindly upon this
And open my hands to let the bird fly.
See the white dove.
It is a symbol of.
So what.
Be clearheaded about this.
Because I want to
Make the gesture of offering.
This is about itself.
I am about this.
It is out of control.
The obligation does not cease.
Cool it down.
Calm it down.
It is coming down now.
It looks for a prize.
+++++++++++++++
Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon.
Milkweed Editions.105 pages.
This is poetry alive with exuberance and exciting moments, so the reader enters
the energy that
went into the writing. A young woman moves from New York to Kentucky, Why? The
change
of location is never part of the narrative, but she lets us live the experience.
Limon forges
sensuality into every line—the lawn mower across the way, horses, bluegrass—all
detailing a
story of love’s partnership. In fact the poems are all about relationships—good,
bad, past,
present—and dynamically, it makes for strong momentum. Limon doesn’t let the
organic
become diffuse as she measures her bright coherent imagery. Good spirited and
dynamic, the
book is a look back at past loves, then progresses forward. These are
emotionally based poems
with buoyancy and integrity.
Bellow
Tell the range and all that’s howling,
the flickers of life beyond the weeds,
the vulture’s furrowed brow of flight,
the blasted sticky Canadian lawn thistle;
tell the clowned-out clouds and the rain,
and all that makes you go quiet again,
tell them that you didn’t come here
to make a fuss, or break, or growl, or
scream; tell them—crazy sky and stars
between—tell them you didn’t come
to disturb the night air and throw a fit,
then get down in the dark and do it.
++++++++++
Kingdom of Speculation by
Barbara Goldberg.
Accents Publishing. 24 pages.
Such a slender book to hold in your hand; such a magic pudding of fairy tale,
collective
consciousness, intelligence and inspiration. Here is the seductive power of
Barbara Goldberg:
We have a kingdom, a king, a princess, a quest, and morals to the tale—not so
much written as
imagined into words. Do you remember when fairy tales carried you off to towers
of romance
and poppy seed cakes? I’ve been waiting for someone to dignify folkloric
archetypes, like Italo
Calvino did for grown-ups.
This time our hero is a woman, a royal princess and botanist, who travels the
land to gather seeds
of renewal. “…Her spirit lifts when she spies/ a new species, tubular,
two-lipped. //pale pink, she
names it beard’s tongue. / Giddy with naming, the Princess is likewise/ immersed
in her own
anonymity.” Like all true fairy tales, there are deeper meanings. We meet “The
Master of
Chance,” a memorable bit. Among other “characters” are Grief, Passion,
Compassion, plus more
who excite our attention.
All of this would be without credibility if it didn’t follow some critical
rules. Fantasy, for one
thing, must be tethered in reality to be tolerated. Fairy tales continue where
reality leaves off; but
Goldberg knows that universal themes need a grounding gravity. Another “MUST” is
craft. I
know a poet who wrote a PhD on enjambment. I’d like to introduce her to Barbara
Goldberg
whose lines disrupt in exactly the right place. Phrases link together in form,
without which, there
would be story but no poetry. This small sweet book is an example of technical
mastery—wherein (even in this cruel world) a princess can collect seeds to plant
the flowers of
eternal imagination that will grow for us forever.
THE HEART OF A PRINCESS
The princess has a heart…well,
the heart of a princess. Yet studying
the crone, her snaggletooth, her shifty
expression, she cannot help but feel
a pinch of reservation. If she takes her
on she might never reach her destination—
There is so much work to do, and all
her own subjects. On further reflection
the princess has no wish to forfeit
her dreams, not even the most appalling.
As for the weight, she seriously doubts
the crone’s powers of transformation.
She’d guess the crone weighs in at a full
seven stone, one for each day of the week.
With all the grace she can summon, and not
without sorrow, the Princess refuses.
+++++++++++++
Conflict Resolution for Holy
Beings by Joy Harjo.
W.W. Norton. 137 pages.
In her first poem Harjo exclaims: “ Put down that bag of potato chips, that
white bread, that/
bottle of pop…If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’
ears and back…” She can
mix the flesh and the soul just like that. We know this poet for her spirituals,
hymns,
philosophical elevations; this new book lacks none of those poetic traits yet
there’s more—her
bluesy down home stomping at the bar poems. In “Had-It-Up-to-Here Round Dance”
for two
voices, she and “Charlie Hill” exchange stanzas:
“I don’t like your girlfriend and her high-heeled shoes/ And her skirt up to
here/ And her blonde
hair down to there/ When you dance right past her it gives me the blues/ You
have the sweetest
step in double time it’s just not fair/ How can I tell you that I love you when
you don’t even /
care—
… “ I don’t like your boyfriend and his white man ways./ You hold him in your
shawl it makes
me crazed/ I like the way you step so high beside me/ But how can I tell you
Babe when you don’t
talk to me…”
Harjo is our leading poet on Native American lineage, culture, chants, history,
psychology,
racism, but she can also get down with her no nonsense man/woman poems. There
are so many
sides to this poet and this book captures the spectrum, uplifted by bridges of
interior monologue:
“Whenever a saxophone begins to sing in a story we/ know that for a time, we
will no longer
move about so/ lonely here, far away from the house of sun, moon, and stars.”
