By coincidence, this is the second poetry collection I've read that published in the 90s, and my, how trends change in a few decades. Both the David BBy coincidence, this is the second poetry collection I've read that published in the 90s, and my, how trends change in a few decades. Both the David Bottoms title (Armored Hearts) and this book are heavily invested in nature. Today's poetry? Not so much.
Also, Chase Twichell devotes more than a few poems to Buddhist themes, to the point where some half dozen poem titles start as "Imaginary Dokusan" followed by a colon and the poem's topic. In the Notes we learn that a dokusan is "a private interview with the teacher, in which the student demonstrates his changing consciousness and receives guidance."
Here are three samplings from the book:
Road Tar
A kid said you could chew road tar if you got it before it cooled, black globule with a just-forming skin. He said it was better than cigarettes. He said he had a taste for it.
On the same road, a squirrel was doing the Watusi to free itself from its crushed hindquarters. A man on a bicycle stomped on its head, then wiped his shoe on the grass.
It was autumn, the adult word for fall. In school we saw a film called Reproduction. The little snake-father poked his head into the slippery future, and a girl with a burned tongue was conceived.
Paint
Lotions and scents, ripe figs, raw silk, the cat's striped pelt... Fat marbles the universe.
I want to be a faint pencil line under the important words, the ones that tell the truth.
Delicious, the animal trace of the brush in the paint, crushed caviar of molecules.
A shadow comes to me and says, When you go, please leave the leafless branch unlocked.
I paint the goat's yellow eye, and the latch on truth's door. Open, eye and door.
The Verge
Inside language there was always an inkling, a dark vein branching,
bird-tracks in river sand spelling out the fact of themselves,
asking me to come toward them and scratch among them with a stick all the secrets I could no longer keep,
until my words were nothing but lovely anarchic bird-prints themselves.
I think that's the verge right there, where the two languages intertwine, twigs and thorns,
words telling secrets to no one but river and rain....more
Though I've never read a whit of "Elena Ferrante," I do know that she's obsessive about hiding her identity. These essays were apparently delivered asThough I've never read a whit of "Elena Ferrante," I do know that she's obsessive about hiding her identity. These essays were apparently delivered as lectures by an actress. Guest speaker. Spokesperson.
I was attracted to the book because I like to hear writers go on and on about their writing. There's some of that here, though not a lot of it. Often you get a bonus, too, wherein influences are mentioned. Thus "Ferrante" discusses books and writers she's taken in -- some names I've never seen before (mostly Italian -- surprise!), and others well-known like Gertrude Stein and Emily Dickinson and Dante (a man so famous, he's known by one name vs. two).
In order of preference, I enjoyed Essay #3, #2, and a tie between #1 and #4. The first ("Pain and Pen") was mostly focused on her very early days when she knew she wanted to write -- I mean, right down to descriptions of the writing tablet and the red line on the right side (don't run through it! oh, OK, run through it then). "Aquamarine" and especially "Histories, I" get more into the good stuff about writers and writing, though they're still not the best of their kind.
Finally, the "Dante's Rib" is a bit of a love song to The Divine Comedy -- a work I've dabbled in more than conquered. I truly believe you cannot fully enjoy that lovely beast unless you read it in its original Italian, so you can see why "Ferrante" waxes eloquent.
This volume selects best poems from three previous Bottoms collection and then adds new ones under the book's title "Armored Hearts." By new, we mean This volume selects best poems from three previous Bottoms collection and then adds new ones under the book's title "Armored Hearts." By new, we mean 1995, as this has been out for a long while and David Bottoms is sadly no more.
Anyway, you can see him evolve over time. The first collection selected from is called Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump and typifies the rather punk gloom you see in the title poem below:
Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump
Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride to the dump in carloads to turn our headlights across the wasted field, freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.
Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still like dead beer cans. Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow into garbage, hide in old truck tires, rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds, or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.
It's the light they believe kills. We drink and load again, let them crawl for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.
