Books Reviewed: A Green Light, by Matthew Rohrer; Apprehend, by Elizabeth Robinson; Brutal Imagination, by Cornelius Eady
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book. So
every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been
reading lately. Here are three books I've read recently:
A Green Light: This is another one of the books my friend Drew lent me for the summer. I liked it well enough, although it hit me as being a little contemporary-poetry-business-as-usual. But I find that most poetry books can be saved by one stellar poem or two, and that happened here. "Hone Quarry" is a series of 15 shorter poems about nature and lost love. It's a lovely series about the way we try to reconcile our human experiences with the bigger world around us and how nature fails to comfort us completely. So while this book as a whole was kind of whatever, "Hone Quarry" put it more firmly in the "like" department.
Apprehend: I picked this book up at AWP because I thought it looked interesting, with Robinson exploring language and linguistics through poems that evoke fairytales. This is part of the Fence Modern Poet Series and lots of people seem to like it. I am not one of those people. I recognize what is brilliant about Robinson's work, and I could see why other people loved the book. But in the end, I'm the type of reader who wants to feel something, anything when I read a book. And this one failed to do that for me. I might recommend it some people I know who might enjoy it, but I probably won't be picking it up again anytime soon.
Brutal Imagination: My workshop professor recommended this one to me way back at the beginning of the semester, and I just now got to it. The book is split into two sections. "Brutal Imagination" is a series of poems from the voice of the black man that Susan Smith blamed the 1994 murder of her children on, a man who never actually existed. They explore race and media in really interesting ways, and the relationship between the criminal, real Smith and the incriminated, imaginary speaker is complicated and messy and fascinating. The second section is "The Running Man," which is a series of poems that were used as the libretto for a 1999 jazz opera of the same name. These poems take on a series of voices, that of the Running Man and various members of his family. I actually enjoyed this section the most of the two. The poems were more lyrical, the language more coaxing. There's some really lovely stuff in these Running Man poems. Overall, the book as a whole was quite good. And I wouldn't mind someday getting to see The Running Man on stage.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Poetry Round-Up
Books Reviewed: Father of Noise, by Anthony McCann; Mercury, by Ariana Reines; Bluets, by Maggine Nelson
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book. So every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been reading lately. Here are three books I've read recently:
Father of Noise: I picked this book up at the AWP conference bookfair in March, probably because I liked the factory buildings and the man on fire on the cover. I'm a sucker for industrial imagery. When I started Father of Noise, I wasn't sure what to think, but eventually the book taught me how to read it. I didn't love this book the way I've loved some of the poetry I've recently read, but I certainly liked it. McCann has a very natural, laid-back style and a strong central voice. The poems have a really easy sense of place, which I appreciated. Poems like "Stark Weather" and "The Young Investigators" get at the American landscape by using very simple imagery and condensed space. Whether writing about Nebraska or New York City, McCann is always in control of his words and white space.
Mercury: Oh boy. Our poetry professor assigned this book for workshop, and none of us liked it. Reines is a big deal in the contemporary poetry world, but this book just doesn't quite work. It's huge (230+ pages!), overreaching, and not particularly interesting. That being said, I've been told to read Reines's The Cow this summer, so you'll find out how that goes in a few weeks.
Bluets: My much-better-read poet friend, Drew, gave me a pile of books to read as homework this summer. The first one I picked off the pile was Maggie Nelson's little collection of lyrical essay-poems about the color blue. This is more than just a study of color, though. Nelson writes about a lost lover, a friend's spinal injury, and depression through the prism of her obsession with the color blue. It's really beautiful in parts, and it has a kind of working logic that's completely natural. Nelson is smart and honest about emotional states, but she never teeters over the border of becoming precious. There's a lot to like here, and I will probably be recommending this to a few people in the coming months.
Note: With summer and its unlimited reading possibilities here, as well as the lists of poetry books friends and professors have sent my way, there will probably be a lot of these Round-Ups in the next few months. Consider that advanced warning for all of you non-poetry-reading Not Your Mama followers out there.
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book. So every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been reading lately. Here are three books I've read recently:
Father of Noise: I picked this book up at the AWP conference bookfair in March, probably because I liked the factory buildings and the man on fire on the cover. I'm a sucker for industrial imagery. When I started Father of Noise, I wasn't sure what to think, but eventually the book taught me how to read it. I didn't love this book the way I've loved some of the poetry I've recently read, but I certainly liked it. McCann has a very natural, laid-back style and a strong central voice. The poems have a really easy sense of place, which I appreciated. Poems like "Stark Weather" and "The Young Investigators" get at the American landscape by using very simple imagery and condensed space. Whether writing about Nebraska or New York City, McCann is always in control of his words and white space.
Mercury: Oh boy. Our poetry professor assigned this book for workshop, and none of us liked it. Reines is a big deal in the contemporary poetry world, but this book just doesn't quite work. It's huge (230+ pages!), overreaching, and not particularly interesting. That being said, I've been told to read Reines's The Cow this summer, so you'll find out how that goes in a few weeks.
Bluets: My much-better-read poet friend, Drew, gave me a pile of books to read as homework this summer. The first one I picked off the pile was Maggie Nelson's little collection of lyrical essay-poems about the color blue. This is more than just a study of color, though. Nelson writes about a lost lover, a friend's spinal injury, and depression through the prism of her obsession with the color blue. It's really beautiful in parts, and it has a kind of working logic that's completely natural. Nelson is smart and honest about emotional states, but she never teeters over the border of becoming precious. There's a lot to like here, and I will probably be recommending this to a few people in the coming months.
Note: With summer and its unlimited reading possibilities here, as well as the lists of poetry books friends and professors have sent my way, there will probably be a lot of these Round-Ups in the next few months. Consider that advanced warning for all of you non-poetry-reading Not Your Mama followers out there.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Poetry Round-Up
Books Reviewed: Whim Man Mammon, by Abraham Smith; The Drug of Art, by Ivan Blatny; Bandit Letters, by Sarah Messer
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book (plus, I know very few of you Not Your Mama readers out there are poetry people anyway). So every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been reading lately. Here are three books I've read and enjoyed lately:
Whim Man Mammon: In my last round-up, I mentioned that my workshop professor had given me a stack of books she thought might relate to my own work. One of these was Abraham Smith's Whim Man Mammon. I read this book over my spring break, and I really liked it. Smith writes in a peculiar and particular rural voice, and his poems often mention backwoods staples like guns and crops and ramshackle houses. When you read Mammon, you feel like you're in a very specific world, which is something I really admire, particularly in contemporary poetry (which can often feel so urbanized). Smith's strange and musical voice have given me a lot to think about in terms of how I employ voice and sound in my own work. If you, like me, are a Maurice Manning or Richard Hugo fan, you might enjoy this cool little book as well.
The Drug of Art: This collection of Blatny's selected work over his lifespan was assigned for my workhsop, so I probably read it more quickly and passively than I might normally. That being said, I still found it fascinating. Blatny is a Czech poet who was exiled from his homeland during the Soviet upheaval. He found refuge in a mental institution. My class is still debating whether or not Blatny's work reflects actual insanity or if his work is overtly political. I personally think there's a kind of unease that comes into his later poems that reflect the way the external world of politics and the internal world of the unmanaged mind both wreak havoc on a poet's work. These are some fascinating poems, and occasionally, they are very beautiful as well. I'm a particularly big fan of Blatny's earlier work, which displays a strong sense of place and nostalgia.
Bandit Letters: Messer's book was another one in the stack my poetry prof handed to me. As a writer, one of the simultaneous best/worst feelings in the world is finding writing that amazingly does exactly what you're struggling to do. Bandit Letters is this type of book. Messer inhabits the voices of criminals, victims, and the lovers of both in order to get at the mythos of the great American West and how that mythos still plays into our modern lives. The poems here have a lot to say about narrative-making, gender, and attachment. They are really something - easy to read and digest but just disturbing and gorgeous enough to keep you thinking. I have to give this book back to my prof soon, but I think I'm going to have to go out and buy a copy for myself. I really loved this one, and because its so deceptively "simple," I recommend it to both experienced and new poetry readers alike.
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book (plus, I know very few of you Not Your Mama readers out there are poetry people anyway). So every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been reading lately. Here are three books I've read and enjoyed lately:
Whim Man Mammon: In my last round-up, I mentioned that my workshop professor had given me a stack of books she thought might relate to my own work. One of these was Abraham Smith's Whim Man Mammon. I read this book over my spring break, and I really liked it. Smith writes in a peculiar and particular rural voice, and his poems often mention backwoods staples like guns and crops and ramshackle houses. When you read Mammon, you feel like you're in a very specific world, which is something I really admire, particularly in contemporary poetry (which can often feel so urbanized). Smith's strange and musical voice have given me a lot to think about in terms of how I employ voice and sound in my own work. If you, like me, are a Maurice Manning or Richard Hugo fan, you might enjoy this cool little book as well.
The Drug of Art: This collection of Blatny's selected work over his lifespan was assigned for my workhsop, so I probably read it more quickly and passively than I might normally. That being said, I still found it fascinating. Blatny is a Czech poet who was exiled from his homeland during the Soviet upheaval. He found refuge in a mental institution. My class is still debating whether or not Blatny's work reflects actual insanity or if his work is overtly political. I personally think there's a kind of unease that comes into his later poems that reflect the way the external world of politics and the internal world of the unmanaged mind both wreak havoc on a poet's work. These are some fascinating poems, and occasionally, they are very beautiful as well. I'm a particularly big fan of Blatny's earlier work, which displays a strong sense of place and nostalgia.
Bandit Letters: Messer's book was another one in the stack my poetry prof handed to me. As a writer, one of the simultaneous best/worst feelings in the world is finding writing that amazingly does exactly what you're struggling to do. Bandit Letters is this type of book. Messer inhabits the voices of criminals, victims, and the lovers of both in order to get at the mythos of the great American West and how that mythos still plays into our modern lives. The poems here have a lot to say about narrative-making, gender, and attachment. They are really something - easy to read and digest but just disturbing and gorgeous enough to keep you thinking. I have to give this book back to my prof soon, but I think I'm going to have to go out and buy a copy for myself. I really loved this one, and because its so deceptively "simple," I recommend it to both experienced and new poetry readers alike.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Poetry Round-Up
Books Reviewed: Killing Kanoko, by Hiromi Ito (translated by Jeffrey Angles); Poison Sonnets, by Joseph Heithaus; The Descent of Alette, by Alice Notley; Skin Horse, by Olivia Cronk
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book (plus, I know very few of you Not Your Mama readers out there are poetry people anyway). So every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been reading lately. I've actually read way more than these four books the last two months, but most of them made so little impression on me that I don't even feel the need to hate on them in this space. They weren't good or bad; they just exist and I had to read them for class. So these four books are ones that actually made an impression, for good or bad.
