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Book Reviews: Elegy by Mary Jo Bang, Here, Bullet by Brian Turner, and Love Comes First by Erica Jong
I am, before anything, a poetry freak.
Before I am a snark, or a book fanatic, or even a human being, I am all about ‘da poetry. One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to incorporate more poetry collections into my reading list, and this move has proved a smart—and intensely pleasurable—one.
But reviewing poetry poses a set of challenges quite separate from those of reviewing prose. Poetry, by its very definition, is an intensely personal experience. It is a one-on-one relationship between reader and poet where the ultimate goal, arguably, is to glean personal meaning and find one’s own experience in the poem. Even more so than books, the essential aim of poetry is to make us feel less alone in this great big dung-heap of a world.
Prose, whose aims are similar but not identical, is written with a much narrower focus: the conventional give-and-take of storytelling with a beginning, middle, and end, and the human players caught up in it all. In short, while the interpretations of prose can sometimes indeed be vast, the interpretations of poetry are limitless. For as many people as there are in the world, there are that many interpretations of any given poem.
You can see the challenges faced when attempting to review poetry. Just because I experience a poem as a life-changing event, someone else might find it pure poop. And that’s how it should be; this is what makes poetry so diverse and thrilling.
So I have decided to approach my criticism from a similar angle to that which I approach my prose reviews. Concentrating on the language, the imagery, the characters (in poetry, the biggest characters are most often the poet himself/herself, we the readers, and/or humanity in general—but not always, of course), the development, and the feeling it all evokes.
I’ve read three radically different books of poetry in the last few weeks, and I will attempt to review them here.
The first is Mary Jo Bang’s popular Elegy from 2007. In a day and age when poetry doesn’t get much recognition, let alone achieve commercial success, Elegy was a rarity: it did both. This volume won awards, loads of press, and passionate readers. In the poetry world, it was considered a blockbuster.
The theme of Elegy is wrenching: the death of Ms. Bang’s adult son. Through the esoteric imagery and staccato of her prose, Bang dives deep into what turns out to be an abyss of grief. There are no easy answers, no final destination, no epiphany in these poems. And that’s okay—there doesn’t have to be. After all, she is attempting to make sense of something that is, by nature, unknowable.
But the problem I had with these poems was twofold. One, I found the images invoked to be wildly erratic without a thread of commonality; and two, the style and setup of these verses was difficult to read, preventing any sort of natural flow. For example, the first word of each line, whether or not it is a new sentence or thought, is capitalized. This capitalization was distracting; I was constantly trying to figure out if each new line was a continuation of the previous one, or the introduction of something new (there are also not many commas, colons, or semicolons, which would have made things much more decipherable).
Though the imagery jumps around to seemingly-unconnected thoughts and ideas in the span of a single poem, these images are consistently strong: by turns intense, subtle, and vivid, but always emotionally-centered—which I, of course, very much liked. Take this passage from “Enclosure”, which demonstrates a delicate imagery and a majestic depth of feeling:
One can, hypothetically, be brought back
In the form of an actor
Who gives an after the fact replication
Of text conveyed in a character’s voice.
I can no more understand the world as a stage
Of myself, mired as I am,
In this missing.
So in the end, what satisfied me about Elegy was the intensity of feeling Bang’s words left with me. The presentation of the words themselves just isn’t my style of poetry.
Not to say these poems are bad. They’re not. If the invoking of certain feelings was the goal, then the book is terrifically successful (though it remains unclear if Ms. Bang was able to effectively process any of her grief: by the final poem, there is a sense, and perhaps correctly, that this grief is an eternal one). If the book is meant to stand as an example of exceptional form and style, well, let’s just say I can find better examples.
One of which is Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet from 2005. Turner, a thirty-something Army vet, wrote these poems while stationed in Bosnia, and then in Iraq. 
They are eloquent, timely, and incisive pieces examining fearlessly the nature of war both internal and external. And all of it without a trace of politics. This, I think, is the sign of an exceptional poet: one who can be political and make a political statement without mentioning the government even once, keeping an eye focused intently on small, seemingly-insignificant people and events and their place in the great cosmic scheme of things.
Turner’s presentation is much more old-school than Bang’s, telling his stories through brief snippets of life in wartime countries, laid out in a smooth, flowing style. All of the pieces in this collection are pretty short, most only a ½ page or so, but they pack a wallop in each line. For example, the title poem:
If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.
Reading about war is a subject that does not particularly appeal to me, but the poems of Here, Bullet are so much more than songs of war. They beautifully—a few times I actually gasped out loud at both the radiant imagery and Turner’s easy elegance of language—illustrate the outer conflicts of society versus the much more complicated battles waged in the heart of every soldier. And, to an extent, in the heart of every human being.
It is not surprising that the human heart takes center-stage in Erica Jong’s new book of poetry, Love Comes First, her first new poetry collection in well over a decade. It’s also no surprise to regular BS readers that I am a huge Jong fan. Her collection Becoming Light has gotten me through some of the darkest days of my life.