Violent as hell, but as a poem rather amazing the way it jumps into compelling action so seamlessly. And the last stanza, especially it's first and last line. Poets would kill to think up lines like that. Well,, writhe, maybe, or make a deal with the devil before recalling the darkness they're headed for.
Here's another I admired from the same debut collection of Bottoms':
The Christmas Rifle
Over the spine of the ridge orange light scatters through pine and briar, sifts into the gorge. With the red glove of his right hand my father points toward a branch near the top of a pine, raises the sawed-off stock to my shoulder, lifts the barrel and backs away.
The gray squirrel moves in front of the sun, and light shoots down the barrel like a ricochet, turns blued steel silver from bead to sight. He points again and I follow the dark green sleeve of his jacket to his red outstretched finger to the squirrel crouched in the fork where the branch joins the trunk.
Don't jerk. Don't pull. And I watch that spot of air where the gray squirrel jumps, then drops from limb to limb in stiff gymnastics until it strikes the ground at the foot of the pine. I cradle the rifle and walk to the squirrel, prod the soft belly with the barrel, study the hole over the left shoulder, the fine gray hair, white near the roots, puffed out around a circle of blood. Just behind me, my father is walking on needles, the weight of his hand comes down on my shoulder.
The unexpected details about the squirrel on the ground spell r-e-g-r-e-t in so many ways. And the weight of his father's hand... the burden of "becoming a man" the way the father did.
It's one of those poems where the title speaks louder after the reading, too.
The other collections showed Bottoms' precision with language, too, and were certainly worth the reading, but these early ones, though tough subjects, really hit home in ways "Roses are red, violets are blue" poems don't.
I struggled with this book, but admit a lot had to do with my own life circumstances in the time I was reading it. Meaning: It wasn't the best of timeI struggled with this book, but admit a lot had to do with my own life circumstances in the time I was reading it. Meaning: It wasn't the best of times to be embroiled in a big book.
Speaking of, some "big books" are deceptively small because they beguile you and you forget you're lost in a Fun House of hundreds and hundreds of pages. I think of Tolstoy, mostly. In other cases, you're aware of your surroundings, kind of like the movie theater when people coughing or talking or eating popcorn with their mouths open (!) yank you out of the "dream" the screen is trying to weave.
As for Solenoid, I'll admit to liking the first half better than the second. As it put on more pages, the "sur" became more "real" and the repetitiveness worked against it. At first, then, all these human appearances at the end of the protagonist's bed when he woke up were intriguingly creepy, especially the ones that seized him, poltergeist-like, by the ankles and tossed him against the wall (that is, if it actually happened), but he went to that well so often that it began to pale, failing to slake the reader's thirst.
In the final stretch, he even got inside the head of a mite. I admit, mighty creative, and further evidence that this writer had little use for plots or chronological narrative, but still, a MITE? Mighty, mighty taxing.
For all that, though, there were moments of great writing. Poetic writing! Hidden in a beast this size. At times the pages were a pleasure to read, as were the asides. Getting off topic is an art form. Sometimes readers are happy to join you on the road less traveled, other times they're going to say, "Where the hell are we going?"
Which means I certainly do not regret reading this book and my hat is off to its author. Immense talent and range. In true spaghetti western style, a lot of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but hey, I watched that movie more than once as a kid despite long sections of no one talking and everyone staring at each other with their hands over their gun holsters.
Not the kind of book you recommend, but I can say big book fans and lovers of Sir Real should give it a go. It will take you out of your comfort zone (a place I'm trying to go to more often) and impress you in multiple stretches....more
Another book with bookends. What goes around, comes around. Communism -- great in theory, but theories and reality make strange bedfellows. There's a Another book with bookends. What goes around, comes around. Communism -- great in theory, but theories and reality make strange bedfellows. There's a line in here I have to find. Something about revolution eating its children. Think of the French, then the Russian, then the Seven Seas.