Killing Kanoko: My workshop professor assigned us this book at the last minute because Ito was coming to campus to read with her translator. I am so glad she assigned it because I loved Killing Kanoko. Ito is a Japanese quasi-feminist poet who writes about motherhood and language and the human body in grotesque and startling ways. The title of this book even comes from a poem about the fantasy of killing her infant daughter. Most of these are older poems that are just now getting translated in the States by Jeffrey Angles, who does a great job. These poems are weird, but they're also fun and thought-provoking. And Ito and Angles make a great reading team. That was one of the best readings I've been to in a while. Side Note: This book was published by my workshop prof and her husband (who I will have for workshop next semester), who run a press called Action. They put out really lovely-looking books, and this one, with its bright pink cover, is just one example of why small presses put out the prettiest poetry books.
Poison Sonnets: There is no way I can fairly review this book. Not only is it by my favorite undergrad professor (and the person that turned me toward poery in the first place), but I also get a shout-out in the acknowledgements! So I will just briefly mention that this is a lovely book and one that Heithaus worked his ass off to put together. It finds what is both beautiful and terrifying about nature, meaning both the natural world and human nature. There's poems about death and life, and Heithaus never shies away from big ideas in his work. A joy to finally read after having seen these poems in so many different forms over the years.
The Descent of Alette: This is one of those "big-deal" poetry books that everyone on my campus has somehow read and digested. That being said, I kind of hated it. Notley did a reading on campus last semester (she's a kind of god for my workshop prof), and she didn't make a great impression. She is a VIP in the contemporary poetry world, and she's a decent reader, but she has that weird dreamy elitism that only poets seem capable of possessing. So much so that she's become something of an in-joke among some of us Notre Dame MFAers. My workshop prof assigned this book over our spring break, and none of us seem overly excited about it. My poet friend Drew and I texted our displeasure at having to read it just yesterday. I finished Alette right away so I could read more fun stuff the rest of break, which was a wise choice. Alette is an allegorical epic in which the title character goes down into a kind of hell-like space where people are stuck riding subways all day. A tyrant rules over them all and keeps them from going up in the light, and at the end, Alette must fight the tyrant. The book relies heavily on second-wave feminism (my least favorite kind of feminism) and a lot of tired cliches of oppression. This book started out being interesting and somewhat enjoyable, but eventually I began to resent the way it clobbered me over the head with a dark hammer. Sorry, Alice Notley. I don't think we can be friends.
Skin Horse: I'm a big believer that the conditions under which you read a book greatly affect your enjoyment of said book. Olivia Cronk's Skin Horse (another Action book, and given to me by my professor because she thought it held a connection with my own work) is a great example of this. I had actually started Skin Horse a couple weeks ago and just couldn't get past the first few pages. Then I went back to my hometown for a couple days and started the book over again on my last night there. Suddenly, I couldn't keep my eyes away from the broken language and I finished it in a big rush that night. It's very strange and eerie, with erasures that add to a sense of forboding and brushed-aside terror. I'm not exactly sure I can pick out the family and place narrative of the book, but I don't care. After having spent a couple days in the weirdness that is Walkerton, Indiana, hearing creepy family stories, I suddenly "got" Cronk's sun-seared visions of parking lots and sketchy people on the edges of the speaker's vision. I knew I'd like this book as soon as I hit the phrase "trees typewritering." Skin Horse is not a book for everyone, but it's a book for me. I'm so glad my prof forced it into my hands.
I read so much poetry these days that I can't possibly blog about each book (plus, I know very few of you Not Your Mama readers out there are poetry people anyway). So every once in a while, I do these round-ups to let you know what I've been reading lately. I've actually read way more than these four books the last two months, but most of them made so little impression on me that I don't even feel the need to hate on them in this space. They weren't good or bad; they just exist and I had to read them for class. So these four books are ones that actually made an impression, for good or bad.
Killing Kanoko: My workshop professor assigned us this book at the last minute because Ito was coming to campus to read with her translator. I am so glad she assigned it because I loved Killing Kanoko. Ito is a Japanese quasi-feminist poet who writes about motherhood and language and the human body in grotesque and startling ways. The title of this book even comes from a poem about the fantasy of killing her infant daughter. Most of these are older poems that are just now getting translated in the States by Jeffrey Angles, who does a great job. These poems are weird, but they're also fun and thought-provoking. And Ito and Angles make a great reading team. That was one of the best readings I've been to in a while. Side Note: This book was published by my workshop prof and her husband (who I will have for workshop next semester), who run a press called Action. They put out really lovely-looking books, and this one, with its bright pink cover, is just one example of why small presses put out the prettiest poetry books.
Poison Sonnets: There is no way I can fairly review this book. Not only is it by my favorite undergrad professor (and the person that turned me toward poery in the first place), but I also get a shout-out in the acknowledgements! So I will just briefly mention that this is a lovely book and one that Heithaus worked his ass off to put together. It finds what is both beautiful and terrifying about nature, meaning both the natural world and human nature. There's poems about death and life, and Heithaus never shies away from big ideas in his work. A joy to finally read after having seen these poems in so many different forms over the years.
The Descent of Alette: This is one of those "big-deal" poetry books that everyone on my campus has somehow read and digested. That being said, I kind of hated it. Notley did a reading on campus last semester (she's a kind of god for my workshop prof), and she didn't make a great impression. She is a VIP in the contemporary poetry world, and she's a decent reader, but she has that weird dreamy elitism that only poets seem capable of possessing. So much so that she's become something of an in-joke among some of us Notre Dame MFAers. My workshop prof assigned this book over our spring break, and none of us seem overly excited about it. My poet friend Drew and I texted our displeasure at having to read it just yesterday. I finished Alette right away so I could read more fun stuff the rest of break, which was a wise choice. Alette is an allegorical epic in which the title character goes down into a kind of hell-like space where people are stuck riding subways all day. A tyrant rules over them all and keeps them from going up in the light, and at the end, Alette must fight the tyrant. The book relies heavily on second-wave feminism (my least favorite kind of feminism) and a lot of tired cliches of oppression. This book started out being interesting and somewhat enjoyable, but eventually I began to resent the way it clobbered me over the head with a dark hammer. Sorry, Alice Notley. I don't think we can be friends.
Skin Horse: I'm a big believer that the conditions under which you read a book greatly affect your enjoyment of said book. Olivia Cronk's Skin Horse (another Action book, and given to me by my professor because she thought it held a connection with my own work) is a great example of this. I had actually started Skin Horse a couple weeks ago and just couldn't get past the first few pages. Then I went back to my hometown for a couple days and started the book over again on my last night there. Suddenly, I couldn't keep my eyes away from the broken language and I finished it in a big rush that night. It's very strange and eerie, with erasures that add to a sense of forboding and brushed-aside terror. I'm not exactly sure I can pick out the family and place narrative of the book, but I don't care. After having spent a couple days in the weirdness that is Walkerton, Indiana, hearing creepy family stories, I suddenly "got" Cronk's sun-seared visions of parking lots and sketchy people on the edges of the speaker's vision. I knew I'd like this book as soon as I hit the phrase "trees typewritering." Skin Horse is not a book for everyone, but it's a book for me. I'm so glad my prof forced it into my hands.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Poetry Round-Up
Books Reviewed: Sleeping with the Dictionary, by Harryette Mullen; Versed, by Rae Armantrout; Nine Acres, by Nathaniel Perry
I read so many poetry books these days that I find it difficult to post a comment about each one to this blog. So every once in a while, I'll do one of these poetry round-ups to let you know what I've been reading and to give a few brief thoughts on what I thought of each book.
Sleeping with the Dictionary: I didn't know much about Mullen before we read this award-winning book in my poetry workshop. Mullen is a language poet, which might just be my least favorite type of poetry. Despite that, though, I actually found this book to be more fun than I was expecting. Mullen has a very playful sense of language, which kept the weightier aspects of her material from seeming too burdensome. Although there's lots of poems that spread across multiple pages in this collection, I found that my favorites were usually the super-short poems.
Versed: Rae Armantrout is also famous as a language poet, although I don't think language is her prime concern in Versed, a collection that won both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 2010. Armantrout's poems are heavy on the big questions, her language often loaded with abstraction. This works better some times than it does others. I tended to like her more personal poems, particularly "Own." I enjoyed Armantrout's poems while I was reading them, but I'm not sure they're the kind that will stick with me for long. That being said, I'd be more than willing to read her other books.
Nine Acres: I might be a bit biased towards this book, as I did have dinner with Nathaniel Perry when he came to campus last month. He did a very charming reading and signed my book afterward. Also, he studied under Maurice Manning, with whom you all know I'm obsessed. So it's no surprise that I liked this debut collection. Perry used an old farming manual as inspiration for these poems about the rural life, using the manual's chapters as poem titles. It's a device that gets a tad over-symbolic or over-sentimental at times, but the book is still well done as a whole. After a semester of reading and discussing a lot of smug theoretical poetry, it was wonderful to just sit down and just read something warm and quiet. This is one of the few books of poems I've read that I would be perfectly willing to suggest to my non-poetry-reading friends. It's a very open, friendly collection.
I read so many poetry books these days that I find it difficult to post a comment about each one to this blog. So every once in a while, I'll do one of these poetry round-ups to let you know what I've been reading and to give a few brief thoughts on what I thought of each book.
Sleeping with the Dictionary: I didn't know much about Mullen before we read this award-winning book in my poetry workshop. Mullen is a language poet, which might just be my least favorite type of poetry. Despite that, though, I actually found this book to be more fun than I was expecting. Mullen has a very playful sense of language, which kept the weightier aspects of her material from seeming too burdensome. Although there's lots of poems that spread across multiple pages in this collection, I found that my favorites were usually the super-short poems.
Versed: Rae Armantrout is also famous as a language poet, although I don't think language is her prime concern in Versed, a collection that won both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 2010. Armantrout's poems are heavy on the big questions, her language often loaded with abstraction. This works better some times than it does others. I tended to like her more personal poems, particularly "Own." I enjoyed Armantrout's poems while I was reading them, but I'm not sure they're the kind that will stick with me for long. That being said, I'd be more than willing to read her other books.
