Tue, 10 May 2011

THE BOOK OF SARAH: POEMS ON THE LIFE OF SARAH MOORE GRIMKE by Amy Benson Brown

I admire the ambition, research, and poetic skill that has gone into The Book of Sarah: Poems on the Life of Sarah Moore Grimke by Amy Benson Brown. It's not easy to poetically render a complex historical subject, dense with information and political tension, yet Benson has done so here .

Consider this poem:

Boarding

The soft sea
cannot cradle
me. This boat
cannot rock
me, fatherless,
home.

I buried him in sand
and dragged my sodden
limbs aboard this ship
laden with strangers.

The day is fine
bright and cool
as I watch our wake
plough the bruised sea.

The Atlantic tosses slick
frothy clouds out
of herself and drinks
them again so quick,

I almost miss
the song that mingles
with the waves'
pitch and hiss. Love--
it chants--is longer
and strong as
our little deaths.

Evoking the journey across the Atlantic, this poem is a work of real skill, and I am both educated and enlightened--both historically and in my present perspective--by reading it.

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TINTED DISTANCES by Edward Byrne

Edward Byrne's poems are fascinating for the way they meditate on art and the way that the artist's engagement wtih the world finds its way into that art. In Tinted Distances, the poems, both narrative and lyric, engage this subject in a thoughtful way.

Consider this poem:

At the Artist's Studio, 1894

From his tiny studio beside the sea, again
    he paints the approach of an ocean storm.

Already late summer in Maine, he sees
    those older trees wilting along an inlet shore,

their thin limbs lifting a bit in this swift
    and sudden current of wind. The small boats

in the bay below are rising and rolling
    with every swell, each mast moving back

and forth with a steady rhythm, swaying
    like a metronome needle, and against a gray

geometry of clouds, a stem of lightning
    zigzags beyond this staggered slope of coast,

where Winslow Homer watches once more
    as one wave after another breaks on the dark

rocks, blossoms into that flat scattering
    of white spray now flowering on his canvas.

Recollecting both a scene and its inspiration, these vigorous couplets offer an immersion in the process of perceiving and shaping those perceptions.

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THREE HOURS TO BURN A BODY: POEMS ON TRAVEL by Suzanne Roberts

Suzanne Roberts' Three Hours to Burn a Body is a powerful collection of lyrics that explores physical and emotional journeys. Roberts is an especially strong observer of delicate emotional nuances, and places those scenes against the backdrop of travels through foreign countries.

"Away" is a good example of her technique:

Away
Leon, Nicaragua

A wooden cross hangs on the yellow wall.
Cockroaches scurry under the bed, along
the red tile floor. The ceiling fan squeaks,
the fountain outside, a mosaic of water, of night.
Window shades, broken, clatter. Palms rustle.
The television picks up an American station.
Spanish subtitles scroll along the screen.
A plane circles Boston, the landing gear stuck.
They will run out their fuel, control a crash landing.
I reach for the remote, turn it off. As you enter me,
you tell me, I am yours-it's your lie. Mine
is to pretend I'm here, rather than thinking
about how someone will be making love when I die.

The scene of the darkened room in a foreign country provides a backdrop for the poet's questions about presence: how she seems present in the moment with her lover, and he with her, when in fact she is pondering questions of life and death and distance. The contrast provides this poem's emotional strength.

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SAINT SINATRA by Angela O'Donnell

Angela O'Donnell's Saint Sinatra is a collection with great passion--passion for music, for spirit, their various yearnings. O'Donnell's work sings with a palpable physicality.

The title poem, "Saint Sinatra," is a good example of her style:

Saint Sinatra

"Saints are the most excellent of voices, the most brilliant of stars." Cardinal Avery Dulles

Croon to me, Baby,
blue-eyes smiling,

So Easy to Love
Night and Day,

skinny legs draped
in gabardine as you sway

sweet and easy, singing.
The mike your attribute,

lucky close to those lips,
In other words, baby, kiss me.

I've Got a Crush on You, Sweetie Pie,
You, Sicilian Saint of Song,

the one girls pray to when we lie
awake, pictures of boys in our heads,

each of them holy-card pretty as you
only In the Blue of Evening.

You and the Night and the Music
much more than we can stand,

we fall to our knobby knees,
genuflect to your smooth

slide down the scale of desire,
a true tune we know and can't carry.

O Hoboken Hero of Eros,
Star-eyed Stranger in the Night,

Pray for us, Sinner. Sing us alive.
Take these Valentine hearts from our hands.

In this poem, the differences between saints and sinners dissolve in the glory of song. Well done.

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