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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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THE PARK OF UPSIDE-DOWN CHAIRS by Alexandra van de Kamp
Alexandra van de Kamp's The Park of Upside-Down Chairs is a book of rich textures, rendered through the author's close attention to the objects of the world and its larger spiritual import.
Here's one good example, "Mailbox":
Mailbox
Painted black, blue or red, an object that rejects
the weather, it stands, silent-hooded sentinel, at the edge
of a road, while clouds conjure up their tenuous parades of
purples, greens, and grays. Still point in each day's Turner
painting, a mailbox is something the world dances itself
around. Like a flamingo wading on one leg, it is a pet,
a child's crayon-smeared shape leashed to the end of the
drive. There are too many centers to a life: our bodies,
our beds, the window's petulant glance. Meanwhile,
the mailbox waits, pressing itself into its one place--
a mouth we put our hands into, a little closet on a stilt,
a pillow of darkness we lay the pages of our life briefly
upon, an outstretched hollow arm.
I love that last image--"an outstretched hollow arm." It's resonant, and in its elongating rhythm at the end of the poem, perfectly emblematic of the poem's themes. Nicely done.
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I'm a fan of poetry collections that invoke the form of a collage: a multiplicity of voices and perspectives circling around a central subject. Eve Rifkah's Dear Suzanne, a narrative of the life of the impressionist artist Suzanne Valadon, does just this, and quite well.
Rifkah's book alternatives between first- and third-person, narrative and interior monologues, and verse and prose, so it's difficult to capture all of its flavor. But "Resurrection" gives some indication of Rifkah's technique, speaking in Valdon's voice:
Resurrection
doesn't work for birds.
In earth among flowers
I buried my sparrow, when its quick-breath stopped.
I prayed as the sisters in the convent school taught.
I returned to the tiny grave
waiting to see my bird rise
and hop among low blossoms.
Day after day I waited.
Did that ungrateful bird fly to Paradise
without an adieu?
I dig through worm and stone
pale bones wrapped in muddied feathers.
This must be the end for all
souls feeding green shoots rising to the sky.
I will have no more of god-lifting.
The images--leaping from the sparrow to prayer to vision of Paradise--are rapid and effective in their span. This is a strong poem from a strong collection.
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WHY WE HAVE EVENING by Leonard Orr
Leonard Orr's Why We Have Evening is a book of tender grace, spanning a wide range of subjects, yet all regarded with humor and affection. His understated craft offers subtle pleasures for the reader.
One of my favorite poems in the book is "Asking":
Asking
Would we ever be so used to sharing a bed
we would spend the last half hour
reading our books and saying good night
without making love one more time?
Would we reach the point of watching a film
slouching side by side on a couch
without reaching under each other's clothes,
without throwing everything off,
each ravisher and ravishee, rapturous?
How many thousands of undisturbed nights
would it take, clinging, roiling, roistering,
not to feel that heat, our slick skin,
our delicate organs, soft flowers, sweet
bouquets we keep presenting to each other?
I love this image: "sweet/boquets we keep presenting to each other." A quiet, common image, yet in this context it becomes nicely evocative.
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TWO FOR A JOURNEY by Carol Frith
Carol Frith writes in traditional forms, yet with a smooth, contemporary voice that invites the reader in. The shape of her forms--often sonnets--in two for a journey gracefully contains a myriad of insights and perceptions.
I especially like this sonnet, "A Souvenir":
A Souvenir
The air is birdless, a bell of sound, and you
repeat yourself. Hello, you say, Hello.
I hear that final o warping through
the horizontal light. The patio
has lost its shade. The air is white. I know
the sound of it, like breath: it crackles and sighs
until your voice is tangled in it. Slow
as light, you say. I let your breath surprise
me. Sunlight floods the lawn, our chairs. It lies
along the roses by the gate. We’re al-
most through. In the heat, a wind chime tries
to stir and can’t. Your voice is round and small
against my ear. A souvenir, perhaps—
like light—ephemeral, about to lapse.
I love that last line: "like light--ephemeral, about to lapse." What a sharp ending.
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BIRD IN THE MACHINE by Eve Jones
There's an intensity to the poems in Eve Jones' Bird in the Machine that I find unsettling, yet engrossing. Her lines are taut, densely packed with stress, both rhythmic and emotional.
Consider this poem, "The Adulteress to Her Husband":
The Adulteress to Her Husband
Years later, I still see you
at the point of my departure.
Your arms fell,
your voice tore like lace.
I had left long before. Still,
you keep entering my dreams,
a distant bell rocking in its tower.
It surrounds me,
too blunt for longing.