Nine Acres: I might be a bit biased towards this book, as I did have dinner with Nathaniel Perry when he came to campus last month. He did a very charming reading and signed my book afterward. Also, he studied under Maurice Manning, with whom you all know I'm obsessed. So it's no surprise that I liked this debut collection. Perry used an old farming manual as inspiration for these poems about the rural life, using the manual's chapters as poem titles. It's a device that gets a tad over-symbolic or over-sentimental at times, but the book is still well done as a whole. After a semester of reading and discussing a lot of smug theoretical poetry, it was wonderful to just sit down and just read something warm and quiet. This is one of the few books of poems I've read that I would be perfectly willing to suggest to my non-poetry-reading friends. It's a very open, friendly collection.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Poetry Round-Up
Books Reviewed: Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions, by Maurice Manning; Green Squall, by Jay Hopler; Wind in a Box, by Terrance Hayes
I read so many poetry books these days that I find it difficult to post a comment about each one to this blog. So every once in a while, I'll do one of these poetry round-ups to let you know what I've been reading and to give a few brief thoughts on what I thought of each book.
Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions: You all know by now that I'm a big Maurice Manning fan. I recently reread this, his first book, in order to do a presentation for my poetry workshop. I first read this book as an awkward college freshman who didn't know a lick about poetry. At that time, I found Manning's work to be strange but seductive. The book follows a group of characters in the rural South, centering on the figure of Lawrence Booth at a variety of stages in his life. Some of the poems are free-verse, some are sonnets, some are written as court documents or math proofs. For poetry novices, this may not be the place to start. But for those of you willing to add some spice to your reading life, Lawrence Booth is a great choice. I loved this book so much the second time around that I'm finally willing to put it on my "favorites" shelf right next to one of Manning's other collections, the gorgeous Bucolics.
Green Squall: Like Lawrence Booth, this book was part of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, one of the most prestigous poetry awards in the country. I picked up Green Squall after attending a reading that Jay Hopler did at my alma mater. I loved the way Hopler read, and I was fascinated by this book when I first read it four years ago. I can't say I felt quite the same way this second time around. I still think some of the poems ("And the Sunflower Weeps for the Sun, Its Flower" and "Feast of the Ascension, 2004. Planting Hibiscus," for example) to be powerful pieces. But the book itself is more repetitive than I'd remembered, and it didn't have quite the same impact as it did before. That being said, I still think Hopler is quite talented, and I will definitely be buying his next collection when it's released.
Wind in a Box: This particular book was assigned by my poetry professor, and it would be putting it lightly to say that it did not go over well with the class. Terrance Hayes is as about as famous as a contemporary poet can be these days, and he's won lots of awards. Unfortunately, his work doesn't really do anything for me. Wind in a Box contains some wonderful moments and lines, but the length and themes of this book get tiring after a while. In our class discussion, many of my classmates were annoyed by the way Hayes returned to discussions of race over and over again. This didn't bother me at all. I think every poet is allowed to write as much as he or she wants about the subjects over which they obsess. What kept me from enjoying the book was the overt masculinity it displays. I don't mean this as a slight against Hayes, but the book is set in a certain kind of male voice that I could not get into. Like race, I think gender should be explored in whatever ways a poet wants to explore it. But after reading poem after poem featuring women as either objects of lust or as mothers, I got bored. Wind in a Box might be a good book, and I can see why other people like it. It's just not my cup of tea.
I read so many poetry books these days that I find it difficult to post a comment about each one to this blog. So every once in a while, I'll do one of these poetry round-ups to let you know what I've been reading and to give a few brief thoughts on what I thought of each book.
Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions: You all know by now that I'm a big Maurice Manning fan. I recently reread this, his first book, in order to do a presentation for my poetry workshop. I first read this book as an awkward college freshman who didn't know a lick about poetry. At that time, I found Manning's work to be strange but seductive. The book follows a group of characters in the rural South, centering on the figure of Lawrence Booth at a variety of stages in his life. Some of the poems are free-verse, some are sonnets, some are written as court documents or math proofs. For poetry novices, this may not be the place to start. But for those of you willing to add some spice to your reading life, Lawrence Booth is a great choice. I loved this book so much the second time around that I'm finally willing to put it on my "favorites" shelf right next to one of Manning's other collections, the gorgeous Bucolics.
Green Squall: Like Lawrence Booth, this book was part of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, one of the most prestigous poetry awards in the country. I picked up Green Squall after attending a reading that Jay Hopler did at my alma mater. I loved the way Hopler read, and I was fascinated by this book when I first read it four years ago. I can't say I felt quite the same way this second time around. I still think some of the poems ("And the Sunflower Weeps for the Sun, Its Flower" and "Feast of the Ascension, 2004. Planting Hibiscus," for example) to be powerful pieces. But the book itself is more repetitive than I'd remembered, and it didn't have quite the same impact as it did before. That being said, I still think Hopler is quite talented, and I will definitely be buying his next collection when it's released.
Wind in a Box: This particular book was assigned by my poetry professor, and it would be putting it lightly to say that it did not go over well with the class. Terrance Hayes is as about as famous as a contemporary poet can be these days, and he's won lots of awards. Unfortunately, his work doesn't really do anything for me. Wind in a Box contains some wonderful moments and lines, but the length and themes of this book get tiring after a while. In our class discussion, many of my classmates were annoyed by the way Hayes returned to discussions of race over and over again. This didn't bother me at all. I think every poet is allowed to write as much as he or she wants about the subjects over which they obsess. What kept me from enjoying the book was the overt masculinity it displays. I don't mean this as a slight against Hayes, but the book is set in a certain kind of male voice that I could not get into. Like race, I think gender should be explored in whatever ways a poet wants to explore it. But after reading poem after poem featuring women as either objects of lust or as mothers, I got bored. Wind in a Box might be a good book, and I can see why other people like it. It's just not my cup of tea.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Mixing the Narrative with the Lyrical
Book Reviewed: Made Flesh, by Craig Arnold
One of the reasons I wanted to get my MFA in poetry was that it would give me access to more contemporary poetry. It's easy to stay updated on all the newer literary novelists and genre writers, but it's harder to find information about the best contemporary poets out there. Because writing programs are made up of people for whom reading poetry is a lifestyle, being in a program means I have far more access to good, new poetry.
In my workshop, we were assigned the book Made Flesh, by Craig Arnold. In this, his second and final collection, Arnold explores love and the body and traveling through the prism of mythology. The book is divided into seven titled sections that are in themselves made up of connecting, untitled poems. We had a lively debate in class about whether or not the book's sections are all about the same couple (in this case, Hades and Persephone) or if each section seemed complete onto itself. I personally think the book is a combination of both, with the poems looking out across an array of characters as well as the couple of Hades/Persephone, all of whom also seem to be reflections of Arnold-as-poet.
This book had its admirers and detractors both in my class, and I count myself as an admirer. I found it extremely easy to get sucked into the narrative voice of these poems. Once I picked the book up, I had trouble putting it down again. Arnold has a wonderful way of mixing a narrative drive with some beautiful lyricism, all of which suits the book's main concerns. I enjoyed Made Flesh a great deal.
I would also easily recommend this book to others, particularly people who are just starting to dip their feet into contemporary poetry. It's artful without being pretentious, and Arnold doesn't use overly complex phrasing or difficult words. Overall, I think the book's a huge success, and it's unfortunate that Arnold passed away before he could write more.
One of the reasons I wanted to get my MFA in poetry was that it would give me access to more contemporary poetry. It's easy to stay updated on all the newer literary novelists and genre writers, but it's harder to find information about the best contemporary poets out there. Because writing programs are made up of people for whom reading poetry is a lifestyle, being in a program means I have far more access to good, new poetry.
In my workshop, we were assigned the book Made Flesh, by Craig Arnold. In this, his second and final collection, Arnold explores love and the body and traveling through the prism of mythology. The book is divided into seven titled sections that are in themselves made up of connecting, untitled poems. We had a lively debate in class about whether or not the book's sections are all about the same couple (in this case, Hades and Persephone) or if each section seemed complete onto itself. I personally think the book is a combination of both, with the poems looking out across an array of characters as well as the couple of Hades/Persephone, all of whom also seem to be reflections of Arnold-as-poet.
This book had its admirers and detractors both in my class, and I count myself as an admirer. I found it extremely easy to get sucked into the narrative voice of these poems. Once I picked the book up, I had trouble putting it down again. Arnold has a wonderful way of mixing a narrative drive with some beautiful lyricism, all of which suits the book's main concerns. I enjoyed Made Flesh a great deal.
I would also easily recommend this book to others, particularly people who are just starting to dip their feet into contemporary poetry. It's artful without being pretentious, and Arnold doesn't use overly complex phrasing or difficult words. Overall, I think the book's a huge success, and it's unfortunate that Arnold passed away before he could write more.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Midwestern Ghosts
Book Reviewed: The Marvelous Bones of Time: Excavations and Explanations, by Brenda Coultas
The best thing so far about being in an MFA program is getting to talk books with serious readers again. When I worked at the library, I got to talk to people about a lot of books I loved, but I never met other poetry readers or people interested in anything more experimental. The MFA program is full of people who read almost nothing else. This means my to-read list has officially grown to preposterous levels. One of the first new friends I met in the program is also an Indiana-ite. When he found out that most of my writing is about the state and its people, he recommended a poet originally from Indiana named Brenda Coultas. Luckily, Notre Dame's library had a copy of her book, The Marvelous Bones of Time.
Bones is a strange little book. The first half consists of poetry about Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio. Here, Coultas explores the idea of place and dives deep into the history of the area as part of the Underground Railroad. The second half of the book is made up of ghost stories. Some are stories that Coultas experienced first-hand; others are just stories she's heard over the years. The entire book has an unsettling, haunted feeling that really works well. It's a cool little collection.
Coultas's poems are written very plainly, but they somehow manage to resist having either a narrative drive or a lyric drive. They just exist as they do on the page, which after several weeks of learning way more about poetic theory than I care to dig up, was super-refreshing. Her ghost stories have a poetic vibe to them as well, despite being written as prose. They are very short and to the point; if you blink, you might miss the actual ghost. Since I have a certain fondness for well-told ghost stories, I enjoyed this part of the book as much as I enjoyed the poetry. If you are looking for something strange and haunting, or if you're a Midwestern place poet who wants to see how it's done, this is the book for you.
Note: While reading this book, I was reminded of my only encounter with a ghost, an incident which took place a couple summers ago at a nature park. A friend and I experienced the strange encounter together, and to this day, we can't explain it. Although God knows my hyper-reasonable friend has tried.
The best thing so far about being in an MFA program is getting to talk books with serious readers again. When I worked at the library, I got to talk to people about a lot of books I loved, but I never met other poetry readers or people interested in anything more experimental. The MFA program is full of people who read almost nothing else. This means my to-read list has officially grown to preposterous levels. One of the first new friends I met in the program is also an Indiana-ite. When he found out that most of my writing is about the state and its people, he recommended a poet originally from Indiana named Brenda Coultas. Luckily, Notre Dame's library had a copy of her book, The Marvelous Bones of Time.