Now back to Susan Sontag's Introduction, which should have been an afterword, given that it gives things away....more
As this book was written in 2020 and I was written many, many decades earlier, I'm surprised about how much I already knew slash did when it came to wAs this book was written in 2020 and I was written many, many decades earlier, I'm surprised about how much I already knew slash did when it came to work in the Attention Trenches.
Most valuable was the chapter about devices, yes or no, good and bad, policy or non-policy. Your school (or your class) can say yes to everything -- laptops, cellphones, etc. -- or no to everything. Lang thinks there's a happy medium, though. During certain times of class with the teacher's blessing, it's cool. But not during group activities which do not involve a research component. Even kids who are NOT on devices can get distracted by neighbors who ARE on devices, hurting the learning of each. Common sense, I guess. Ever watch someone else's movie on a plane or train? Surely not. Unheard of.
Also Lang shares his sylla-get-on-the-bus and says you can use some of its ideas. That said, don't spend your first class going over the syllabus you spent so much time making because, well, that's what all the other teachers are doing and consider the poor students! (I mean, if they have more than one class, an Opening Day, etc.). Better to cut to the ice breaker and hold off on key points of the syllabus and/or assign it as HW. Better to think of the BIG QUESTIONS your course covers, the almost unanswerable questions, the open-ended questions, the curiosity-hiding-in-cats questions. Get their attention before you bore them. No, wait. Kidding.
As for the obvious, breaking up the time allotted with different activities seems obvious. Making student questions easy (even for shy types) to ask (in any form, spoken, written, etc.? Obvious, too. Avoiding the constant Broadway run of Sage on the Stage? But of course. And so forth.
Well, I have another Lang title on hold so maybe there will be something epic there. I think it's called Small Teaching so it has to be epic (like people from Lilliput)....more
I like to read. I read literary fiction, poetry, essays, history, philosophy, spiritual books, translations. I might have read autofiction without reaI like to read. I read literary fiction, poetry, essays, history, philosophy, spiritual books, translations. I might have read autofiction without realizing. I enjoy sentences. I am tolerant of books that break accepted rules like organizing writing with paragraphs. I just read Autoportrait, a 117-page paragraph of autofiction (I auto-guess) that simply strings together declarative sentences. The author, Edouard Levé, writes sentences that often appear to be random non sequiturs, but what is life if not random non sequiturs? I thought the book, in its way, the height of vanity. I thought of counting the number of sentences that started with "I" but am weak at math so could never keep track. I chuckled at some of Levé's frank admissions, as if nothing were sacred, right down to the parts of his body he likes and the parts of his body he dislikes. Safe to say, I will never emulate Levé on this count. At times Levé's Autoportrait is sad, too. On the one hand, he describes himself as a terrific hypochondriac. On the other, he admits to attempting suicide many times (and succeeded in 2007 at the age of 42). I find it ironic that a man who fretted about his health wanted to kill himself and ultimately did so. Ironic and very sad. I feet bad for him because I came to identify with him the more he wrote "I.., I..., I..." (in the plaintive tone of "Aye...aye...aye!"). At least I have gained from his example. I now know I can string sentences, too, and while some might tag them #whocares!, others might follow along and nod sympathetically. I like kombucha and once tried to make my own but the mother in the bottle looked like a jar from a mad scientist's lab. I prefer ginger kombucha. I like many sour tastes, including buttermilk straight up and certain crabapples that make your eyes squint. I do not like liver and onions or lobster or black licorice. I do not drink alcoholic beverages but have no problem with those who do. I'm not very good at swearing in general and have never sworn in front of my parents. I go to bed at 9 o'clock. My kids call it "Dad O'Clock." I wake up at "bird o'clock," which is to say when the first birds sing, typically between 4 and 4:30 in the morning. I much prefer the countryside to cities, but enjoyed Levé's descriptions of his travels and the cities he has visited. He was better traveled than I am, despite being much younger. Perhaps he had more time because he did not marry, though he gave the number of women he slept with, which I forget, but think to be somewhere in the 40s. He wondered if that was a lot of women or not so many women. Given the chance, I would have been frank and said, "That's a lot of women," but then again, he was French and in no way infected with the Puritanism I grew up around in New England. In any event, you might try this book so you can say, "I read outside of the box" as if we live in a box. Is a house a box? Certainly a coffin is, but we won't get much reading done once we're not thinking inside that box. I don't like to think about death. I know it's easy for humans to do, though. Dying may be hard, but being dead has proven a cinch for everyone, by my estimation. OK, I don't have 117 more pages for my autopilot pen to continue, so I'll stop here. This, then, ends my Autoreview....more
I filed this under "teaching," though I suppose it works as well for "learning," that is, for someone who wants to hear advice about how to write.