And when Harjo confronts tragedy, she becomes our conscience. “Suicide Watch”
has 9 small
sections: 1. “I was on a train stopped sporadically t checkpoints. / What tribe
are you, what
nation, what race, what sex, what unworthy soul?” -- And Section 8: “This is not
mine. It
belongs to the soldiers who raped the/ young women on the Trail of Tears. It
belongs to Andrew/
Jackson. It belongs to the missionaries. It belongs to the/ thieves of our
language. It belongs to
the Bureau of Indian/ Affairs. It no longer belongs to me…”
Here she is in her fullness:
The First Day Without A Mother
In the hour of indigo, between sleeping and wake—
A beloved teacher sits up on the funeral pyre—
He smiles at me through flames that are dancing as they
eat—
I will see you again, is one of the names for blue—
A color beyond the human sky of mind—
One third up the ladder of blue is where we sit for grief—
I was abandoned by lovers, by ideas that leaped ahead of
time, and by a father looking for a vision he would never
find—
Do not leave me again, I want to cry as the blue fire takes my
teacher.
His ashes cool in my hands.
I’m too proud to let go the tears; they are still in me.
I keep looking back.
Maybe I have turned to salt. It burns blue, like spirits
who have already
Started to call me home, up over the last earthy hill broken
through with starts of blue flowers that heal the wounded
heart.
Chickadee sings at dawn.
I sit up in the dark drenched in longing.
I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didn’t
have at dusk.
How will I feed and care for all of them?
++++++++++++++++
Application for Release from the Dream
by Tony Hoagland.
Graywolf. 80 pages.
His birds, he claims are “people watchers.”
Hoagland is one of our best read poets. He has the heart of Aristotle and the
pen of Trollope.
However he is Hoagland and approaches the page as a possible mental disturbance,
stirs it up in
long line lengths, complains about humanity then, with personal ease, wins us
over with humor
and irony. And always surprise—which he claims is his personal salvation.
Hoagland’s way of thinking is what attracts us. It’s sharp and clean and comes
from a definite
mind-set, each poem with a focus; yet as we read, we see that Hoagland is
exploring with us.
He’s not so sure after all; and so it happens that each line broadens his ideas
until we end up far
from where we started, at times, non sequitur. His endings bring the poem home
in a great way.
That’s what makes us want the next poem. “Controlled substance” ends “…Why don’t
they
break down my door right now and arrest me/ and send me to a rehabilitation
program/ for using
sadness as a substitute for understanding?// The sadness that is an eventual
inevitable result/ of
not being able to understand anything.”
‘Wish more were as smart and humorous (comedie noire.) No one escapes his
skewer. In “Fetch”
he says, “…Now I understand those old ladies walking/ their Chihuahuas in the
dusk, plastic bag
wrapped around one hand…in all their apartments on the fourteenth floor/ holding
out a little
hotdog on a toothpick// to bestow luxury on a friend…” or the poem, “But the
Men:” “…Their
love-mobiles are dented and rusty./Their Shaggin’ Wagons are up on
cinderblocks…A pool of
testosterone is spreading from around their feet,/ it’s draining out of them
like radiator fluid…”
and the women are addressed in “A History of High heels” beginning; “ It’s like
God leaned
down long ago and said/ to a woman who was just standing around, / ‘How would
you like a pair
of shoes/ that shoves the backs of your feet up about four inches/ so you
balance always on your
tiptoes…’’’
Every poem wears a big hat of observations. In “Please Don’t” he talks of
flowers which
“…don’t imagine lawn/mowers, the four stomachs/ of the cow, or human beings with
boots/ who
stop to marvel…” and of this hallucination of their happiness, Hoagland ends”…
please don’t
mention it. / Not yet. Tell me/ what would you possibly gain// from being
right?”
Dreamheart
They took the old heart out of your chest,
all blue and spoiled like a sick grapefruit,
the way you removed your first wife from your life,
and put a strong young blonde one in her place.