Bones is a strange little book. The first half consists of poetry about Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio. Here, Coultas explores the idea of place and dives deep into the history of the area as part of the Underground Railroad. The second half of the book is made up of ghost stories. Some are stories that Coultas experienced first-hand; others are just stories she's heard over the years. The entire book has an unsettling, haunted feeling that really works well. It's a cool little collection.
Coultas's poems are written very plainly, but they somehow manage to resist having either a narrative drive or a lyric drive. They just exist as they do on the page, which after several weeks of learning way more about poetic theory than I care to dig up, was super-refreshing. Her ghost stories have a poetic vibe to them as well, despite being written as prose. They are very short and to the point; if you blink, you might miss the actual ghost. Since I have a certain fondness for well-told ghost stories, I enjoyed this part of the book as much as I enjoyed the poetry. If you are looking for something strange and haunting, or if you're a Midwestern place poet who wants to see how it's done, this is the book for you.
Note: While reading this book, I was reminded of my only encounter with a ghost, an incident which took place a couple summers ago at a nature park. A friend and I experienced the strange encounter together, and to this day, we can't explain it. Although God knows my hyper-reasonable friend has tried.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Memory, Loss, and the Classics
Book Reviewed: Nox, by Anne Carson
Nox (which means "night" in Latin) is a strange book. For starters, it comes in a box. The book itself folds out in accordion-style, but is printed on only one side so you can turn "pages" like you would in a regular book. It's a collage of photographs, excerpts from a Latin-to-English dictionary, and memoir-style writing by Carson. The book itself is actually a printed version of a scrapbook Carson made in order to remember her dead older brother. She calls it an "epitaph in the form of a book." It's not easy to read, but it sure is interesting.
Carson's older brother Michael was a very troubled soul, one who fled his home and family as a young man in order to escape a short prison sentence. He spent his last few decades wandering Europe, gaining love and suffering losses, and mostly ignoring his parents and sister back home. In 2000, Carson found out her brother had died of a heart attack a couple weeks earlier, and she went overseas to see his widow. This book is Carson's reaction to that experience.
Nox is by turns baffling and heartbreaking. Nearly every-other page carries an excerpt from a Latin-to-English dictionary, featuring repetitive entries that Carson clearly added her own writing to in spots. It's easy to want to skip these parts, but they often contain nuggets of ideas that are important to the piece as a whole. Carson is a classicist, so there's a lot of references to history and myth. The book is full of tiny, one-off sentences that are tells to Carson's inability to figure out her brother in life for death. Most importantly, the book features excerpts from letters Michael wrote to his mother, as well as snippets of phone conversations he had with his sister. These add an extra dimension to the entire thing.
This book is so strange that it can be a little off-putting at times. Occasionally, it feels like we're peeking into something too private for public consumption, which is initially what this scrapbook was. I'm glad Carson published it because it's really interesting and says a lot about the strangeness that is siblings, beings with the same genetic make-up who are nevertheless completely different creatures. I can't say I loved this book, but it was definitely worth reading.
Nox (which means "night" in Latin) is a strange book. For starters, it comes in a box. The book itself folds out in accordion-style, but is printed on only one side so you can turn "pages" like you would in a regular book. It's a collage of photographs, excerpts from a Latin-to-English dictionary, and memoir-style writing by Carson. The book itself is actually a printed version of a scrapbook Carson made in order to remember her dead older brother. She calls it an "epitaph in the form of a book." It's not easy to read, but it sure is interesting.
Carson's older brother Michael was a very troubled soul, one who fled his home and family as a young man in order to escape a short prison sentence. He spent his last few decades wandering Europe, gaining love and suffering losses, and mostly ignoring his parents and sister back home. In 2000, Carson found out her brother had died of a heart attack a couple weeks earlier, and she went overseas to see his widow. This book is Carson's reaction to that experience.
Nox is by turns baffling and heartbreaking. Nearly every-other page carries an excerpt from a Latin-to-English dictionary, featuring repetitive entries that Carson clearly added her own writing to in spots. It's easy to want to skip these parts, but they often contain nuggets of ideas that are important to the piece as a whole. Carson is a classicist, so there's a lot of references to history and myth. The book is full of tiny, one-off sentences that are tells to Carson's inability to figure out her brother in life for death. Most importantly, the book features excerpts from letters Michael wrote to his mother, as well as snippets of phone conversations he had with his sister. These add an extra dimension to the entire thing.
This book is so strange that it can be a little off-putting at times. Occasionally, it feels like we're peeking into something too private for public consumption, which is initially what this scrapbook was. I'm glad Carson published it because it's really interesting and says a lot about the strangeness that is siblings, beings with the same genetic make-up who are nevertheless completely different creatures. I can't say I loved this book, but it was definitely worth reading.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
I Finally Get Around to Reading Frank O'Hara
Book Reviewed: Meditations in an Emergency, by Frank O'Hara
It took me longer than it should have, but I finally got around to reading the important mid-20th-century American poet, Frank O'Hara. I only knew a couple O'Hara poems before picking up Meditations in an Emergency last week, one of which is "Mayakovsky," a poem I really love. O'Hara, who was also an art critic and museum curator, had a major impact on American poetry during his time, and he's been an important influence on generations of poets since. You can't take a poetry writing workshop and not run into at least one O'Hara poem. He's funny; his language is striking and inventive; and his work isn't overcooked. Most people can find at least one O'Hara poem they like.
I quite enjoyed Meditations in an Emergency, if only because it's different from any other poetry books I've read in a while. It's obvious that some of my favorite contemporary poets - Jay Hopler and Richard Siken in particular - have read and internalized O'Hara's work, which edges up to the line of absurdity without fully going over it. O'Hara often gets lumped together with John Ashberry, and I'm not sure I like that comparison. Ashberry is a much-loved poet, but I've never enjoyed reading his work. O'Hara's writing, while similar, never feels quite as "out there." O'Hara knows how to be artistic without showing off, a feat I dont think Ashberry manages.
Anyway, this is great little collection. I probably wouldn't put O'Hara up there with Larkin or Apollinaire in terms of my poetry-worship, but I do think his work is quite wonderful. My favorite poems here include the title piece, "Mayakovsky," "To the Film Industry in Crisis," and "To the Harbormaster."
I should also add that reading this book makes me want to go out and read the work of the Russian/Soviet poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky, the namesake of the above-mentioned favorite poem and a huge influence on Frank O'Hara. Plus, his life was all kind of drama, a trait to which I can't help but be attracted.
It took me longer than it should have, but I finally got around to reading the important mid-20th-century American poet, Frank O'Hara. I only knew a couple O'Hara poems before picking up Meditations in an Emergency last week, one of which is "Mayakovsky," a poem I really love. O'Hara, who was also an art critic and museum curator, had a major impact on American poetry during his time, and he's been an important influence on generations of poets since. You can't take a poetry writing workshop and not run into at least one O'Hara poem. He's funny; his language is striking and inventive; and his work isn't overcooked. Most people can find at least one O'Hara poem they like.
I quite enjoyed Meditations in an Emergency, if only because it's different from any other poetry books I've read in a while. It's obvious that some of my favorite contemporary poets - Jay Hopler and Richard Siken in particular - have read and internalized O'Hara's work, which edges up to the line of absurdity without fully going over it. O'Hara often gets lumped together with John Ashberry, and I'm not sure I like that comparison. Ashberry is a much-loved poet, but I've never enjoyed reading his work. O'Hara's writing, while similar, never feels quite as "out there." O'Hara knows how to be artistic without showing off, a feat I dont think Ashberry manages.
Anyway, this is great little collection. I probably wouldn't put O'Hara up there with Larkin or Apollinaire in terms of my poetry-worship, but I do think his work is quite wonderful. My favorite poems here include the title piece, "Mayakovsky," "To the Film Industry in Crisis," and "To the Harbormaster."
I should also add that reading this book makes me want to go out and read the work of the Russian/Soviet poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky, the namesake of the above-mentioned favorite poem and a huge influence on Frank O'Hara. Plus, his life was all kind of drama, a trait to which I can't help but be attracted.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
444 Pages Deep into American Poetry
Book Reviewed: Good Poems, American Places, selected by Garrison Keillor
Once or twice a week, I'm lucky enough to be the person who unloads the new books at my library branch. Library employees are not allowed to be the first people to check out new DVDs, but CDs and books are free game. Sometimes, I find a book I have to have, and I just sit around nervously until my break when I can finally check it out (I should also add that I am a holds-placing fanatic; nothing is better to me than when I get to be the first person to have something at the branch). That happened a couple weeks ago when we received a copy of the latest Garrison Keillor-edited collection from his Good Poems series. I am avid follower of Keillor's online Writer's Almanac, and even though Keillor's tastes are a little dull, it's a great place to find new poems. Good Poems, American Places is a long and fun anthology that introduced me to a lot of new stuff.
I read this collection in a week, which is no small task for a book of poetry of this size. It's not always easy to read a poetry collection straight through; I often just read a little bit here and there so as not to get overloaded. I read this one from cover to cover in long stretches of time. It has a good momentum as it goes on, which makes it an easy book to digest. Not everything in here is particularly exciting, and the same poets tend to get showcased over and over. Occasionally, though, you get something new and interesting. For example, there's a poem in this anthology by the poet son of my beloved college advisor. What a pleasant surprise!
The book is separated into categories based on theme or place. There's sections titled "City Life" and "On the Road." As I mentioned earlier, Keillor's tastes can run a little bland at times. He hand-picks a lot of new poets but only ones with a certain kind of traditional style (not that I should complain, being a traditionalist writer myself). You won't find anyone like Richard Siken or Jay Hopler here, unfortunately. I also found a lot of glaring omissions. There's a whole section on the West, but not a single poem by Richard Hugo, who writes some of the best place poems out there, particularly about the West. There's a lot of Midwestern poets, but no James Wright (from Ohio) or Maurice Manning (from Kentucky). Now, obviously, some of this is due to rights attainment and whatnot. But I couldn't help but miss what wasn't here.
Those complaints being registered, I can't say I didn't enjoy this anthology. I spent years only reading American literature, followed by years where I read everything but. Good Poems, American Places brings back to mind my former love for American lit. This book is a nice introduction to the world of American poetry, to its breadth and obsessions. If you are a fan of place poems (which, I should add, is my personal favorite kind of poetry), then this book should be on your must-read list. It also works as a great starter book for anyone who is tackling poetry for the first time. All the poems are easy to read and in plain language, making it a great book for beginning poetry readers.