ForI filed this under "teaching," though I suppose it works as well for "learning," that is, for someone who wants to hear advice about how to write.
For me, a lot of stuff I've heard before, and somewhat repetitive, too, but I will give Klinkenborg credit for complaining about some of the standard fare we're served up in school: Introductory sentences, transition words left and right, conclusions that restate the already well-said.
V.K. thinks a lot of this disrespects the reader, who can be expected to get from sentence to sentence without so much hand-holding. In fact, the author's all about sentences. To make his point, this whole book forgoes paragraphs and is written as sentences stacked atop each other like Sunday morning flapjacks.
At the end, some representative excerpts from great writers of sentences with author's commentary, followed by troublesome sentences you might offer to students to see if they can diagnose a problem (if not, Verlyn Klinkenborg is there to provide an answer)....more
A new Irish writer for me. Took about halfway to get wheels, but characters interesting enough to hang in there through the first half.
Plot seems a sA new Irish writer for me. Took about halfway to get wheels, but characters interesting enough to hang in there through the first half.
Plot seems a stretch, but I'm no judge. I complain about coincidences and improbabilities way too much. Seems many fiction readers are more forgiving, so I'm working on getting with the program.
Without spoiling much, I'll say it's a bit of a kidnapping caper with Stockholm moving its Syndrome from Sweden to the Emerald Isle. Ah, those lads. Rough sorts with vile mouths (though not enough f-bombs for Ireland, which flat-out owns the word -- at least in past Irish novels I've read).
But wait. In the middle of action with otherwise on-point swearing, etc., we get bad lads saying these words: modicum and temerity.
Man, did those jump off of the page like a fish for a fly. Really? Clunk goes the brick. I lost sight of the characters and caught sight of the author's education slipping behind the arras without so much as an "excuse me."
But some nice turns of phrases, too, and woven together deftly enough. And slightly unpredictable before it relented and played predictable. Enjoyed, caveats notwithstanding....more
This won a National Book Award back in the day (a.k.a. 2012) but really, anyone who reads realizes book awards are not a great indicator. Sometimes yoThis won a National Book Award back in the day (a.k.a. 2012) but really, anyone who reads realizes book awards are not a great indicator. Sometimes you concur, sometimes scratch your head.
In this case, somewhere in between. I couldn't tell you if it's the BEST poetry collection of '12, but it's pretty good, esp. if you like villanelles and odes (four of the former, three of the latter). Personally I prefer the ode, but then rhyming is still guilty until proven innocent (when I don't much notice it, which is always a good sign).
If you're one of those readers who holds poetry itself guilty until proven innocent, you'll be happy to hear that Seibles lands squarely in Camp Approachable (where applications from any poetry that doesn't require explanation or learn'd astronomers is accepted).
Sample poem:
Ode to My Hands
Five-legged pocket spiders, knuckled starfish, grabbers of forks, why do I forget that you love me: your willingness to button my shirts, tie my shoes—even scratch my head! which throbs like a traffic jam, each thought leaning on its horn. I see you
waiting anyplace always at the ends of my arms—for the doctor, for the movie to begin, for freedom—so silent, such patience! testing the world with your bold myopia: faithful, ready to reach out at my softest suggestion, to fly up like two birds when I speak, two brown thrashers brandishing verbs like twigs in your beaks, lifting my speech the way pepper springs the tongue from slumber. O!
