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Public Poetry, Kevin Walzer's meditations on poetry, publishing, business, and other creative pursuits
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Kevin Walzer, a poet, poetry publisher, husband, and father.
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Tue, 17 Oct 2006
Book of the Day: Beholding Eye by Grace Bauer
Reading Grace Bauer's Beholding Eye, I found myself drawn again and again into Bauer's narratives of artists and subjects, lyrics about paintings, and the artistic life--and I was drawn into deep consideration about the nature of art itself, the relationship between representation and the external world, between story and the world, whether that story is rendered in paint or in words.
Signora Gioconda Tires of Sitting for the Master
Once, after dinner, my husband
was speaking—of business,
some prediction of weather—I forget—
I was lost in a thought of my own—
but I recall his anger,
how it flared when he saw me
not quite there. He struck me then
and cursed my stupid grin,
yet now he squanders gold to have you
make a likeness of it. Oh, he cares
little for art or me, but he knows
of your renown and desires to possess
a token of it—a well-wrought
adornment to grace his empty wall.
He will approve of the way you have
composed me—the demurely folded
arms, barely visible veils,
the muted tones of my garments—
which will go well with his favorite chair.
The size he’ll find convenient,
easy to hang in that perfect niche
where his friends will notice and admire—
will it be me or you?
But the expression you have given me,
I fear that may annoy him. He’ll wish
I looked more dignified, closer to his
image of the proper noble’s wife.
He’ll imagine it’s another
of my daydreams that lies behind
the distance in my eyes.
I tell you this to ease the hesitation
that I see in yours, the trembling
in your fingers I noticed when you rearranged
my hair. I think you, too, feel this
portrait may be more that mere commission.
If my husband asks, I will tell him
of the minstrels you employed to entertain
and keep me still, of the pretty boys
who mill about the studio, eager
to satisfy your whims, of the smell
of turpentine and oil that permeates
the rooms, the light that streams through
each window, as if you had drawn it there.
He will never question these stories,
though he will never understand
how little they explain.
He may be astute enough to recognize
that something has been captured here,
but he will never name exactly what it is.
He’ll call it—cunning, mystery, bemusement—
let him call it what he will.
His soul, I think, could use a bit of wonder.
So forget about your patron, your boys,
the whole damned world. The peaks
you’ve sketched in the distance may
exist where love will take us.
Pour some wine, dear Leonardo.
Admit this work is good. Come and lie down
with the legend you have made.
This dramatic monologue encompasses several complex questions about representation and art, while also rendering a memorable character in its own right. Such poems are characteristic of Beholding Eye, and make this an especially compelling collection by Bauer.
Book of the Day: Letter from the Lawn by Bobbi Lurie
Bobbi Lurie's The Book I Never Read was one of the earliest books that Lori and I published. It was a remarkable collection of poems; Lurie's work, with an eye for the absolutely lucid image, is as quiet and spare as a whisper in an empty room. Yet her poems, understated as they are, can be emotionally devastating.
Letter from the Lawn, Lurie's second book, is as powerful as her first. In this new collection the poet focuses less attention on family, a theme that recurred throughout her first book, and more on the external contexts of suburban family life, both natural and social:
Only at Dusk Is It Possible to Love the Landscape
cows chewing their cud/ backlit/ burnished view of the netherworld at
dusk/ eternity is the landscape’s theme/ part of the wheat rising
through cooling sun/ corn stalks/ thoughts keeping time to the
cacophony of language from the insects/ cicadas/ mosquitoes/ the
peskiness of the pestilence does not bother me at this hour.
the walls of my efficient kitchen are papered in prettiness. the
prettiness of the kitchen increases when i think of the neighbors who
hate us. the hatred of the neighbors can be felt through the windows of
the kitchen. i gaze into their opinionated houses and tool sheds.
i dread the days.
the nights so fearfully quiet.
Letter From The Lawn
Dear Green,
I sit in the back with my book.
Without words rising up, I’d be stuck
with just these lawn chairs and the shrieking gardening machinery:
mowers, edgers, wedging the patches of grass into segments.
The separateness is so intense.
Love,
B.
"The separateness is so intense." That is Lurie's poetic credo. While her poems are deeply introspective, they are never introverted: the world never escapes her notice, and we never fail to feel the intensity of her gaze.