What happened to the old heart is unrecorded,
but the wife comes back sometimes in your dreams,
vengeful and berating, shrill, with a hairdo orange as flame,
like a mother who has forgotten that she loved you
more than anything. How impossible it is to tell
bravery from selfishness down here,
the leap of faith from a doomed attempt at flight.
What happened to the old heart is the scary part:
thrown into the trash, and never seen again,
but it persists. Now it’s like a ghost,
with its bloated purple face,
moving through a world a ghosts
that’s all of us—
dreaming we’re alive, that we’re in love forever.
+++++++
TrenchArt Monographs: hurry up please its time,
edited by Teresa Carmody and Vanessa Place.
Les Figues Press. 375 pages.
This hefty book is the 9th in a series of TrenchArt titles. These are writers/
graphics artists
(sometimes lines are arranged rather than written,) who are disenchanted with
the present day
command of language so they’re calling the meeting to order with new rules and
new characters.
Some 40 contributors are leaders in the field of the “advanced guard” –critics
and philosophers,
filmmakers, poets musicians, essayists, visual artists— and I like very much
Harold
Abramowitz, Stan Apps, Michael du Plessis, editors Carmody and Place, Ken
Ehrlich, Paul
Hoover, Kim Rosenfield and some others – It’s just that I admire it more than I
love it. These
artists design their work against the bias grain, so it’s not possible to read
much at a time, also
some pages have every other line blacked out (in a good way:) but I do keep it
on the dining
room table and open it at random to enjoy whatever I find, like an occasional 30
second yoga. It
rattles my neurons so I have to go slowly in surrender to this multiplex
wonderland. The young
and the restless are bringing me along on a ride without ballast or reference
points, and I’m
trying. I like a lot of what I read. Here’s a sweet handful inserted within
Abramowitz’s “Selected
Writings.”
But there is a letter waiting by the door.
There are new ways of saying old things.
Final and violating the pin—
The pin, and only the pin.
But it does not ring true.
AND HERE IS ANOTHER SAMPLE FROM TRENCHART
Statement, Manifesto, Poetics by Paul Hoover
I. Statement
Sonnet 56 consists of 56 versions of Shakespeare’s sonnet of that number,
produced from February to May of
2006. Many of the
2007. activities, such as
2008. “Noun Plus Seven”
2009. and “Word Ladder,”
2010. are influenced by
2011. Oulipo; others, such
2012. as “Villanelle,” “Jingle,”
2013. “Ballad,” “Flarf,” and
2014. “Blues,” are traditional
2015. literary or song
2016. forms; and some,
2017. including “Personal Ad,”
2018. “Chat Group,” “Course
2019. Description,” and “Mathematical,”
2020. are my own
2021. invention. The project
2022. began when I
2023. removed all but
2024. the end words
2025. of Shakespeare’s sonnet,
++++++++++++++
Charles Bukowski On Writing,
edited by Abel Debritto.
Harper Collins/Ecco. 214 pages.
He never tracked or copied. Robustly anarchistic, Bukowski got under everyone’s
skin and loved
it there. While undermining the views of other poets and editors he makes some
valid and
intelligent points about American culture and the state of the literary arts.
These letters show B as honest, energetic, and innovative, and they mark a trail
we can follow
through his (iconoclastic) rise to notoriety. America’s bad boy is one of our
most popular poets;
and, even after his death, I have not seen a decline. I like his poetry but was
never comfortable
with the self-loathing that he capitalized into art.
We start the book in 1946 with his excellent drawings and correspondence to
various small
magazine editors. Significant letters went to John Corrington throughout the
1960’s to 1993. His
editor at Black Sparrow, John Martin, also has a lion share. It’s a fast read- a
hilarious spectacle
at times—and I’ve developed a new respect for Bukowski’s critical faculties. The
editor did a
good job for us as he sums up an outrageous writer and finds him a deserved
place in the
academic lexicon. I don’t know of any other letters by a poet that expose the
compulsive joy in
writing as well as this. Also, I went back to his poems after this book and
finally became an
unreluctant fan.
Every new generation likes Bukowski. It was never fame, itself, he wanted, but
fame meant
something to him, alright. He wanted to prove he was worthy of it.
[To William Packard]
December 23, 1990
[. . . ] When everything works best it’s not because you chose
writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with
it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your
fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.
Once in Atlanta, starving in a tar paper shack, freezing. There
were only newspapers for a floor. And I found a pencil stub and I
wrote on the white margins of the edges of those newspapers with
the pencil stub, knowing that nobody would ever see it.
++++++++++++++++++++
Then & Now by Eva Brann.
