A series of aphoristic phrases arranged to cue visually as poetry, but for me the meters weren’t strong enough to pull them all the way there. That saA series of aphoristic phrases arranged to cue visually as poetry, but for me the meters weren’t strong enough to pull them all the way there. That said, I’m certainly being a bit of a snob if that’s my first reaction. I thought this approach worked better as a continued exploration of the ideas and themes of the first book; if this is resonating with people and working to help reorient their relationships with their own minds and thinking, then it’s accomplishing its goals. ...more
I'm reviewing the recorded staged adaptation of Threthewey's poetry volume of the same name. The adaptation for stage was done by LA Theatre Works, anI'm reviewing the recorded staged adaptation of Threthewey's poetry volume of the same name. The adaptation for stage was done by LA Theatre Works, and presents the poems via the performances of the Native Guard and the Poet, accompanied by a marvelous singer and a pianist. It's a fantastic play, and such an interesting experiment (in my opinion) in adapting textual poetics into embodied, performative poetics.
Threthewey is marvelous in any form: she's writing America in all its messiness, which is as beautiful as it is painful, fragile, hopeful, ugly, and traumatic. The play highlights a plurality of experiences through vocal/aural texture, and evokes a wide range of rich emotions.
I think that it would make a solid choice for a book club interested in discussion American history, race, gender/feminism, yes; but also just the larger questions of what it means to live meaningful life and what we hold dear as human experience. ...more
I have been savoring this collection for about six months now, reading slowly, sitting with the poems that resonated with me for days or weeks at a tiI have been savoring this collection for about six months now, reading slowly, sitting with the poems that resonated with me for days or weeks at a time and just thinking about them and enjoying the kinds of thoughts that they produced.
In this way, Berry is, for me, still more farmer tilling soil, planting seeds, and tending crops than writer wrestling words. That is, the effect of his word wrestling (which I have no doubt he works at) is less my bedazzlement at the wordcraft itself and more my admiration and gratitude for his ability to plant and harvest the emotions and thoughts that make up my life, bringing them into my consciousness such that I recognize them for what they are: gifts given in living life.
Here are some favorites from the volume in full. Just in case you don't have another chance to encounter Berry in your life. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't give you a little bit right now.
"The Wild Geese" Horseback on Sunday morning, harvest over, we taste persimmon and wild grape, sharp sweet of summer's end. In time's maze over the fall fields, we name names that went west from here, names that rest on graves. We open a persimmon seed to find the tree that stands in promise, pale, in that seed's marrow. Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.
---
"From the Distance" 1. We are others, and the earth, the living of the dead. Remembering who we are, we live in eternity; any solitary act is a work of community.
2. All times are one if hearts delight in work, if hands join the world right.
3. The wheel of eternity is turning in time, its rhymes, austere, at long intervals returning, sing in the mind, not in the ear.
4. A man of faithful thought may feel in light, among the beasts and fields, the turning of the wheel.
5. Fall of the year: at evening a frail mist rose, glowing in the rain. The dead and unborn drew near the fire. A song, not mine, stuttered in the flame.
---
"Air" This man, proud and young, turn homeward in the dark heaven, free of his burden of death by fire, of life in fear of death by fire, in the city now burning far below.
This is a young man, proud; he sways upon the tall stalk of pride, alone, in control of the explosion by which he lives, one of the children we have taught to be amused by horror.
This is a proud man, young in the work of death. Ahead of him wait those made rich by fire. Behind him, another child is burning; a divine man is hanging from a tree.
I have too many favorites from this volume to write them all out here. Here are the titles of the poems that particularly resonated with me over the last six months of my life. (If they have an asterisk after them, or more than one, it means they resonated more, and more, and more.)
The Wild The Broken Ground Three Elegiac Poems* The Want of Peace* The Peace of Wild Things** Grace* Window Poems A Discipline* The Stones* To Know the Dark* The Wish to Be Generous* A Praise Enriching the Earth A Standing Ground** Breaking* Prayer After Eating Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front** The Wild Geese*** At a Country Funeral*** The Clear Days A Vision** Stay Home The Cold Pan The Fear of Love To the Holy Spirit** To What Listens Below* Requiem Elegy** The Law That Marries All Things Song From the Distance*** The Gift of Gravity A Marriage Song Air*** The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union* Duality*
Christian Wiman, Christian Wiman, Christian Wiman. There: I’ve incanted the poet’s name, and hopefully this will break the utter spell his work has caChristian Wiman, Christian Wiman, Christian Wiman. There: I’ve incanted the poet’s name, and hopefully this will break the utter spell his work has cast over my soul this year.
