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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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Thu, 26 Oct 2006
Book of the Day: Madonna Magdelene by Kim Garcia
When I first read Madonna Magdalene by Kim Garcia, the book impressed me for its unusual combination of sensuality and intelligence. That is not faint praise. Many books of poems today strive to impress, or even overwhelm, the reader with their intelligence--the author's effortless command of language, of philosophical nuance, of narrative depth. And many books strive to appeal to the reader's heart, through emotional power, through sensory appeals, and so on.
What distinguishes Garcia's work is the degree to which it combines meticulous research--the book makes extensive use of Biblical stories, historical narrative, and other materials in re-creating the voices of the poems' protagonists--with the emotional impact of those stories.
Consider the book's title poem:
Madonna Magdalene
Place here the virgin in her Easter petals,
the ladder of green leaves, the open throat.
I was reading; my lamp was full. A bird
entered the room, and knocked the walls
with bright wings, drunk on sky-mindedness.
Here the story of my shame, pictured
above its tight band of explanation
no one reads. Here the stink
of animal dung on straw. Here milk,
and thorn to suck, the splintering nail.
Water to wine, we were stained
and intoxicated. Do as Love tells you.
Praise virginity lost, slow and conscious
as a strip tease. Layer by layer,
let it be done unto us. Again and again.
The story here literally comes alive, as the layers of abstraction--philosophical and poetic--are peeled away, "layer by layer," as the poem--and the reader--is brought from the mind to the body. Garcia's move here is powerful, effective, and entirely characteristic of her work.