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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, 10 Jun 2008
Book of the Day: Flats and Riots by Michelle Stoner
The poems of Michelle Stoner's Flats and Riots are highly charged, even erotic, in their close attention to physical things.
Consider "Like Me":
Like Me
You're like me: amazed
when I don't hate
science
fiction,
amazed by physics
and her chemical brain;
like me in small tightening skin,
flat some days,
ethereal depths and riots
others
sun turns me
and the name of adventure
exotic messages sent
along untapped wires
like me.
Moving effortlessly between the abstract ("physics/and her chemical brain") and the physical ("like me in small tightening skin"), this poem draws unexpected connections. Stoner, with great economy, makes great leaps.
Book of the Day: How to Make a Mummy by Mike Smith
In reading How to Make a Mummy by Mike Smith, I often found myself chuckling or even laughing out loud. Smith guides us on a comic romp through history and contemporary culture, with a sharp eye for absurdity.
Consider this poem:
Tips for a Traveler in the Land of Giants
Not daylight, but a single bulb
hanging above, its brightness
a finger in the window frame's
smallest crevice...
You wake there to singing, lovers
bathing in a tub so large you squint
to see its far side. Start to step,
and everything
is soaked and slippery. Remember,
size counts, and you've yet to learn
what hazards even the smallest room
can hold. So when
they get to their feet, avert your eyes,
or thinking your wildest fantasy's
within your reach, and blinded by light
reflecting off their skin,
you'll tumble right over the sill.
(Once alone, vault the sink
with a toothbrush to reach the soap dish
and get a drink.)
Do not explore. That glistening razor,
sloppily perched, is always a danger,
and their falling towels may seem
a pleasant way
to go, but you can't think like that.
In fact, better not think
at all; it will only lengthen
the loneliness.
Slink, instead, between the slats of the vent
behind the sphinx-toilet. The trip
is hours long, but you're safe there.
The weather's temperate,
and they don't have pets. So get some sleep,
and in order not to feel the passing
pace of every fugitive
moment, tell yourself
that though morning is miles above you
where you are, it is happening
for someone,
somewhere.
This poem looks at a familiar landscape--the bathroom--with a strikingly fresh perspective. Seeing old things in a new way is the heart of Smith's distinctive vision.
Book of the Day: Theban Traffic by Walter Bargen
Walter Bargen's Theban Traffic is an adventurous book, retelling ancient myth in a contemporary narrative context in the mode of prose poems. I found the poems brisk and entertaining.
Here's a sample of Bargen's technique at work:
New Waves on Old Water
Stella travels two thousand miles to sweep up the dust of another relative. Whole mountain ranges pass below her quicker than dreams. She perches on the edge of a continent.
Because they cannot see each other, they cannot exchange diseases though the distant unease is worse. Though they cannot share a bottle of wine their separate glasses overflow with a blush of light. There is a smeared stain in the air like a burning city. Over the phone, he hears her say that's the sun setting over the Pacific.
The trees drop all their leaves. Each leaf falls into its own winter. They heap up words so the fire will thaw whatever has frozen. They throw children in and see how brightly they burn: one in Mexico, one repeatedly breaking his collar bone like a twig of kindling. Another crosses borders, not to flee old wars, but to escape into the skirmishes of marriage.
In a house facing west, Stella sits through the evening. The relentless line of horizon breaks through her. Waves claw the beach, dragging back the half-alive. Slicking the sand, the tide arrives like a rash. Plumes of water crown the tops of rocks. She feels a salty spray blow across her face. Marooned in the forgotten middle of a continent, Jake strolls uneasily looking around at what they've forged of old seas.
Never dull, always striking, Theban Traffic bustles and hums in its narrative flow.