If only they knew the unrestrained innocence of your intentions, each finger a cappella, singing a song that rings like rain before it falls—that never falls! Such harmony: the bass thumb, the pinkie's soprano, the three tenors in between: kind quintet x 2 rowing my heart like a little boat upon whose wooden seat I sit strummed by Sorrow. Or maybe
I misread you completely and you are dreaming a tangerine, one particular hot tamale, a fabulous banana! to peel suggestively, like thigh-high stockings: grinning as only hands can grin down the legs—caramel, cocoa, black-bean black, vanilla—such lubricious dimensions, such public secrets! Women sailing the streets
with God's breath at their backs. Think of it! No! Yes: let my brain sweat, make my veins whimper: without you, my five-hearted fiends, my five-headed hydras, what of my mischievous history? The possibilities suddenly impossible—feelings not felt, rememberings un- remembered—all the touches untouched: the gallant strain
of a pilfered ant, tiny muscles flexed with fight, the gritty sidewalk slapped after a slip, the pulled weed, the plucked flower—a buttercup! held beneath Dawn's chin—the purest kiss, the caught grasshopper's kick, honey, chalk, charcoal, the solos teased from guitar. Once, I played viola for a year and never stopped
to thank you—my two angry sisters, my two hungry men—but you knew I just wanted to know what the strings would say concerning my soul, my whelming solipsism: this perpetual solstice where one + one = everything and two hands teach a dawdler the palpable alchemy of an unreasonable world.
Readers like to read about reading and pick up reading recommendations. Writers, too, with the added pleasure of reading about writing to pick up writReaders like to read about reading and pick up reading recommendations. Writers, too, with the added pleasure of reading about writing to pick up writing tips. The advantage to a well-curated anthology like this is multiple voices with multiple topics on multiple genres, in this case fiction, essays, and poetry.
The three major sections in this book are "The Courage To Sound Like Ourselves" Reflections on the Writing Life, "The Geography of the Page" Reflections on the Writing Process, and "Specificity? Yes. But Only If It's Relevant" Reflections on the Nuts and Bolts of Writing.
Most of the authors are either accomplished writers in their strawberry fields or MFA professors who have experience with students of the craft. For poetry, we have talks on the power of simple lines, especially when juxtaposed with a single complicated one. Also on how to capture the essence of moment (kind of like catching fireflies or a living sand dollar, which you can value all the more by chucking into deep waters).
There are also thoughtful debates on POV in fiction writing, especially novice writers' addiction to the 1st-person POV, which everyone thinks is easiest and most attractive when, in fact, it is fraught with traps we don't even know about (spelled out here). Thus, the advantages of 3rd-person limited (also spelled out here).
One piece tackles beginning writers' love of specificity, showing they've learned something ("Look, Ma! No hands!") without regard to whether it's superfluous (and it often is). Another takes a similar tack on setting. Beginners give fresh details in specific language ("Now watch THIS trick, Ma!"), but if it's of little use to characterization or mood, why is the extraneous stuff there? Um. Beats me.
Laurie Hendrie has a nice piece on what she calls the "Jaws of Life" character -- e.g. the one bigger than life. All the characterization rules are different for this type of character, and the jaws-of-life character has things to offer your narrative, too, as long as you follow a few simple rules (like only one per story or novel, thank you).
Anyway, lots of food for thought here, no matter what your writing goals. For those who can't afford MFA's, I mean. And I suspect there are a few out there, given the price tags colleges are putting on these things. Laughable, and without any guarantees, but that's collegiate life, no?...more
Fanboy poetics from the Poetry World as Graywolf Press gives us 50 Graywolf poets choosing their favorite poems from other Graywolf poets then tellingFanboy poetics from the Poetry World as Graywolf Press gives us 50 Graywolf poets choosing their favorite poems from other Graywolf poets then telling us why. Is this a commercial for Graywolf, then? A design to help us seek out Graywolf titles from the past and purchase them for some likely poesie?