To finish, here's a few of my favorites from this collection: Reid Bush's "Campbellsburg" (see Sunday's Poem of the Week), Wesley McNair's "Small Towns Are Passing," Davis Wagoner's "Bums at Breakfast," Stephen Dunn's "Midwest," Marie Howe's "The Game," Faith Shearin's "Fields," Linda Pastan's "25th High School Reunion," and William Carlos Williams's "Dedication for a Plot of Ground." I'm too lazy to post links to all these poems, but you can easily find them by using the search tool on the Writer's Almanac link posted above. Enjoy!
Once or twice a week, I'm lucky enough to be the person who unloads the new books at my library branch. Library employees are not allowed to be the first people to check out new DVDs, but CDs and books are free game. Sometimes, I find a book I have to have, and I just sit around nervously until my break when I can finally check it out (I should also add that I am a holds-placing fanatic; nothing is better to me than when I get to be the first person to have something at the branch). That happened a couple weeks ago when we received a copy of the latest Garrison Keillor-edited collection from his Good Poems series. I am avid follower of Keillor's online Writer's Almanac, and even though Keillor's tastes are a little dull, it's a great place to find new poems. Good Poems, American Places is a long and fun anthology that introduced me to a lot of new stuff.
I read this collection in a week, which is no small task for a book of poetry of this size. It's not always easy to read a poetry collection straight through; I often just read a little bit here and there so as not to get overloaded. I read this one from cover to cover in long stretches of time. It has a good momentum as it goes on, which makes it an easy book to digest. Not everything in here is particularly exciting, and the same poets tend to get showcased over and over. Occasionally, though, you get something new and interesting. For example, there's a poem in this anthology by the poet son of my beloved college advisor. What a pleasant surprise!
The book is separated into categories based on theme or place. There's sections titled "City Life" and "On the Road." As I mentioned earlier, Keillor's tastes can run a little bland at times. He hand-picks a lot of new poets but only ones with a certain kind of traditional style (not that I should complain, being a traditionalist writer myself). You won't find anyone like Richard Siken or Jay Hopler here, unfortunately. I also found a lot of glaring omissions. There's a whole section on the West, but not a single poem by Richard Hugo, who writes some of the best place poems out there, particularly about the West. There's a lot of Midwestern poets, but no James Wright (from Ohio) or Maurice Manning (from Kentucky). Now, obviously, some of this is due to rights attainment and whatnot. But I couldn't help but miss what wasn't here.
Those complaints being registered, I can't say I didn't enjoy this anthology. I spent years only reading American literature, followed by years where I read everything but. Good Poems, American Places brings back to mind my former love for American lit. This book is a nice introduction to the world of American poetry, to its breadth and obsessions. If you are a fan of place poems (which, I should add, is my personal favorite kind of poetry), then this book should be on your must-read list. It also works as a great starter book for anyone who is tackling poetry for the first time. All the poems are easy to read and in plain language, making it a great book for beginning poetry readers.
To finish, here's a few of my favorites from this collection: Reid Bush's "Campbellsburg" (see Sunday's Poem of the Week), Wesley McNair's "Small Towns Are Passing," Davis Wagoner's "Bums at Breakfast," Stephen Dunn's "Midwest," Marie Howe's "The Game," Faith Shearin's "Fields," Linda Pastan's "25th High School Reunion," and William Carlos Williams's "Dedication for a Plot of Ground." I'm too lazy to post links to all these poems, but you can easily find them by using the search tool on the Writer's Almanac link posted above. Enjoy!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
More Contemporary Poetry
Book Reviewed: The Common Man, by Maurice Manning
When I was writing up my review for Richard Siken's Crush last week, I realized just how important the Yale Series for Younger Poets has been in my contemporary poetry education. Siken, Jay Hopler, and Maurice Manning - three of my four favorite contemporary poets (Anne Carson being the other) - all had books that were chosen to be part of the series. If you're looking to get into contemporary poetry (an admittedly tough area to dive into by yourself), you really can't go wrong by picking up a book from the Series. Some are better than others, obviously, but there's a reason these books get chosen as the best fare from young poets in America. They are interesting and different and new. It really is a fantastic literary award.
Anyway, that's all a tangent of this review of Maurice Manning's latest book, The Common Man. All of Manning's books have a standalone structure that unites all the poems in the book. These interconnected poems tell a bigger story about a place or a person. I love Manning because of his 2007 collection, Bucolics, which was a series of poems about the relationship between the speaker - an ordinary farmer with a deep connection to nature - and God. It's an absolutely beautiful book full of original and meaningful images. The language is rooted in the speaker's southern rural voice, and all the images come from the land and its creatures. For anyone looking to get into poetry, it's one of the first I'd recommend.
So obviously, I was super-excited for The Common Man. At a reading Manning did at my alma mater a few years ago, he read some of these poems as he was working on them. These are poems about the world Manning knows best - rural Kentucky, where he was raised and still lives today. The poems seem to share a single speaker, someone who's lived in this world forever but has enough distance to look right at it and commentate on it. The language splits its time between being tried-and-true rural, full of expressions and sayings, and being a little removed from the world, a little bit more formal. I'm not sure that split between the language quite works here.
I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as I'd hoped. I still think Manning sets up settings and scenes better than just about any poet out there, but this book seems to lack whatever it was that made Bucolics so special. I think a major problem is the poetic forms. Every poem has the same two-line structure where lines bled into each other almost like prose. In fact, maybe a little too much like prose. With the exception of the interesting language and some of the profound moments of the best poems, this book isn't quite poetic enough. There doesn't seem to be a lot of reasoning between the line or stanza breaks. I felt pretty disconnected to a lot of the work here. It seems to be missing something essential.
That doesn't mean that the book is a failure, though. There are a few poems in here that were absolutely fantastic. Manning knows how to properly end his poems, and his endings often make the best poems here, poems like "The Pupil" and "Three Truths, One Story." For some reason, the book's second half was much better than the first half. The last few poems in the book explore life and death, spirituality and nature as well as anything in Bucolics. The language in these poems is heightened and the imagery is startling and lovely. There's also more of the poetic in these pieces. "The Burthen of the Mystery Indeed," "A Panegyric Against the Consolationof Grief," "Old-Time Preachin' on a Scripture Taken from a Tree," and the gorgeous "Where Sadness Comes From." My favorite, though, was the final poem, "The Common Man." It's a wonderful wrap-up to the entire book.
Looking back on the best poems of this collection is actually making me wonder if I haven't been a bit unkind to this book. After all, the poems I listed above are really something special. I just wish the rest of the book had lived up to them a bit more.
When I was writing up my review for Richard Siken's Crush last week, I realized just how important the Yale Series for Younger Poets has been in my contemporary poetry education. Siken, Jay Hopler, and Maurice Manning - three of my four favorite contemporary poets (Anne Carson being the other) - all had books that were chosen to be part of the series. If you're looking to get into contemporary poetry (an admittedly tough area to dive into by yourself), you really can't go wrong by picking up a book from the Series. Some are better than others, obviously, but there's a reason these books get chosen as the best fare from young poets in America. They are interesting and different and new. It really is a fantastic literary award.
Anyway, that's all a tangent of this review of Maurice Manning's latest book, The Common Man. All of Manning's books have a standalone structure that unites all the poems in the book. These interconnected poems tell a bigger story about a place or a person. I love Manning because of his 2007 collection, Bucolics, which was a series of poems about the relationship between the speaker - an ordinary farmer with a deep connection to nature - and God. It's an absolutely beautiful book full of original and meaningful images. The language is rooted in the speaker's southern rural voice, and all the images come from the land and its creatures. For anyone looking to get into poetry, it's one of the first I'd recommend.
So obviously, I was super-excited for The Common Man. At a reading Manning did at my alma mater a few years ago, he read some of these poems as he was working on them. These are poems about the world Manning knows best - rural Kentucky, where he was raised and still lives today. The poems seem to share a single speaker, someone who's lived in this world forever but has enough distance to look right at it and commentate on it. The language splits its time between being tried-and-true rural, full of expressions and sayings, and being a little removed from the world, a little bit more formal. I'm not sure that split between the language quite works here.
I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as I'd hoped. I still think Manning sets up settings and scenes better than just about any poet out there, but this book seems to lack whatever it was that made Bucolics so special. I think a major problem is the poetic forms. Every poem has the same two-line structure where lines bled into each other almost like prose. In fact, maybe a little too much like prose. With the exception of the interesting language and some of the profound moments of the best poems, this book isn't quite poetic enough. There doesn't seem to be a lot of reasoning between the line or stanza breaks. I felt pretty disconnected to a lot of the work here. It seems to be missing something essential.
That doesn't mean that the book is a failure, though. There are a few poems in here that were absolutely fantastic. Manning knows how to properly end his poems, and his endings often make the best poems here, poems like "The Pupil" and "Three Truths, One Story." For some reason, the book's second half was much better than the first half. The last few poems in the book explore life and death, spirituality and nature as well as anything in Bucolics. The language in these poems is heightened and the imagery is startling and lovely. There's also more of the poetic in these pieces. "The Burthen of the Mystery Indeed," "A Panegyric Against the Consolationof Grief," "Old-Time Preachin' on a Scripture Taken from a Tree," and the gorgeous "Where Sadness Comes From." My favorite, though, was the final poem, "The Common Man." It's a wonderful wrap-up to the entire book.
Looking back on the best poems of this collection is actually making me wonder if I haven't been a bit unkind to this book. After all, the poems I listed above are really something special. I just wish the rest of the book had lived up to them a bit more.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
So Good It Blew My Mind
Book Reviewed: Crush, by Richard Siken
Being a poetry enthusiast often means feeling alone. So many people have such strong feelings against poetry that it's not often worth convincing others of its inherent joys. My friends don't like poetry; my family wants nothing to do with it (unless, of course, I wrote it). When I read a great poem, there's really no one to share it with now that I'm out of college. Even when I was in school, it wasn't easy to find fellow poetry lovers.
That's why it's so wonderful to find a poetry friend. My junior year of college, I had a good friend who was a year older than me. We had a few things in common, but we didn't talk about our personal lives all that much. Instead, we were book friends. We set time aside to have lunch at least twice a week, and good writing filled our conversations. We bonded over a mutual obsession with Rainer Maria Rilke. This friend loved Rilke so much that she would memorize his poems and recite them on the spot. Whenever she read anything good, she told me about it. That's how I first encountered Richard Siken's debut book of poetry, Crush. She was assigned the book in a seminar, and she came to our lunch meeting one day and shoved an open page of the book at me. "You have to read this," she said. For years, the only things I remembered about that book were its front cover (and if you've seen it, it sticks with you) and a poem where the speaker claimed to be the dragon of his story. To this day, I remember those lines.