I’m reading him slowly—so slowly—and re-reading as I go. The space he works in—the ordinary sacrality, the banal mystery, the secular faith, the beautiful word—that is the space of my own nature, with its sickness to death and ordinary landscapes and relationships carved from literal ribs.
Survival is a Style is not the place to start with Wiman (start at Every Riven Thing), but it is a fantastic place to go with Wiman. The poems skim along the thing line between heaven and earth, belief and atheism, trust and doubt. In doing so, the highlight the tensions inherent in the acts of human life.
——
Good Lord the Light
Good morning misery, goodbye belief, good Lord the light cutting across the lake so long gone to ice—
There is an under, always, through which things still move, breathe, and have their being, quick coals and crimsons no one need see to see.
Good night knowledge, goodbye beyond, good God the winter one must wander one’s own soul to be.
———
Epilogue
The more I think the more I feel reality without reverence is not real. * The more I feel the more I think that God himself has brought me to this brink wherein to have more faith means having less. And love’s the sacred name for loneliness. * I speak a word I have not spoken and by that word am broken open a cry entirely other entirely mine. * In league with the stones of the field I am by being healed....more
Patterson has outdone herself here, which is saying something considering the consistently high quality of her previous work. This work manages to be Patterson has outdone herself here, which is saying something considering the consistently high quality of her previous work. This work manages to be incredibly intimate—unapologetically personal in the best of ways—while at the same time brilliantly universal in its melding of Mormonism with Shakespeare’s women as trope. These poems sing, performing simultaneously on multiple levels. An absolute gift....more
The unique thrill of connection with another human being one has only met through a written text—that’s the best distillation of this book’s essence IThe unique thrill of connection with another human being one has only met through a written text—that’s the best distillation of this book’s essence I can come up with. ...more
Heavens, this is a beautiful gift of a book. She knows who she is, and what she loves, and she unapologetically writes a female form using autofictionHeavens, this is a beautiful gift of a book. She knows who she is, and what she loves, and she unapologetically writes a female form using autofiction, poetry (the poetry!), speculative literary history/biography, all stitched together through a deliberate focus on writing-as-home/making/ and the result is a complicated, gorgeous, intimate, fascinating book.
If you like books where the narrative is fragmented (and has multiple storylines) and partial and you have to put it together over the experience of reading, or books that experiment on Cixous/Kristeva/Irigaray without making the engagement too overt/explicit, or books about literary mysteries, or books about the ways we can be gripped and consumed by voices and texts from the past, or just books where the author loves laying down beautiful words in a line, this is a book for you. Also, if you don’t read Irish (I don’t) I highly recommend reading along with the audiobook in some way on this one to get the full effect of the poetry. ...more
Dachsel’s poetry here is interesting conceptually, thematically, and formally. In this project, Dachsel replicates the charismatic event structure of Dachsel’s poetry here is interesting conceptually, thematically, and formally. In this project, Dachsel replicates the charismatic event structure of witness, but recenters the content such that the prophetic mode is replaced by the very real, very earthy, and vulnerable mode of intimacy. She’s done her homework, and it shows; the aesthetic use of glossalia in the LDS context—something scarcely recalled by the adherents themselves—is striking its richness and connective potential.
I’ll be reading more of Dachsel’s rich writings going forward. ...more
Dachsel’s poetic work here examines love, motherhood, friendship, memory, and loss. Her writing demonstrates a serious relationship with language—she Dachsel’s poetic work here examines love, motherhood, friendship, memory, and loss. Her writing demonstrates a serious relationship with language—she wields her words with force, and the result is a collection of sharp, cutting poems. ...more
It’s trickier than one might think to write a children’s picture book. The text must be simple enough for a child to follow, interesting enough that tIt’s trickier than one might think to write a children’s picture book. The text must be simple enough for a child to follow, interesting enough that they’ll want to listen, and it needs to sound good when it’s read out loud. Amanda Gorman succeeds here on all counts, and admirably so.
