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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, 21 Apr 2009
Book of the Day: All That Is Left by Judith Harway
I am haunted by the narrative arc of Judith Harway's All That Is Left: her family fleeing pogroms, travelling far until they find relative safety, but never really escaping. The journey, these poems suggest, is never over.
This theme is strongly evoked by "Before the Pogrom":
Before the Pogrom
Early spring.
A dark room lit
by candles. Children
on the floor before
a smoky hearth,
toes of their shoes
cut off for growing.
Smells of soup
and cabbage,
damp socks hung
to dry. Straw mattresses
piled high with winter
quilts. Outside, a shawl
of rain drawn over
evening’s face. Flocks
of goats lie huddled
on the leaky sod
of rooftops, handcarts
turning home
down muddy lanes.
A gathering of relatives
who stare into
the slow shutter of history,
afraid to move.
At Pesach
the Haggadah tells us
of a time of bondage,
of the flight
of the Israelites from Egypt
into the wilderness
of freedom. Plagues
rained on the land.
The hand of the Almighty
smote even babies
dead. This is the way
I understand the day
my grandmother’s family
left Meskaporichi:
there never was a choice:
A journey starts
when it is time to go.
"A journey starts/when it is time to go." And go Harway's family did, not a minute too soon.
Book of the Day: The Girls on the Roof by Mary Swander
Mary Swander's The Girls on the Roof is a rollicking tale. Narrating the story of a Mississipi River flood, the narrative sequence is fast-paced and downright entertaining.
While the poems are too long to quote in their entirety, here's an excerpt that gives some of the flavor of the book:
From "Fireworks"
The day the levee broke,
the day the Mighty Mississippi washed
Maggie and Pearl, mother and daughter,
up on top of their catfish dive,
the river rushed through our tiny town
of Pompeii (pronounced Pom'pee),
with a whoosh, crack, bam-boom,
a power so Herculean that with one
swift slap of its hand, the water
knocked out all the windows
and tore the door right off
the hinges of Crazy Eddy's Cafe.
The very gates of hell opened and
the Great Flood of the Twentieth Century
came crashing, dashing through.
Maggie and Pearl had been warned.
Sure, the whole town knew.
Any fool could've seen it coming.
Yup, and now ten years out
we're all back here
at the Great Flood Reunion.
We sit in the cafe,
landlubbers and river rollers,
shaking our heads and clucking
our tongues about those bad waters,
the flow that carries us
back to a different time
when the very ground
under our feet gave way
and every twig we clung to
floated off beyond our reach.
And now ten years out,
we struggle to remember
that summer, think about where
we were and where we went
when the big wall hit.
We gather here together once again,
the living and the dead,
the seen and the unseen,
the genuine and the ghosts--
all who've come and gone,
each taking a place at a table,
in a booth or on a stool,
duct tape stuck to vinyl.
We gather once again
to piece together a tall tale,
a story too long and wide
for a single person to spin.
We tilt back our chairs,
watch turkey gizzards
swimming in the Mason jar
on the counter, hear the waves
lap at the banks outside the door
and realize just how lucky we are
to be here on dry land
with a beer in hand.
Pearl, as always, takes orders,
white apron tied around her waist,
pencil tucked behind her ear.
She scratches down our yarns
on her stained yellow pad,
and oh, we wish her near,
just a little closer, bending
her sweep of red hair,
her bosom, over our steaming
plates of eggs over easy.
Around and around,
we twirl, overalls
and rubber boots scraping mud
on the bottom rungs,
recalling that horrible year
when we thought
we'd never see the sun again.
I invite you to take a closer look, sit back, and let the book's energy wash over you.
Book of the Day: Modigliani's Muse by Jacqueline Kolosov
Jacqueline Kolosov's Modigliani's Muse is a powerful collection of poems that depicts the interior life of the noted painter. Kolosov's poems are well-crafted, with a painterly attention to visual detail and rhythm.
This poem is characteristic of Kolosov's technique:
First Meeting, Lunia
The Polish emigre, Lunia Czechowska, became one of Modigliani's closest friends and posed for numerous portraits.
You wear new stockings, shimmer,
as you sit in the inflorescent moon-
light on the terrace of that queer cafe,
seized by fatigue and the mercurial
energies pulsing in and around you.
A rustling in the chestnuts, he
approaches. Eyes whisper, I adore you.
Cigarettes at once are handed round.
Pencils tumble from his pockets,
a silver flask, a squirrel-tipped brush.
Once you, too, worshipped at this altar,
but found you could not live
on moonlight alone. Around your finger,
a band of diamonds; around your throat,
Maman's clutch of pearls. In the cafe,
his eyes upon you--Beneath this moon,
face like a madonna's, where is your man?
Indulge such possibilities, and you'll be
lost. Besides, you like life as a soldier's wife;
so many days like freshwater pearls.
Circling, his voice already sketching,
once again, that Sphinx's stare.
Were the cafe a pyramid along the Nile....
You suppress the thought, sip iced anisette.
Moonlight swims through your hair.
Feverish strokes swiftly capture the face
you've laid bare around the soiled cups,
the brooding pigeons, cafe chatter.
An immortal you is on the rise.
Around you, a murmuring of the gods.
"A murmuring of the gods": that luxuriant sound is found throughout Kolosov's book.
Book of the Day: Two Estates by David Rigsbee
I hope it's not too much of a pun to describe David Rigsbee's Two Estates as a book of stately lyrics: dense in the rhythm of their lines, deep in the historical, even classical sense that they evoke.
Here is an excellent example of Rigsbee's technique at work in this collection, "Into the Wall":
Into the Wall
An anvil-shaped cloud
spreads its iron shadow
across the hill adjacent to our town.
As on a floor viewed upside down,
other clouds, in turn, suggest
figures of the moment,
requiring only the arrival
of the next bit of future to cancel
the suggestion. The struggle
is ancient: clouds’ agon drives the painter
into the wall, attempting impossible
compressions proper to time beyond
a lifetime. Here, where the sound
of a scooter merges with a wasp’s nest,
a pack of flies beats up a swallow—
until the next frame. Or the classical
head turns with its look
of a god disappearing into time:
things are as they are,
turning in middle air,
and as they will be,
emerging from the rock.
This poem has a strong sense of solidity, unfolding itself line by line, as meaning comes "emerging from the rock." Rigsbee's subtle mastery is on display here.