When I decided to immerse myself in good contemporary poetry this year, I went on a search to find this book again. Once I finally discovered who wrote it and what the tile was, I requested it from the library right away. And holy shit, am I glad I did. You guys, this book blew my mind.
I'm not sure what it is about Crush and Siken's writing that I love so much. The poems in it are quite different from the kind of thing I normally read. The imagery is very erotic, very violent, and very simple. But the whole thing is very intense and beautiful. A few of the poems made me gasp as I read them. This is as startling and gorgeous as contemporary poetry gets.
This book made a pretty big splash when it came out. It was named the 2005 pick for the Yale Series of Younger Poets (probably the most coveted poetry award in the United States, given only to debut poets under the age of forty). Critics loved it. Of course, its themes of homosexuality and obsession made some non-fans as well. For this reason, I wouldn't casually suggest this book to just anyone. But if you are a serious poetry lover, or if you want to read something that is just different from your normal picks, you have to pick this one up.
Only a couple times in my life have I read a book that physically pained me, the kind of book where you have to hold your chest to keep your heart from falling out. That's exactly how I reacted to some of Siken's poems. I loved loved loved Crush! In the last couple years, I've lost touch with my poetry-loving friend. But I will always think of her fondly for the sole reason that she introduced me to this book that made me remember why I read and write poetry.
Note: If you want a look at Siken for yourself, I suggest my favorite poem of his (the one with the dragon!), "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out." I'm not posting a specific link to it here because it's hard to find one where the poem is formatted right without spelling errors, but if you type the title in on Google, you can find the poem for yourself. Enjoy!
Being a poetry enthusiast often means feeling alone. So many people have such strong feelings against poetry that it's not often worth convincing others of its inherent joys. My friends don't like poetry; my family wants nothing to do with it (unless, of course, I wrote it). When I read a great poem, there's really no one to share it with now that I'm out of college. Even when I was in school, it wasn't easy to find fellow poetry lovers.
That's why it's so wonderful to find a poetry friend. My junior year of college, I had a good friend who was a year older than me. We had a few things in common, but we didn't talk about our personal lives all that much. Instead, we were book friends. We set time aside to have lunch at least twice a week, and good writing filled our conversations. We bonded over a mutual obsession with Rainer Maria Rilke. This friend loved Rilke so much that she would memorize his poems and recite them on the spot. Whenever she read anything good, she told me about it. That's how I first encountered Richard Siken's debut book of poetry, Crush. She was assigned the book in a seminar, and she came to our lunch meeting one day and shoved an open page of the book at me. "You have to read this," she said. For years, the only things I remembered about that book were its front cover (and if you've seen it, it sticks with you) and a poem where the speaker claimed to be the dragon of his story. To this day, I remember those lines.
When I decided to immerse myself in good contemporary poetry this year, I went on a search to find this book again. Once I finally discovered who wrote it and what the tile was, I requested it from the library right away. And holy shit, am I glad I did. You guys, this book blew my mind.
I'm not sure what it is about Crush and Siken's writing that I love so much. The poems in it are quite different from the kind of thing I normally read. The imagery is very erotic, very violent, and very simple. But the whole thing is very intense and beautiful. A few of the poems made me gasp as I read them. This is as startling and gorgeous as contemporary poetry gets.
This book made a pretty big splash when it came out. It was named the 2005 pick for the Yale Series of Younger Poets (probably the most coveted poetry award in the United States, given only to debut poets under the age of forty). Critics loved it. Of course, its themes of homosexuality and obsession made some non-fans as well. For this reason, I wouldn't casually suggest this book to just anyone. But if you are a serious poetry lover, or if you want to read something that is just different from your normal picks, you have to pick this one up.
Only a couple times in my life have I read a book that physically pained me, the kind of book where you have to hold your chest to keep your heart from falling out. That's exactly how I reacted to some of Siken's poems. I loved loved loved Crush! In the last couple years, I've lost touch with my poetry-loving friend. But I will always think of her fondly for the sole reason that she introduced me to this book that made me remember why I read and write poetry.
Note: If you want a look at Siken for yourself, I suggest my favorite poem of his (the one with the dragon!), "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out." I'm not posting a specific link to it here because it's hard to find one where the poem is formatted right without spelling errors, but if you type the title in on Google, you can find the poem for yourself. Enjoy!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Anne Carson: Still Awesome
Book Reviewed: Glass, Irony, and God, by Anne Carson
My first taste of Anne Carson came in a British Lit class. Carson is actually Canadian, but we were reading writers of the colonies, so she counted. Plus, my professor admitted he had a soft spot for Carson, which is just another reason why he's one of my favorite people. He had us read a brief section of the long poem that "made" Carson, "The Glass Essay." I remember liking it, but it took a couple more years for me to become a real Anne Carson addict.
Anyway, I finally got around to reading the whole "Glass Essay" in one of Carson's most important books, Glass, Irony, and God. It featurs several long, intricate poems and one academic essay. The essay, which ends the book, is titled "The Gender of Sound," and it got the feminist-y side of me all riled up. It's easy to see why Carson is such a respected classicist. Her work here, about the history of views towards women's voices and sounds, is fascinating and not at all stuffy. It made me miss reading this kind of stuff in college, actually.
Her poems aren't too shabby either. My least favorite was "The Truth About God," which felt sort of rambling and overbearing. Carson walks a fine line between her work being affective and being too preoccupied with abstract concepts without presenting interesting imagery to back it up. This is one of the latter, I'm sorry to say. The same goes for "Book of Isaiah." "The Fall of Rome," about feeling like a stranger in the city, has some lovely moments, particularly in its first half, but just didn't grab me.
In my favorite Carson book, Men in the Off Hours, she presents a set of poems called "TV Men," wherein famous figures (usually from classical mythology or history) are presented from the point of view of cameras and television production. They are complicated, bizarre pieces, not for the light of heart. But when they work, they are some of my favorite things to read. Carson has a couple of "TV Men" poems here, and the one featuring Hektor entertained the hell out of me. I seriously think I could spend hours at a time reading these "TV Men" poems.
The best poem, though, was the first one in the collection, the famous "Glass Essay." This essay-poem is complex and interesting, bringing together a lot of Carson's pet subjects in a smart and emotionally-satisfying way. The poem is about the painful end of a relationship for the writer, but it's also about her parents getting old. Carson looks at her life as a woman in contemporary society through the experience of reading and loving Emily Brontë. My favorite thing about Anne Carson is the way she writes about the experience of reading or admiring good writing. She understands that what we read colors our views of the world, and she's always playing with the dynamic of real life versus literary life. I adored "The Glass Essay" because of this exploration, and I could identify strongly with what she was saying. Seriously, this poem might be one of my favorite things I've read all year.
Usually, I would never recommend Anne Carson to a fellow reader because her stuff often comes off as too intellectually precious and self-indulgent. But "The Glass Essay" is easy to read and understand. Also, it's equally satisfying to the mind and the heart. If you are a Carson novice, or if she makes you nervous, you should check out "The Glass Essay."
My first taste of Anne Carson came in a British Lit class. Carson is actually Canadian, but we were reading writers of the colonies, so she counted. Plus, my professor admitted he had a soft spot for Carson, which is just another reason why he's one of my favorite people. He had us read a brief section of the long poem that "made" Carson, "The Glass Essay." I remember liking it, but it took a couple more years for me to become a real Anne Carson addict.
Anyway, I finally got around to reading the whole "Glass Essay" in one of Carson's most important books, Glass, Irony, and God. It featurs several long, intricate poems and one academic essay. The essay, which ends the book, is titled "The Gender of Sound," and it got the feminist-y side of me all riled up. It's easy to see why Carson is such a respected classicist. Her work here, about the history of views towards women's voices and sounds, is fascinating and not at all stuffy. It made me miss reading this kind of stuff in college, actually.
Her poems aren't too shabby either. My least favorite was "The Truth About God," which felt sort of rambling and overbearing. Carson walks a fine line between her work being affective and being too preoccupied with abstract concepts without presenting interesting imagery to back it up. This is one of the latter, I'm sorry to say. The same goes for "Book of Isaiah." "The Fall of Rome," about feeling like a stranger in the city, has some lovely moments, particularly in its first half, but just didn't grab me.
In my favorite Carson book, Men in the Off Hours, she presents a set of poems called "TV Men," wherein famous figures (usually from classical mythology or history) are presented from the point of view of cameras and television production. They are complicated, bizarre pieces, not for the light of heart. But when they work, they are some of my favorite things to read. Carson has a couple of "TV Men" poems here, and the one featuring Hektor entertained the hell out of me. I seriously think I could spend hours at a time reading these "TV Men" poems.
The best poem, though, was the first one in the collection, the famous "Glass Essay." This essay-poem is complex and interesting, bringing together a lot of Carson's pet subjects in a smart and emotionally-satisfying way. The poem is about the painful end of a relationship for the writer, but it's also about her parents getting old. Carson looks at her life as a woman in contemporary society through the experience of reading and loving Emily Brontë. My favorite thing about Anne Carson is the way she writes about the experience of reading or admiring good writing. She understands that what we read colors our views of the world, and she's always playing with the dynamic of real life versus literary life. I adored "The Glass Essay" because of this exploration, and I could identify strongly with what she was saying. Seriously, this poem might be one of my favorite things I've read all year.
Usually, I would never recommend Anne Carson to a fellow reader because her stuff often comes off as too intellectually precious and self-indulgent. But "The Glass Essay" is easy to read and understand. Also, it's equally satisfying to the mind and the heart. If you are a Carson novice, or if she makes you nervous, you should check out "The Glass Essay."
Monday, November 8, 2010
A Little Boring
Book Reviewed: Human Chain, by Seamus Heaney
This is a little depressing for me to write, since I used to be a huge Seamus Heaney fan. For a year or so during college, before I discovered Rilke and had my mind blown, Heaney was my favorite poet. I've always loved his language and sense of place, and I adore my copy of his selected poems. When the library put his new book of poetry on order in September, I quickly put a copy on hold. And you know what? I was kind of disappointed.
To be honest, I felt mostly bored while reading this collection. The usual Heaney trademarks were there - the beautiful words and sounds, the precise lines, the descriptions of the land - but nothing here held much of a spark for me. I don't think it's necessarily Heaney's fault, as he's doing what he's always done in this book. But I've developed a different kind of taste in my poetry reading lately, going for stuff that packs more of a punch at the first reading. This year, I've been devouring Wallace Stevens and Charles Simic, who are extremely different from Heaney. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for this new Heaney book, and I'm not sure I ever will be again.