Something in me wants you dead.
I could be the high-necked Victorian
pacing the garden,
the letter tucked in my ruffled black breast.
That way, I could be free.
But my hands stink of blood.
Call it what you will, love -
it was love.
When I buried it
it was half-alive.
"Call it what you will, love--/it was love./When I buried it/it was half alive." These lines are cold, even cruel in their brevity, and to my ear unforgettable.
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The poems of Jennifer Horne's Bottle Tree move strongly over their subjects, sure-footed in their leaps and jumps. The precision of these graceful poems indicates the long care that went into their making.
Consider "Chinese Women Gathering Pecans in Tuscaloosa, Alabama":
Chinese Women Gathering Pecans in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Which of these is kinder to the eye?
The figures of the three women
padded and bundled against a chill day,
leaning their heads together to confer.
The symmetry:
three old trees, three old women,
providing for each other.
Their fat sacks, bulging with nuts
to be cracked later and savored
for the dry and chewy sweetness.
The unexpected connection between old Chinese women and the landscape of the South is a welcome one: it brings a new light to a familiar environment. Horne's poems frequently achieve this kind of shining.
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The poems of Susan Sindall's What's Left take a striking look at the world, finding import in strange, everyday scenes that blur the distinction between real and surreal.
The macabre humor of "An Oven" is characteristic of Sindall at work:
An Oven
In my charred oven,
ravioli’s bursting open, will burst and spill.
The heat’s too high and just right.
From the back of my oven,
half-lidded yellow eyes,
a stirring of shiny charcoal fur,
bumpy tail curled to nose.
Use has scratched
leathery paw pads with
cross-hatched,
white hieroglyphics.
Have you been sleeping here since your death?
Have I roasted my companion?
The quirky detail of the bursting, spilling ravioli in the charred oven gives way to a death image, of sleep. Here is a vague, unsettling feeling: what's left, indeed.
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There's a great deal of precision in M.J. Iuppa's Within Reach. These poems accrete small detail after small detail, which coalesce into dense, expertly-sculpted lyrics.
One of my favorite poems in the collection is "Artifacts":
Artifacts
From the worn treads of my shoes
clots of mud come loose
and fall onto the plank floor.
Fragrance of earth, remnants,
last straw of winter–
visible marks shrinking to questions.
I can’t say why, but
pinch a piece to feel its powder
crumble between my fingertips.
Grit I brush onto my pants,
a gesture to keep whoever’s missing
within reach.
"Grit I brush onto my pants,/a gesture to keep whoever's missing/within reach": this is a resonant image, reaching through the physical into larger connections. "Artifacts" is emblematic of Iuppa's careful technique.
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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROOM IN THE WORLD by Carolyn Raphael
Carolyn Raphael's poetry has a strong neoclassical sensibility; The Most Beautiful Room in the World ranges widely through subjects such as art, philosophy, and history, frequently doing so in rhymed and metered forms. The result is a poetry that elevates its subjects, and the reader in the process.
Consider "Baby in the Hand of God":
Baby in the Hand of God
Why does this photo bring me such delight,
the naked baby in the dancer’s hand,
her face revealing not a hint of fright
but joy that she can levitate from land?
His body forms an arabesque, and hers
repeats the graceful pattern in mid-air,
as if she’d tried the earth and now prefers
to be one half of a celestial pair.
His darkness highlights her small, golden head,
his muscled flesh her softly-rounded line;
his face is profiled, hers full-front instead,
a counterpoint of worldly and divine.
She rests secure on his supporting arm,
exempt from gravity, immune to harm.
Describing a potentially perilous scene, the poem notes the joy that emerges instead within, and from, the image. The graceful lines embody the grace evoked in the image. Well done.
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Blood Garden: An Elegy for Raymond by Pam Bernard is a powerful narrative sequence about a young man's experience in World War I. Bernard's poems have an understated, documentary feel to them, but the cumulative effect of the poems is undeniable.
Here's one sample poem:
February 1918
American Yankee Division training camp,
just south of Neufchateau, France
Rain has been continuous--
supply roads are muck beds full of lorries
sunk up to their axles, sodden
horses so weak from the crossing
they have forgotten their commands.
Drill fields are ankle-deep in mud.
At morning formations Raymond drops
from exhaustion and nearly drowns.
Tomorrow they leave finally for the front.
Many of the poems in the book are structured like this--short, descriptive scenes. But what a scene: the roads are "muck beds," the drill fields "ankle-deep in mud." And they haven't even reached the front! Bernard's book, through its accretion of these details, immerses the reader in the horror of war.
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