Paul Dry Books. 138 pages.
The book is divided into two parts: (Then) “Comprehended by Herodotus;” the
second (Now)
“The Imaginative Conservative. This was my 15-minute-a-day reading, because it
is the slow
read that makes it a good one.
Herodotus (writing from 450-429) is presented as an historian who reports
stories as “being
believed” rather than “having happened.” His History of the Persian Wars is the
inspiration for
Brann’s “showing-forth” of ideas using as example Herodotus’ approach to
history. i.e.: Works
have to show-up before they can show-forth so Herodotus is primarily recounting
rather than
originating, even though he traveled and observed widely.
We may know names such as Spartans, Egyptians, Barbarians, Hellenes, Pausanians,
Greeks,
Persians, Athenians, etc. but now, we generally know who did what to whom and
how it was
seen— or told— to Herodotus. I imagine he braided gods and goddesses throughout
history for
that was his belief system. The most interesting information for me is about
Themistocles (of
whom I knew nothing) and his crafty statesmanship and ingenuity in winning
victory for Athens
in war. (Rather than ask why this is important, Brann would have us reflect on
why this is
important.)
Herodotus’ Themistocles appears to me, then, as a
first and a fixating incarnation of a man of democratic
freedom. Here is some evidential data: He isn’t particularly
low-born but appears as a newcomer. He is shrewdly
provident, persuading the Greeks to appropriate the income
from their silver-mines to building a navy by cannily
interpreting an oracle one way which he will later
interpret another way. Apparently, he is the inventor of
political propaganda, scratching messages on rocks to
persuade the Medizers to defect (VIII 23). He accepts
and dispenses bribes in pursuit of his political purposes
(VIII 4-5). And he has no scruples about appropriating
good advice as his own (VIII 57). This litany sounds
unsavory, but in fact it’s the first instance of real
democratic politics—practical intelligence (glossed as
prudence in the high, craftiness in the low view) applied
patriotically in the cause of a city that is the freest of the
inhabited world, and yet also nationally, in behalf of the
Hellenic nation with which Athens feels herself, beyond
all the differences, at one in essentials: consanguinity,
common language, common sacred rituals, common
customs.
Brann knows that we can make words do anything and as a trained archeologist,
and world class
philosopher, she’s devoted to “setting things right” and cleaning up messy
thinking. So she
chooses words very carefully. The 89 pages devoted to Herodotus is really an
explanation of
how one perceives the world, how concepts are closed circles of thought, and
what it means to
look at The Classics without fixed notions—all the while discussing (and
demonstrating) what
expanded thought can be. By showing Herodotus in the world, (and how he
proceeded) Brann
shows her own process of exploration.
In the Book’s Section ll “The Soul’s Demesne” (we could say the soul’s estate)
Brann talks
about the past as she looks at memory and imagination, using historical episodes
to source the
qualities of “the soul.” For example, as we read the first of the twelve essays,
“The World’s
Center,” we enter the memory of ancient Persia and Greece, etc. All the time,
Brann is
illustrating that the moment we’re reading is the moment where memory and matter
come
together, the “NOW.” (Buddhists will love her.) Brann’s not a big believer in
predicting the
future based on the past, certainly does not believe in inevitability, and is
faithful to events as the
result of men’s actions. I guess then the future is up to us.
Beautiful traditions, stories and actions are what Eva Brann treasures as the
foundation for
education, of course mathematics being a beautiful language among them. The
unimaginative
political conservative is not the Imaginative Conservative and Brann takes
extremist scoundrels
to task. The Imaginative Conservative is defined: “A disposition to delight in
repetition,
reference, resonance, recollection…Reflective thinking… Digging deeper to
understand the roots
of the world…Imagination that can stand in for faith…Populism as a political
friendship (not the
populism of the far Right that is hate mongering or the far left ”crowd-sourced
revolutions”)
…She does not trust the future much beyond the laws of nature.
I think we all agree with her warring against the “outsourcing of imagination…to
be replaced by
the inundating hyper productivity of an industrial image-source.” Poets who work
to rinse off
language and imagery would win Brann’s favor.
I know I can get in trouble consolidating Brann’s words but, if this is as
fascinating to you as it is
to me, you will read Then & Now with deep abiding pleasure, slowly savoring the
use of
language in its highest locution.
+++++++++
Running Down Broken Cement by
Nancy Scott.
Main Street Rag. 63 pages.
Nancy Scott tells us in her preface “These poems are inspired by two decades as
a
caseworker…first in a child abuse and neglect response unit, later in a rental
subsidy program…”
The poems tackle racism, homelessness, drugs, child abuse, mental illness,
AIDS—all the
nightmares and horrors of humankind. She was there and she writes about it.