If you like Heaney, definitely give this book a shot. There's a reason he's a Nobel laureate and the face of poetry in the late 20th century. He's still a genius. But lately, he's a genius who kind of bores me. Except for a poem here called "Wraiths," which I really loved. That one's a keeper.
This is a little depressing for me to write, since I used to be a huge Seamus Heaney fan. For a year or so during college, before I discovered Rilke and had my mind blown, Heaney was my favorite poet. I've always loved his language and sense of place, and I adore my copy of his selected poems. When the library put his new book of poetry on order in September, I quickly put a copy on hold. And you know what? I was kind of disappointed.
To be honest, I felt mostly bored while reading this collection. The usual Heaney trademarks were there - the beautiful words and sounds, the precise lines, the descriptions of the land - but nothing here held much of a spark for me. I don't think it's necessarily Heaney's fault, as he's doing what he's always done in this book. But I've developed a different kind of taste in my poetry reading lately, going for stuff that packs more of a punch at the first reading. This year, I've been devouring Wallace Stevens and Charles Simic, who are extremely different from Heaney. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for this new Heaney book, and I'm not sure I ever will be again.
If you like Heaney, definitely give this book a shot. There's a reason he's a Nobel laureate and the face of poetry in the late 20th century. He's still a genius. But lately, he's a genius who kind of bores me. Except for a poem here called "Wraiths," which I really loved. That one's a keeper.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Addictive Poetry
Book Reviewed: Sixty Poems, by Charles Simic
Despite my love for poetry as a whole, there are only a handful of poets I find addictive. I'm talking about poets whose work is so easy and wonderful to read that I can sit and read an entire book of theirs before I even realize I'm doing it. I feel this way about Guillaume Apollinaire, Philip Larkin, and Maurice Manning. Now, I'm adding Charles Simic to the list.
I already liked Simic a great deal after seeing him do a reading at Butler University a couple years ago. But when I picked up Sixty Poems on a whim at the library last week, I wasn't expecting to devour it so quickly or with such joy. Simic is a ridiculously good poet. His imagery is sharp and original, but even at its most absurd it never feels obtuse. His language is clear and descriptive. I had heard or read a few of the poems in this book before, and I still found myself enjoying every single one of these sixty pieces.
I've figured out what makes certain poets' books addictive. It's the point of view. All of the poets I find the most readable are the ones who have a very distinctive point of view. It makes their books flow from one poem to another, following the patterns of a novel rather than a collection. Simic's background experiences as a child of World War II, as an immigrant, and as a city dweller connect in the singular voice in his work. Once I started the book, I had to keep going in order to get further inside his authorial headspace. With Simic, that is a very fun place to be.
This is a great collection of poetry, and I think I'm going to start recommending Simic to non-poetry readers. He's very easy to get into, but his work pays back in dividends once you get to know it.
Despite my love for poetry as a whole, there are only a handful of poets I find addictive. I'm talking about poets whose work is so easy and wonderful to read that I can sit and read an entire book of theirs before I even realize I'm doing it. I feel this way about Guillaume Apollinaire, Philip Larkin, and Maurice Manning. Now, I'm adding Charles Simic to the list.
I already liked Simic a great deal after seeing him do a reading at Butler University a couple years ago. But when I picked up Sixty Poems on a whim at the library last week, I wasn't expecting to devour it so quickly or with such joy. Simic is a ridiculously good poet. His imagery is sharp and original, but even at its most absurd it never feels obtuse. His language is clear and descriptive. I had heard or read a few of the poems in this book before, and I still found myself enjoying every single one of these sixty pieces.
I've figured out what makes certain poets' books addictive. It's the point of view. All of the poets I find the most readable are the ones who have a very distinctive point of view. It makes their books flow from one poem to another, following the patterns of a novel rather than a collection. Simic's background experiences as a child of World War II, as an immigrant, and as a city dweller connect in the singular voice in his work. Once I started the book, I had to keep going in order to get further inside his authorial headspace. With Simic, that is a very fun place to be.
This is a great collection of poetry, and I think I'm going to start recommending Simic to non-poetry readers. He's very easy to get into, but his work pays back in dividends once you get to know it.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Flower Power
Book Reviewed: Selected Poems, by Amy Lowell (edited with introduction by Honor Moore)
Despite being a pretty popular poet and a Pulitzer Prize winner in her own time, Amy Lowell is probably more famous for being related to Robert Lowell, one of the biggest poets of the 20th century. I always thought this was kind of annoying (not to mention sexist), so I decided to try Amy's poems myself.
To be honest, I think I might be more of a Robert Lowell person. His poetry is so hyper-intelligent and obsessed with history and the bizarre aspects of life that I can't help but like it. Amy Lowell's work is more personal and internal, which made for some great reading. But in the end, only a handful of her poems stood out to me.
Why is this? Well, I blame it on the flowers.
There are a lot of flowers in these poems. Everytime I opened to a page, I was choked with their scents. Granted, in many of Lowell's poems - particularly her later work - the flowers stood for other things: emotions, sexuality, life and death. Poem to poem, this would not have bothered me. But because I read an entire book of these poems from end to end, it made it a little hard to take after awhile. If it hadn't been for all the flowers and gardens, I probably would have liked Amy Lowell's Selected Poems quite a bit more.
This isn't to say that Amy Lowell isn't a great poet. She is. Despite all these poems being from the first two decades of the 20th century, they are among some of the more erotically-charged poetry I've ever read. Feminine power and sexuality is on full display here, although it's hidden inside the language and subject choice. Reading this book, I was consistently impressed by how "out there" Lowell managed to be at times. Her translations of Chinese poetry and the her own poems that that poetry inspired were my favorites in the collection. Lowell knows how to turn a phrase. And holy crap, does she know how to rock verbs. I am always amazed by how good some writers are at using particular aspects of language to their advantage, and Lowell is a great example of this. Her work can be violent, erotic, or emotional just based on her verb choices or her graphic turns of phrase.
Over all, I am glad I read Amy Lowell. She's an important poet who should never be overlooked in exchange for her more famous relative. Plus, she had fightin' words with Ezra Pound, for which I am always a fan (if I could go back and punch any famous writer in the face, Pound is pretty high on my list). It's too bad she had me - a non-flower person - as a reader.
Despite being a pretty popular poet and a Pulitzer Prize winner in her own time, Amy Lowell is probably more famous for being related to Robert Lowell, one of the biggest poets of the 20th century. I always thought this was kind of annoying (not to mention sexist), so I decided to try Amy's poems myself.
To be honest, I think I might be more of a Robert Lowell person. His poetry is so hyper-intelligent and obsessed with history and the bizarre aspects of life that I can't help but like it. Amy Lowell's work is more personal and internal, which made for some great reading. But in the end, only a handful of her poems stood out to me.
Why is this? Well, I blame it on the flowers.
There are a lot of flowers in these poems. Everytime I opened to a page, I was choked with their scents. Granted, in many of Lowell's poems - particularly her later work - the flowers stood for other things: emotions, sexuality, life and death. Poem to poem, this would not have bothered me. But because I read an entire book of these poems from end to end, it made it a little hard to take after awhile. If it hadn't been for all the flowers and gardens, I probably would have liked Amy Lowell's Selected Poems quite a bit more.
This isn't to say that Amy Lowell isn't a great poet. She is. Despite all these poems being from the first two decades of the 20th century, they are among some of the more erotically-charged poetry I've ever read. Feminine power and sexuality is on full display here, although it's hidden inside the language and subject choice. Reading this book, I was consistently impressed by how "out there" Lowell managed to be at times. Her translations of Chinese poetry and the her own poems that that poetry inspired were my favorites in the collection. Lowell knows how to turn a phrase. And holy crap, does she know how to rock verbs. I am always amazed by how good some writers are at using particular aspects of language to their advantage, and Lowell is a great example of this. Her work can be violent, erotic, or emotional just based on her verb choices or her graphic turns of phrase.
Over all, I am glad I read Amy Lowell. She's an important poet who should never be overlooked in exchange for her more famous relative. Plus, she had fightin' words with Ezra Pound, for which I am always a fan (if I could go back and punch any famous writer in the face, Pound is pretty high on my list). It's too bad she had me - a non-flower person - as a reader.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
A Rare Thing in Poetry
Book Reviewed: Alcools: Poems 1898-1913, by Guillame Apollinaire (Translated by Frances Steegmuller)
Obviously, I love poetry. But reading poetry is very different from reading fiction. When I start a novel or a collection of short stories, I can't stop myself from going forward. I plow through the book until the very end. I find that nearly impossible to do with books of poetry. I tend to take them slow, reading a couple poems per day. It often takes me a month or more to read a book of poetry. But every once in a while, I find a collection that becomes compulsive reading. I start and I can't stop until every page has been obliterated.
The quasi-symbolist French poet Guillaume Apollinaire never fails to give me that experience. When I bought his long book of poems related to his World War I experience, Calligrammes, in Chicago a couple years ago, I moved through it so fast that I was half-done by the time my train arrived in South Bend two hours later. I loved Calligrammes; it's definitely one of my favorite single-volume poetry books. So when I had access to the book that came before it, Alcools: Poems 1989-1913, I had to get it.
I wasn't disappointed. I didn't enjoy Alcools as much as Calligrammes, but I still found it super readable. Obviously, part of this is due to the translator, who is surprisingly good at attempting to follow Apollinaire's rhyme schemes and patterns of speech. Apollinaire is famous for being a very symbol-heavy poet, but unlike a lot of poets who do the same, he never gets bogged down in the strange images and weird line shifts. Instead, he manages to keep the humanity and language intact while still coming up with surprising details and language. He's got a lot to teach me as a poet.
The poems I enjoyed the most in this collection included his most famous poem, "Mirabeau Bridge," as well as "Song of the Poorly Loved," "The Farewell," "The Voyager," and "Sick Autumn." But without a doubt, my favorite poem in this collection is the long and weird "House of the Dead." In a World Poetry class a few years back, a professor spent half a class hour on Halloween reading us this poem in its entirety. Its images of the dead returning to hang out with the living are bizarre but also very beautiful. The dead and living mingle, fall in love. And then Apollinaire sticks in a killer of a last line (which I'm not going to give away here). It's just one of those poems that haunts me. Before I read it this week, it had been three years since I'd first heard it that day in class. But I still knew the stanzas with the dead boy proposing to the live girl, and I definitely had the ending memorized. And that's why I love and continue to read poetry. For experiences like that.