The illustrations are truly lovely, with rich, wam colors and engaging compositions that enhance the text and take the book to the next level. The overall effect is an experience of “positive-grounded-hope”, and one that sustains multiple re-readings with ease.
I wouldn’t hesitate to gift this book to adults or children alike—highly recommended....more
3.5 Here’s the thing: Vuong has the poetic ability, no doubt. There are some breath-taking lines here. And some gorgeous poems. But as a book, it’s une3.5 Here’s the thing: Vuong has the poetic ability, no doubt. There are some breath-taking lines here. And some gorgeous poems. But as a book, it’s uneven in quality and cohesion—at least, more so than I expected after all the hype.
The works that take up the absence of the father and the imaginative reworking of that life’s potential contours are strongest in my opinion. And the themes overall seem like they ought to work: family, loss, desire, immigration, destruction (both large scale, and intimate), Eros. There’s plenty here to work with. But for all the poetic ability and thematic potential, this collection teetered between brilliance and immaturity for me....more
Steven L. Peck is a writer of many talents--this collection of poetry makes room for mystery in the quotidian, the fantastic, and even the supernaturaSteven L. Peck is a writer of many talents--this collection of poetry makes room for mystery in the quotidian, the fantastic, and even the supernatural. As a biologist, Peck unsurprisingly takes up the natural world in many poems, but this ecological perspective is expansive: if we exist, the what else, or who else, might also exist in this vast universe, and what are the webs that connect us to these potential existences?
If you enjoy speculative fiction, philosophy of science, ecological writing, and even steampunk, Peck's poetry is for you....more
If you’ve made a commitment to listen to BIPOC voices, this collection provides a richly varied resource. The scope of this project, both in terms of If you’ve made a commitment to listen to BIPOC voices, this collection provides a richly varied resource. The scope of this project, both in terms of the historical ground covered, as well as the number of contributors, is impressive. I loved the editor’s decisions to let the contributors determine their own approach to their assigned historical segment—the resulting collection of history, memoir, prose, poetry, and academic discourse reflects the multi-faceted dimensions of the history of race in America. ...more
I don’t know if it’s reading Eliot at the tail end of a global pandemic or what, but this was the first time I actually felt moved by this poetry. TheI don’t know if it’s reading Eliot at the tail end of a global pandemic or what, but this was the first time I actually felt moved by this poetry. The reading was exquisite....more
This is powerful poetry. These pieces were written for specific events/occasions and/or people, and what we get here is a sense of the poet’s own awarThis is powerful poetry. These pieces were written for specific events/occasions and/or people, and what we get here is a sense of the poet’s own awareness of the strength available in language. ...more
I generally enjoy Oliver, and expected to enjoy this book as well. Sometimes I read poetry that speaks directly to the themes of my current thoughts, I generally enjoy Oliver, and expected to enjoy this book as well. Sometimes I read poetry that speaks directly to the themes of my current thoughts, and that was certainly the case here. Worn after a year+ journey into the Covid world, with every plan for my life upended and revised, the work of dreams seems like a good place to think the rough residue of my current living.
Part one traces hope upwards; part two is honest about the kinds of despair the world elicits. Both do so via an intense looking and awareness of the specific world scenes before the poet’s eyes.
My favorite? Tonight it’s “Wild Geese.”
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
—————— Jan 2024 re-read update Still 5 stars; still one of my favorites from Oliver. This time through the poem that I’ve gone back to over and over is Dogfish.
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing kept flickering in with the tide and looking around. Black as a fisherman’s boot, with a white belly.
If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin, which was rough as a thousand sharpened nails.
And you know what a smile means, don’t you?
~
I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country, I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was
alive for a little while.
~
It was evening, and no longer summer. Three small fish, I don’t know what they were, huddled in the highest ripples as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body one gesture, one black sleeve that could fit easily around the bodies of three small fish.
~
Also I wanted to be able to love. And we all know how that one goes, don’t we?
Slowly
~
the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.
~
You don’t want to hear the story of my life, and anyway I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen
to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s just the same old story— a few people just trying, one way or another, to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody , of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to swim through the fires to stay in this world.
~
And look! look! look! I think those little fish better wake up and dash themselves away from the hopeless future that is bulging toward them.
~
And probably, if they don’t waste time looking for an easier world,
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