Cynically-speaking, maybe, though you cannot deny there's talent in the room when you visit a salon featuring the likes of Nick Flynn, Natalie Diaz, Elizabeth Alexander, Tracy K. Smith, Claudia Rankine, Tess Gallagher, Ilya Kaminsky, Diane Seuss, Monica Youn, and even a few classical gases like Rainer Maria Rilke, Tomas Tranströmer, and Jane Kenyon.
In addition to some cool poems (among some lukewarm ones), you get some pretty cool analyses (among some more mundane ones). In many cases, the poetic comments pointed out techniques and tricks of the writing trade I completely missed (as is my wont).
Worth a walkthrough? If you like poetry as I do, I'd say yes. And don't worry about any wolves. Just channel Romulus and Remus and you'll be OK....more
One of those "didn't move me one way or another" poetry collections. Or "liked some poems, disliked others" collections. Or "impossible to review so wOne of those "didn't move me one way or another" poetry collections. Or "liked some poems, disliked others" collections. Or "impossible to review so why not just offer a representative poem" collections.
I do know this. The poet has an awesome name. I mean: Mary Jo Bang? Super memorable, which is nice when people wander into a bookstore. That is, if her book is on the shelf in the first place. That is, if your bookstore even HAS a poetry section.
HERE WE ALL ARE WITH DAPHNE
Here we all are at the waterfall, aligned and fixed like the stars overhead: that limited canopy under which the laughter of a cosmic joke
echoes out into space. I'm one of the many waiting for the billow to be like it is on the sea -- full-bodied, beautiful,
a more than adequate distraction from the war that gets fought inside. We are all dying but some more than most,
so says my interiority. It talks to me as green fills the screen. It takes my arm and walks alongside me. I never ask
where I'm going. I know I'm not meant to arrive. Me in my nice clothes -- cutwork dress, blindfold of bark from the moment
a man turned me into a tree. "See," he said, "isn't this all for the better? You with no mouth to speak of?" By you he meant me.
I liked this allusion to mythical Daphne, its playfulness, the way it ties into the book's title (which is taken from a David Bowie quote, thank you). Nice use of rhyme and other sound devices. Finishes with a Bang, too.
(Sorry, but the name I so like inspires in sometimes regrettable ways.)...more
I'm sliding this on the "essays" shelf, though it's actually a collection of magazine columns. Jim Harrison, who loved writing poetry best but wrote nI'm sliding this on the "essays" shelf, though it's actually a collection of magazine columns. Jim Harrison, who loved writing poetry best but wrote novels (and obviously columns) for the money, delivers most in the category of voice. What a character. Bigger than life, both literally and figuratively.
As you might expect in a columns collection, some repetition must be tolerated. Jim's favorite foods (weird stuff like animal tongues, brains, cheeks). Jim's favorite targets (rich people, Republican presidents and Congressmen, critics). Jim's favorite drinks (red wine, red wine, and more red wine). It's a wonder JH lasted into his late 70s, given the food and drink he subjected his body to in the name of living the good life (all this topped off with the post-meal cigarettes).
Oddly, I liked least all the descriptions of meals, cooking, and drinking. To him, I would have made a horrible dinner guest, I'm sure. Instead, I found myself panning for gold -- his descriptions of favorite poets (Antonio de Machado and Lorca high among them), his humor (the guy is undeniably funny), his poetry (he drops a few poems along the way).
The kind of guy he is? He actually devoted time and effort -- on repeated trips -- searching for Machado's lost valise of poems somewhere between France and Spain. He so loved Machado's verse, he wanted more -- something one typically doesn't get from dead poets, who are notoriously unproductive when it comes to more verse. This search was noble to the point of naiveté, which I respect. He also thanked France repeatedly because his books sold way more there than in his native homeland, the US of A. Shades of Jerry Lewis, in that respect.
