About
Public Poetry, Kevin Walzer's meditations on poetry, publishing, business, and other creative pursuits
Your Host
Kevin Walzer, a poet, poetry publisher, husband, and father.
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Get a syndicated feed of my weblog.
Archives
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Categories
Books
Business
Poetry
Publishing
Thu, 18 May 2006
Book of the Day: The River of Forgetfulness by Rachel Hadas
It's a bit embarassing to say, but when it comes to Rachel Hadas, I'm a fan. I first wrote about her work more than a decade ago as a reviewer for a literary journal, then wrote about her in more depth for my critical book The Ghost of Tradition: Expansive Poetry and Postmodernism. Hadas is one of the leading lights of New Formalism, and her work--steeped in her knowledge of classical Greek and Latin, formally experimental within its metrical traditions, and graceful in its attentiveness to the particulars of everyday life--is substantial in its achievement.
Imagine my pleasure and surprise, then, when we receieved an inquiry from Hadas about looking at her newest manuscript. It took little time to get the manuscript in hand, and only a little more time to accept it.
The River of Forgetfulness, Hadas' new book, is of a piece with her earlier work. Ranging across a variety of themes, she writes with elegance and erudition, but also emotional richness. Here is a sample poem:
Neolithic Figurine, Spetses Archaeological MuseumWinged, bronze, two inches tall or less;
embodied stillness brimming with repose;
you have no feet, but at your pedestal
lie a row of slim bronze objects all
like you unlabelled: skewer, spoon, and snake,
what looks to be a zipper pull; fishhook—
each clearly fashioned by a human hand
for some earthly purpose. But you stand
perpendicularly poised for flight,
arms ready to reach out and wings to beat.
Pawn-sized messenger and angel too,
your energy compressed inside of you
for two millennia, with what look to be
both tenderness and generosity
(the tiny tilted head, the earnest gaze)—
I trust you, though you haven’t any face.
Though you could fit into a toddler’s hand,
I write in the belief you understand,
and greet you, goddess, there in your glass case
upstairs in a Spetsiot captain’s house.
Where were you on this island before that?
Before, before . . . how many summers’ heat?
June, July, August: centuries go by.
From your corner can you see the sky?
It's a real pleasure to bring Hadas' latest collection to the public.