Is Poetry magazine the place where American poetry happens, today?
We certainly think so.
How did Poetry gain this eminent place?
It has a history—so people want to publish there, an important first criterion. Secondly, it has elevated criticism, honest, democratic criticism—rather than puffing—to an equal place with the poems. Thirdly, it has no editorial bias for a certain kind of poetry. Lastly, Poetry has a cheery, accessible, web-site, chocked with poems. Blog Harriet is mere cut-and-paste and does not allow reader comments, but one can read the entire issue of Poetry on-line (and make comments). Kudos to the editors.
Here’s our review of the most recent issue:
Sara Miller is first with five poems and she is one of those poets too clever for her own good, stating confidently in the abstract what actually makes very little sense; “Cairo” is plain-talk mysticism with metaphor inside of metaphor inside of metaphor:
CAIROThe evidence was in and it went to the contrary.The contrary wound around us rather like a river.The river reacted, spider-like, tangling up its legswith other wet parts we thought we knew,such as creeks and fjords and deltas and such.A beaver sits on the riverbank watching all of this unfold.He doesn’t know what a fjord is, and he doesn’t carefor other waters, or even other beavers, or the meresthint of other business, so he removes this evidence.Then he builds a structure which for years he is rehabbing.Inside it is hollow and there is his nest.He is a dark little bastard, all the same.The water had a fine way of being, now it is torturedby these nests and their vassal.Yet the river doesn’t overthrow the beaver.Quite the contrary. The river goes around polite as a snake.It argues a tiny bit at the edges of the lodge,where young beavers could be napping.You and I would let loose a flood of tears. Not the river.You and I would seep hotly into our darkest places.Not the river. It is a long way from homeand has that on its mind, the day of rising,when the temples will all be cleansedand the whole unfathomable truth will out.According to the waters. According to their book.
Yes, we get it, Ms. Miller. The river and the beaver represent cooperative, unsentimental nature, and “you and I,” the humans, weepy and word-obsessed, will be cleansed. The faster Miller’s waters clean us, the better. Her poem rebukes us like a flood. Oh, and hurray for the beaver. And we pray those young beavers are napping still.
The best of her five poems is perhaps the third one, “Gravitas:”
The overweight, overnight partsthat came to me in a dream.Their clothes no longer fit,it was this that brought themto me crying, their faces twitching.That had to end. No, they said,it didn’t. So I rolled over to ghoststhat couldn’t dent a pillow.The clock shed. Night pulled itsburdens into harbor and I woke,glad for the day, its telltale light,its flying minute, that genie work,and the everlasting perturbationsof my people, their glories,their heavy last words,and for these, I rose.
Miller, like many modern poets, seems to have more faith in words themselves than how they ultimately fit together. The poet should make the words obey the poem: the words themselves ought not to dictate what the poem is; Sara Miller is a little too enamoured of the words she manages to gather together in her poems. Her poem, “Gravitas,” unlike the others, manages to prevail, with a certain unified lyric grace, over the poet’s wordy education.
A poem should have an existence outside of its words, but since words naturally point to something outside themselves, a complacency too easily sets in:—mad moments of word-play become substitutes for poems.
I wish I could keep my thoughts in orderand my ducks in a row.I wish I could keep my ducks in a thoughtor my thoughts in a duck.My point is that we all exist, wetly, in the hunt.
This is how “Countermeasures” opens, and one sees how much Miller is in love with words—which is all very nice, indeed.
Cairo C-
Spellbound D
Gravitas B
Countermeasures D
Spellbound D
Gravitas B
Countermeasures D
Moves In The Field C
Nocturne C-
Nocturne C-
Barbara Hamby has one poem, “Letter To A Lost Friend,” which reveals the modern poet’s faith in words—which can lead the poet astray.
Auden once said that ‘a love of words’ serves a poet better than ‘having something to say.’ We see the point—no one wants a poem to boss them around—but we believe the advice has done much mischief. Poets have been erring in the other direction for quite some time: too modest to ‘have something to say,’ they aren’t shy about making ‘the words’ everything.
Hamby’s poem begins: “There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened between us…”
We see here, in Hamby’s opening, the modern poet’s obsession with words. Poetry, however, is not Scrabble.
Hamby then rambles deliciously, impressionistically, nostalgically, with quotes from Pushkin anchoring a poem that feels like it belongs to its references more than to Hamby, the poet—but this, of course, is the modern sensibility, the 100 year old reaction against the Romantic ego: quote Pushkin (who ‘had something to say’) but don’t dare be a poet yourself who has ‘something to say.’ Pushkin’s dead. Don’t be a Pushkin. Hide behind your references, your education, your words… It’s all very humble and nice. Poetry, however, has nothing to do with humility.
We give “Letter To A Lost Friend” a B. We don’t love Hamby. But we feel this is the best poem she could possibly write.