Now if I could find the equivalent of A Really Big Lunch in the form of food for thought, literary servings, poetic desserts along with magnums of the usual red humor. I'm there for that, baby. Feeding my own brain instead of feasting on some poor calf's....more
In the last two lines of this book, Solnit writes, "Constellations are not natural phenomena but cultural impositions, the lines drawn between stars aIn the last two lines of this book, Solnit writes, "Constellations are not natural phenomena but cultural impositions, the lines drawn between stars are like paths worn by the imaginations of those who have gone before. The constellation called walking has a history, the history trod out by all those poets and philosophers and insurrectionaries, by jaywalkers, streetwalkers, pilgrims, tourists, hikers, mountaineers, but whether it has a future depends on whether those connecting paths are traveled still."
It kind of reminded me of our schooling days when our teachers told us to write "concluding sentences" to our essays. Nutshell, meet thy meat, in other words, and if you want a broad hint of what this book's about, you can't do better than this finish. In it, you will indeed meet an interesting mix of all the characters Solnit lists (though she fails to include herself in cameo spots).
With these peoples and the places walking leads them (for a wide variety of reasons -- vocational, sexual, practical, inspirational, recreational, political, etc.), Solnit builds a solid history of mankind's relationship with its unique upstanding legs. Some countries and cities and cultures are better built for (and more accepting of) walking, you'll find, and men have an easier time of it than women -- especially in cities (one only read about recent goings-on in New York as yet another example), but overall, there are commonalities despite the differences.
Overall, not as compelling as other Solnits (my favorite being her book on Orwell), but still, yeoman work. I hit patches I much enjoyed and dry stretches. Kind of like scenery on a walk, which I do most every day, only sometimes I have to drive to get to new places to explore (unlike denizens of cities)....more
An extended and learned essay from the poet Anne Carson, Economy of the Unlost is a welterweight at 134 pp. It came to me compliments of Terrance HayeAn extended and learned essay from the poet Anne Carson, Economy of the Unlost is a welterweight at 134 pp. It came to me compliments of Terrance Hayes, who recommended it in a book I finished over a trip south, Watch Your Language: Visual and Literary Reflections on a Century of American Poetry (he also enthusiastically recommended Wanderlust: A History of Walking, which will be my next read).
I can't say a lot of readers will love this book as it is a niche among niche books, comparing as it does the ancient Greek poet Simonides of Keos with the Romanian poet who lost his parents to the Holocaust, Paul Celan. In short, they share an affinity for the negative, for words like nothing, never, not, no. That and an economy of words. And disappearance. And ends. Meaning you get paragraphs like so:
"This simple striking notion, that money makes our daily life strange in the same way translation makes ordinary language strange, seems a helpful one for exploring the Fremdheit of Paul Celan. We have already seen how Simonides' alienation began with his historical situation--on a cusp between two economic systems, gazing at both and all too aware of their difference: like someone listening to simultaneous translation of a text that lies before him in the original. He is analogous to Paul Celan, after the model suggested by Marx, insofar as Celan is a poet who uses language as if he were always translating."
If you go here, just keep your brow furrowed and proceed cautiously. You're sure to pick up some gems along the way and realize that, in the end, there's something to nothing, too. If that idea is paradoxically reassuring to you, this might be your cup of erudition....more
In this case, the focus is diffused and divided as Hayes offers short pieces on influential poets -- mostly Black and overlooked -- of the 20th and 21st century. My favorite was the tribute to Yusef Komunyakaa because it was starting to build like all the fine Knight stuff from the last book.