First: We need
warriors like Scott and two decades is a lot to give to those who have nothing
else. These poems
are hard to read but turning away doesn’t change reality. Scott adds a needed
dimension to
anecdote and reportage. She shines a light for everyone to see what she sees.
She chooses the
most powerful form of the written word because only compression and finite lines
can contain
the anguish and despair we’re called to witness. I believe an Op Ed piece or
letter to the editor or
blog could not /would not deliver the necessary emphasis, cadence by cadence.
I don’t know how we measure what a social worker accomplishes; but I do know
that to turn the
experience to art is a collaboration with God. I believe these poems will reach
a wide audience
and someone will be touched –this is not rhetoric or rant, it’s poetry—Scott
tells stories, the
powerful and tragic part is that these are true stories. The impressive part is
that Scott goes the
distance in life and on the page. She’s a singular voice and adds to the idea of
poetry ethics, a
kind of morality where observations about social needs are presented in a form
that will
hopefully attract notice.
In Absecon
A blond man gaunt with AIDS
teaches his dark infected foster child
a nursery rhyme.
Word by spout he becomes a teapot,
spout by arm she mimics him.
Dying man, dying child.
Tulips whirl on her pinafore,
as he lifts her to his bone-thin hip.
More, she cries.
He shakes his head.
Tomorrow. No more today.
+++++++++++++++++
Lest We Forget
The above phrase is a frayed cliché but its meaning is not. Let Us Never Forget
the literature
and art that comes from true life/death experiences.
Saying Goodbye to Viet Nam by Ken Williamson. Photo Gallery on the Net. (Hard
Cover) 371
pages.
Ken Williamson was a U.S. Army photographer in 1969; and now 46 years later the
world can
share his photography, portraitures, letters, essays, poetry and journalism. In
the foreword Curtis
Nelson (fellow photographer and V.N. vet) writes “…This historical memoir will
carry the
Vietnam veteran and his readers back to the “Republic of South Vietnam” as it
was in the time of
“The Domino Theory…” Nelson points to “...the remarkable images illuminating the
history.”
With a heavy heart I opened this book, myself a career military wife, for fear
of what I’d see.
And maybe of what I would not. Instead I immediately recognized this collection
as a powerful
history—breathtakingly beautiful, visually— with profound insight I could never
have found-
and have not seen- elsewhere.
The range of thought is important to stress for the photographer is a watcher of
human souls in
action. Each sequence is sobering and enlightening, as art transforms the
intolerable to what can
be redeemed and made memorable. There are 43 chapters, each self–contained in
photo and
language—eloquent and honest, for photos as we know do not lie. From the book:
“It has been said that there are several types of Veterans of the Vietnam War,
the
ones who served elsewhere in other countries; the ones who served in combat,
face
to face with the enemy; and the veterans who served as support to the combat
units.
Each has their own level of anger and guilt about their experience that they
carry
with them daily. Each has their story. Those who served in another country and
had
friends who died in Vietnam ask, “why not me?” Those who fought face to face
with
the enemy ask why their buddies died and they didn’t. Those who served in
support
roles, ask if they could have done more. One thing is true for all of us who
served.
We never say “goodbye to Vietnam.” It is impossible to say goodbye to the
sights,
sounds, and smells of a combat zone. Those experiences stay with us forever.
Tam Tien was right when he said young men learn to kill each other and old men
learn
to love.
Farewell Vietnam! “
++++
The Soul Of My Soldier; Reflections of a
Military Wife by Abigail B. Calkin.
Familius Press. 209 pages.
The chapters: Early Years; Collateral Damage; Robert and Abigail; Deployment;
Listen,
America; Recover; Resolution, Always Partial; and Welcome Home.
Wives get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder during their husbands’ deployments. Or,
in this case,
they turn to make art as a saving grace. This book holds wonderful combinations
of essays and
poetry with the assurance of a strong writer with subject matter no one would
wish for. The prose
is excellent – fast clear reading— and the poetry is the tie that binds. Most of
all, it’s an example
of an unimpeded mind that can emphasize, and even flourish , interesting words
that warrant
deep consideration.
Shock and Awe
No, Mr. President. It’s called
Damage and Destruction.
We families get
to live with it for the rest of our lives.
+++++++++++++
______________
Grace Cavalieri’s new book is a Memoir: “Life Upon The Wicked Stage.” She
founded and still produces
“The Poet and the Poem” on public radio, now from the Library of Congress.
All reprinted from the Washington Independent Review of Books.