Obviously, I love poetry. But reading poetry is very different from reading fiction. When I start a novel or a collection of short stories, I can't stop myself from going forward. I plow through the book until the very end. I find that nearly impossible to do with books of poetry. I tend to take them slow, reading a couple poems per day. It often takes me a month or more to read a book of poetry. But every once in a while, I find a collection that becomes compulsive reading. I start and I can't stop until every page has been obliterated.
The quasi-symbolist French poet Guillaume Apollinaire never fails to give me that experience. When I bought his long book of poems related to his World War I experience, Calligrammes, in Chicago a couple years ago, I moved through it so fast that I was half-done by the time my train arrived in South Bend two hours later. I loved Calligrammes; it's definitely one of my favorite single-volume poetry books. So when I had access to the book that came before it, Alcools: Poems 1989-1913, I had to get it.
I wasn't disappointed. I didn't enjoy Alcools as much as Calligrammes, but I still found it super readable. Obviously, part of this is due to the translator, who is surprisingly good at attempting to follow Apollinaire's rhyme schemes and patterns of speech. Apollinaire is famous for being a very symbol-heavy poet, but unlike a lot of poets who do the same, he never gets bogged down in the strange images and weird line shifts. Instead, he manages to keep the humanity and language intact while still coming up with surprising details and language. He's got a lot to teach me as a poet.
The poems I enjoyed the most in this collection included his most famous poem, "Mirabeau Bridge," as well as "Song of the Poorly Loved," "The Farewell," "The Voyager," and "Sick Autumn." But without a doubt, my favorite poem in this collection is the long and weird "House of the Dead." In a World Poetry class a few years back, a professor spent half a class hour on Halloween reading us this poem in its entirety. Its images of the dead returning to hang out with the living are bizarre but also very beautiful. The dead and living mingle, fall in love. And then Apollinaire sticks in a killer of a last line (which I'm not going to give away here). It's just one of those poems that haunts me. Before I read it this week, it had been three years since I'd first heard it that day in class. But I still knew the stanzas with the dead boy proposing to the live girl, and I definitely had the ending memorized. And that's why I love and continue to read poetry. For experiences like that.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Anne Carson Might Be Too Smart for Me
Book reviewed: The Beauty of the Husband, by Anne Carson
According to its cover, Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband is "a fictional essay in 29 tangos." A series of poems about the marriage and divorce between the female speaker and her adulterous husband, the book is as complicated as any of Carson's other works. Using Keat's philosophy of "beauty as truth," Carson creates a picture of a failed relationship with snapshots ("tangos") of moments and emotion. The whole thing is kind of like a puzzle largely open to interpretation, playing with emotions but forcing the reader to come to her own moral judgments. Luckily, I've read a lot of Anne Carson before I read this book. Otherwise, I might have been pretty lost.
As you might remember from past Carson reviews I've posted here, I'm a huge fan of the way she uses verse to blend literary tradition into the contemporary world. Her book Autobiography of Red is a modern retelling of a Greek myth, and it works wonderfully. Unfortunately, I found that The Beauty of the Husband lacked the pathos and attention to image that defined Red. Instead, we get a lot of language and memory and leftover feelings. The rawness of love and betrayal were missing for me.
I liked the book well enough. Occasionally, a moment or line really wowed me, particularly in the moments shared between the speaker and her unfaithful ex's best friend, Ray. I felt like Carson had all the tools and did exactly what she set out to do. But for me, the emotional satisfaction I hope to find in good poetry just wasn't totally there. And because Carson has the tendency to be a tad too intellectual at times, the language wasn't graceful or arresting enough to make up for that.
Anyway, it's a decent book of poetry that I definitely didn't regret reading. I just plain didn't like it as much as some of Carson's other work. I like what she does. But sometimes, I think she might be a little too smart for me.
According to its cover, Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband is "a fictional essay in 29 tangos." A series of poems about the marriage and divorce between the female speaker and her adulterous husband, the book is as complicated as any of Carson's other works. Using Keat's philosophy of "beauty as truth," Carson creates a picture of a failed relationship with snapshots ("tangos") of moments and emotion. The whole thing is kind of like a puzzle largely open to interpretation, playing with emotions but forcing the reader to come to her own moral judgments. Luckily, I've read a lot of Anne Carson before I read this book. Otherwise, I might have been pretty lost.
As you might remember from past Carson reviews I've posted here, I'm a huge fan of the way she uses verse to blend literary tradition into the contemporary world. Her book Autobiography of Red is a modern retelling of a Greek myth, and it works wonderfully. Unfortunately, I found that The Beauty of the Husband lacked the pathos and attention to image that defined Red. Instead, we get a lot of language and memory and leftover feelings. The rawness of love and betrayal were missing for me.
I liked the book well enough. Occasionally, a moment or line really wowed me, particularly in the moments shared between the speaker and her unfaithful ex's best friend, Ray. I felt like Carson had all the tools and did exactly what she set out to do. But for me, the emotional satisfaction I hope to find in good poetry just wasn't totally there. And because Carson has the tendency to be a tad too intellectual at times, the language wasn't graceful or arresting enough to make up for that.
Anyway, it's a decent book of poetry that I definitely didn't regret reading. I just plain didn't like it as much as some of Carson's other work. I like what she does. But sometimes, I think she might be a little too smart for me.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
An Appropriate End to Poetry Month
Poetry Month is coming to an end. Obviously, every month is Poetry Month in Bethland, but it always makes me a little sad to see the only month that most people pay attention to poetry disappear. Oh well. Anyway, I finished two books this week that were very appropriate for the end of April.
First up, Jay Parini's recent, brief critical look at the importance of the art, Why Poetry Matters. I really enjoyed this book. I sometimes joke that I wish I could hand people a pile of books that would help them understand me better (like Judy Blume's Superfudge because it's a perfect look at life as an oldest child and Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar, which I identified with a little too much in high school). This would definitely be one of those books. It's a great look at the art of poetry and perfectly describes what draws both readers and writers to the genre. At times, I was a little frustrated with the fact that Parini basically repeats ideas from the same handful of poets (he's a big fan of Frost, a poet I could easily live without - sorry; but no mention at all of Larkin, one of the most celebrated poets in 20th century English?!?!). In fact, the last chapter is just a critical explanation of why Parini loves T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (again, I think Eliot is an important poet, but he's always gotten under my skin in a bad way for some reason; the misogyny, perhaps?). But the rest of the book - particularly the first chapter, which is simply titled "Defending Poetry" - is a lovely and well-written look at what makes poetry such a pleasure for so many. As a lover of words, it's hard not to give Parini credit for the way he sees poetry as the purest form of engagement with language. That's actually the reason I write poetry; because of my need to be inside language, fully immersed in it. I don't think prose has the ability to do that in quite the same way.
I know lots of people don't like poetry. And to be honest, it took me a long time before I came to appreciate it. It's something you have to spend a lot of time with initially before you can become a casual reader (and I'm definitely just a casual reader of poetry, even though I consider myself a poet). But for those of us who do like it, we can't really imagine life without it. I can't really explain why I love poetry any better than what Parini says in the introduction to this book:
Poets write in the line of prophecy, and their work teaches us how to live. The language of poetry, when properly absorbed, becomes part of our private vocabulary, our way of moving through the world. Poetry matters, and without it we can live only partially, not fully conscious of the possibilities (emotional and intellectual) that life affords.
Throughout Why Poetry Matters, Parini often quotes one of his favorite poets, Wallace Stevens. So it's quite the coincidence that I've been reading Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium, this month. I finally finished it this week. Quite frankly, I was pretty blown away. I used to hate Stevens. I hated the abstraction, the weirdness, my inability to understand it. To be frank, I still don't get it. But holy crap, do I love the way he says it! His work is bizarre, but underneath the startling imagery and language, there's a strange beauty and engagement with the world. More so than any other poet I've been reading lately (Anne Carson, W.H. Auden, Robert Lowell, etc.), Stevens is a master of the image. The way he connects words with images is really quite amazing. I don't fully understand Stevens all the time, but it hardly matters when he does what he does with such coolness.
First up, Jay Parini's recent, brief critical look at the importance of the art, Why Poetry Matters. I really enjoyed this book. I sometimes joke that I wish I could hand people a pile of books that would help them understand me better (like Judy Blume's Superfudge because it's a perfect look at life as an oldest child and Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar, which I identified with a little too much in high school). This would definitely be one of those books. It's a great look at the art of poetry and perfectly describes what draws both readers and writers to the genre. At times, I was a little frustrated with the fact that Parini basically repeats ideas from the same handful of poets (he's a big fan of Frost, a poet I could easily live without - sorry; but no mention at all of Larkin, one of the most celebrated poets in 20th century English?!?!). In fact, the last chapter is just a critical explanation of why Parini loves T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (again, I think Eliot is an important poet, but he's always gotten under my skin in a bad way for some reason; the misogyny, perhaps?). But the rest of the book - particularly the first chapter, which is simply titled "Defending Poetry" - is a lovely and well-written look at what makes poetry such a pleasure for so many. As a lover of words, it's hard not to give Parini credit for the way he sees poetry as the purest form of engagement with language. That's actually the reason I write poetry; because of my need to be inside language, fully immersed in it. I don't think prose has the ability to do that in quite the same way.
I know lots of people don't like poetry. And to be honest, it took me a long time before I came to appreciate it. It's something you have to spend a lot of time with initially before you can become a casual reader (and I'm definitely just a casual reader of poetry, even though I consider myself a poet). But for those of us who do like it, we can't really imagine life without it. I can't really explain why I love poetry any better than what Parini says in the introduction to this book:
Poets write in the line of prophecy, and their work teaches us how to live. The language of poetry, when properly absorbed, becomes part of our private vocabulary, our way of moving through the world. Poetry matters, and without it we can live only partially, not fully conscious of the possibilities (emotional and intellectual) that life affords.
Throughout Why Poetry Matters, Parini often quotes one of his favorite poets, Wallace Stevens. So it's quite the coincidence that I've been reading Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium, this month. I finally finished it this week. Quite frankly, I was pretty blown away. I used to hate Stevens. I hated the abstraction, the weirdness, my inability to understand it. To be frank, I still don't get it. But holy crap, do I love the way he says it! His work is bizarre, but underneath the startling imagery and language, there's a strange beauty and engagement with the world. More so than any other poet I've been reading lately (Anne Carson, W.H. Auden, Robert Lowell, etc.), Stevens is a master of the image. The way he connects words with images is really quite amazing. I don't fully understand Stevens all the time, but it hardly matters when he does what he does with such coolness.
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