These are a collection of essays previously published in other journals. Reading it makes me wish I could take a course taught by Hayes. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to visit (much less teach in) Maine very often. He's not alone....more
I have a bookshelf here called "Classics-Newly-Read" that's not used often enough. It's designed to shelve the classics I haven't read yet but must beI have a bookshelf here called "Classics-Newly-Read" that's not used often enough. It's designed to shelve the classics I haven't read yet but must because voice after respected voice after Goodreads friend voice says, in so many words, "You must." Titles like Frankenstein, Middlemarch, and Wuthering Heights.
Finishing James in two days pancake, I'd half a notion to click "classics-newly-read" for this review because it was so aligned to Twain's Great American Novel that a reading man could be fooled into thinking he'd found something new.
But wait. I've read and loved The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn umpteen times (and the ump has a small strike zone, too). So, no. Not newly read. Maybe the shelf "classics reread," a habit I keep for the incredibly narrow pantheon of books deserving rereads due to richness would be more appropriate.
Oh, hell. Just click "contemporary," why don't you. It's backed up on the library reserve lists, after all, something that only happens to the shiny and new.
In the beginning of this book, Everett co-opts some of Twain's book's dialect verbatim. Music to my ears. Why? Because it felt like I was reading a sequel to HF. Or an extension. Or a rewritten edition that mercifully saws Tom Sawyer out of the ending chapters and tries again (only better).
Glorious, in other words. And it's clear that Percival Everett has as great a regard for Twain's work as I do. In one way, he even showed his advantage over Twain. As leverage, he had the benefit of using racism in the modern day, still thriving just as it always did, and placing that critical eye on the slavers and their silent accomplices. In that sense, we get Twain's angle on whites aided and abetted by Everett's.
Fun, too, is the fact that the literate slave Jim (oh, that recurring inconsequential object of consequence -- the pencil!) has visions of Enlightenment figures he's secretly read from Judge Thatcher's library (explaining cameos by Montesquieu, Voltaire, and John Locke along the Great Mississippi).
As I turned the final bend in this 300-pager, I half feared Everett might bungle the ending like his hero, but no. He was one serious writer who took this project seriously. He sprung a few surprises. He gave Tom a mention but left him in Hannibal because we don't want to see him no MO. He nailed the ending sweetly. Maybe with a bit of a stretcher, feasibility-wise, but acceptable considering the theme he was laboring over in the name of art.
I've enjoyed a few Percival Everett books in the past, but I'd say this is a new favorite because it's half novelty and half homage. In fact, it was like an old friend coming back from the Territories where he'd been long lost. Yes, sir. Welcome back, Huck. And welcome to your newly-burnished starring role, Jim James....more
There's that famous scene in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye where Holden talks about authors and how certain ones create an urge to call them There's that famous scene in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye where Holden talks about authors and how certain ones create an urge to call them up because you think you know them so well from reading them and figure, within a few seconds of brief explanation, you'll be talking like a couple of old college friends who haven't seen each other in 20 years.
Well, I'm extrapolating a bit maybe. But you get the point. When you read a contemporary, conversational poet like Diane Seuss, you have a Holden Caulfield moment and figure you could talk the day away with her though, who knows, you could be as different as Texas and Vermont.
As for the poetry, Lord. Most I enjoy but some I read and say, "Really?" That is, slim pickings. But then you move on and get wowed as I was by the longish effort called "Allegory." It's kinda cool, the way some poems have poetic tie-ins for titles: "Ballad," "Monody," "Villanelle," "Ballad in Sestets," "Little Refrain," "Romantic Poetry," "Threnody," etc.
I remember reading "Romantic Poet" when it first appeared in Poetry Magazine. As it's short, it makes a good introduction if you've never read Seuss. There's more than one Keats-related poem in this collection (Keats is Seuss's darling), but this one's the punchiest by far.
Romantic Poet by Diane Seuss
You would not have loved him, my friend the scholar decried. He brushed his teeth, if at all, with salt. He lied, and rarely washed his hair. Wiped his ass with leaves or with his hand. The top of his head would have barely reached your tits. His pits reeked, as did his deathbed.
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