Brad Leithauser gives us a rather long poem called “A Vase,” invoking a grandmother’s memory of a seventy years old purchase; the poem threatens to pierce our hearts, but never quite does, because Leithauser is finally so informative—lovingly informative, of course: Detroit and Japan figure prominently, but the ‘lovingly informative’ has ruined many a poem because even in subtle ways the information becomes a little too important; Poe’s ‘didactic’ warning is lost on so many. They say one avoids sentimentality in a poem by supplying it with concrete details; but everyone knows the realist is a secret sentimentalist.
“The Vase” earns a B
Fanny Howe has a lovely phrase early on in her poem, ”Three Persons:”
the diamonds that pelt Neptune
But as a whole, the poem is mystically detached, drifting from vague observation to vague observation. We like this:
Be like grass, she told me,
lie flat, spring up.
But why doesn’t Howe say,
Be like grass:
lie flat, spring up?
lie flat, spring up?
Why the “she told me?”
Is it that she doesn’t, as herself, want to be caught saying something so obviously quotable in a 19th century sort of way?
The poem provides no context for the “she;” the rest of the poem is “we,” “I” and “you.”
This is the problem: in Howe’s poem we get half-context.
We want to advise the poet: Either give a full and necessary context, or give none.
Either tell us who the “she” is, or get rid of ”she told me.”
We give “Three Persons” a C-
Julian Stannard’s poem, “The Gargantuan Muffin Beauty Contest” is meant to be social commentary by way of the ridiculous, or the reverse; we chuckled a couple of times upon first reading it, but we were tired of it by the second reading. Fate plays a cruel trick on the poet who can entertain but once.
…We were hurtling back
to the 1970s and sometimes the 1970s are almost
as good as the 1930s
We can’t argue with this.
I saw Leonard Cohen crooning with a coupleof octogenarian muffins and I’m telling you nowthe lobby was pleasantly disturbing.
I have two words for Mr. Stannard: Mad Libs.
We give his poem a D+ and we think a D+ in the 1930s and the 1970s is about the same.
Matthew Neinow has four poems which are all self-conscious, carpentry lyrics. They fail when too pretentious; they succeed when “song” and “shaped wood” manage to casually cohere.
Ode to the Belt Sander & This Cocobolo Sapwood B-
Ode to the Gain C+
Ode to the Steam Box B-
Ode to the Steam Box B-
End Grain C-
The two poems by Barbara Perez have that bruised, confessional tone which forces you to sit up and listen, even though you don’t really want to. We like “A mind, when playing tricks is at its most sincere,” but too often her poems do just boss you around.
Strange Little Prophets C
Not For You, Not For the World D
Not For You, Not For the World D
Shann Ray’s two poems feature one preachy little thing (“We need to know in America…”) called “My Dad, In America” and then a delightful poem, “Hesperus,” written by his daughter, really. It’s about words, again, but it works in this case because it’s in the realm where it belongs. We need to quote it in full:
My four-year-old daughter handed me a card.To Daddy written on the frontand inside a rough fieldof five-pointed lights, and the wordsYou’re my favorite Daddy in the stars.In this western night we all light the skylike Vega, Deneb, Altair, Albireo,the Summer Triangle,Cygnus the Swan, our hairtangled with wood and gravel,our eyes like vacant docksthat beckon every boat.Tell me about the wordstars, I said.Oh, she said. Sorry.I didn’t knowhow to spell world.
We love this. Who could not love this?My Dad, In America D+
Hesperus B+
“The Fisherman’s Farewell” by Robin Robertson is hewn from Old World craft:
and black in the undertow, blue
as the blue banners of the mackerel, whipping west.
Who can resist the elegance of the pirate, or the finesse of the fisherman?
to dream the blank horizon and dread the sight of land*Their houses, heeled over in the sand:
each ruin now a cairn for kites
Arrgh. We give Robertson a B-
Wendy Videlock clearly belongs to the Kay Ryan/Heather McHugh School. She have five poems and here’s two of them:
Bane
Full of strength and lacedwith fragility:the thoroughbred,the hummingbird,and all thingscursedwith agility.I Don’t Buy It
I don’t buy it, saysthe scientist.Replies the frailand faithful heart,it’s not for sale.
The line “It is always darkest before the leopard’s kiss” from “Proverbial” reminds us of Kim Addonizio, and then Videlock makes it a couplet: “Where there’s smoke there is emphasis.” Videlock doesn’t fear ‘having something to say.’ For instance (again from “Proverbial”): “He is not wise that parrots the wise.” “Better late than suffer the long introduction.” She at least deserves points for clarity.
I Don’t Buy It D
Bane B-
If You’re Crowish D
Proverbial B-
A Lizard In Spanish Valley C-
Bane B-
If You’re Crowish D
Proverbial B-
A Lizard In Spanish Valley C-
“Their Pleas” by Kelly Cherry dares the reader to feel something, to care, but we’ll go out on a limb and admit we don’t understand the poem—and therefore we don’t care. We have to give the poem a D-.
Those are the poems of the January 2013 issue of Poetry.
Next we’ll turn to the prose.
(To be continued)