And Love Comes First, though not perfect, was worth the wait. The usual terrain of poetry is explored here: love, death, life, family. But there’s also a hefty dose of pure Jong: sex, aging, mythology, folklore, witchcraft. And it’s all presented in her signature poetic style—easy, accessible reading, lush imagery, and expertly-drawn characters (ranging from the poet herself to Henry James to Aphrodite).
If I have one criticism about this collection it’s that some of the themes explored aren’t explored fully enough. I know Ms. Jong’s work like the back of my hand, and I know how capable she is of delving into the human experience, with all its quirks and anomalies. There is a lot of brave investigation going on in this book, but I would’ve welcomed even more.
As can be deduced from the book’s title, love is the one constant theme throughout all of these poems. Love’s inception, its beauty, its struggles, its end. A passage from “Talking to Aphrodite”:
Is that what I am, to you—
a soap opera?
Perhaps even less.
I would like at least
to be a long novel
layered with subplots.
Ah, Ms. Jong, I think we are all long novels layered with subplots…as is evidenced by the three diverse, interesting volumes of poetry discussed here.
Grades - Elegy: C Here, Bullet: A- Love Comes First: B
Titles Elegy/Here, Bullet/Love Comes FIrst
Authors Mary Jo Bang/Brian Turner/Erica Jong
Publishers Graywolf Press/Alice James Books/Tarcher
Years Published 2007/2005/2009
ISBNs 155597483X/1882295552/1585426849
Snarkbytes Here’s Erica Jong discussing poetry and reading two of the pieces included in Love Comes First.
Poets Celebrate Obama
In honor of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few poems written for the occasion by some of our foremost poets.
First up, a piece by Alice Walker, the brilliant mind behind such books as The Third Life of Grange Copeland and The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.
The World Has Changed
The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don’t let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.
Here’s a poem by Billy Collins, Poet Lauretate of the United States from 2001-2003.
Launch
A boat is sliding into the water today
to test the water and the boat
which glides down a grassy bank
the prow touching the wavelets
then another push
and the length of it up and buoyant
the tapered length of it floating
toward the middle on its own
as we watch from the shore
pointing to the heavy clouds coming in
from every side
but now above us only the sun’s golden rafters
and the boat afloat
out there on the bright surface of the water.
Finally, Julia Alvarez, the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, has written a powerful, untitled poem for this historic event:
The land was never ours, nor we the land’s:
no, not in Selma, with the hose turned on,
nor in the valley picking the alien vines.
Nor was it ours in Watts, Montgomery–
no matter what the frosty poet said.
We heard the crack of whips, the mothers’ moans
in anthems like an undertow of grief.
The land was never ours but we believed
a King’s dream might some day become a deed
to what we did not own, though it owed us.
(Who had the luxury to withhold himself?)
No gift outright for us, we earned this land
with sorrows currency: our hands, our backs,
our Rosas, Martins, Jesses our Baracks.
Today we give our land what we withheld:
the right at last to call itself one nation
For more inaugural poetry fabulousness, visit the AP.
Story Source The Associated Press | Image Source CBC
Book Review: A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver is one of those writers who’s been on the periphery of my bookshelf for years. The few snippets of his work that I’d read struck me deeply, yet somehow I just never got around to picking up one of his books. It wasn’t until I reread Natalie Goldberg’s Long Quiet Highway, one of my favorites, that I finally decided to get my hands on a Carver book.
I chose A New Path to the Waterfall as my inaugural Carver read, as this was the book that so affected Goldberg in her wonderful memoir. It’s safe to say A New Path changed her life and inspired her to new, dizzying, brilliant heights of imagination. It’s also interesting to note that A New Path should be my first formal introduction to Raymond Carver, since it was his final book before dying of lung cancer in 1988 at age 50.
A New Path to the Waterfall is a collection of poems — Carver was a poet and short story writer — peppered with anecdotes and passages from the likes of Milosz, Lowell, and most prominently, Chekov (Carver’s hero). From the first poem (the lush, entrancing “Thermopylae”), I saw with startling clarity the reasons Goldberg was so altered by this book. It is, quite simply, extraordinary.
It should be mentioned here that I am extra finicky about poetry. If I’m a snark when it comes to books, then I am a beyotch when it comes to poetry. This is because I adore, absolutely adore, poetry. It is my favorite literary form, and I hold the poets I read to a very high standard. Since a poet must do nothing short of splitting my world wide open, it’s not easy to get a spot on my list. Mary Oliver is, I think, a modern day Thoreau. Erica Jong’s Becoming Light has long been a reliable best friend during some truly dark hours. Claudia Emerson’s work shakes me to the very core. Anne Sexton — dear, troubled, insanely talented Anne — writes so succesfully the story of my own life that I often have a hard time reading her poems. And now, to this list, I am proud to add the name of Raymond Carver.
Carver’s wife, the poet Tess Gallagher, arranged the poems in the order they appear in A New Path, and this order is, in and of itself, poetry. There is a natural progression in the work, most of which was written while Carver was dying, as he makes his way through the various stages of grief. In the end, he has arrived at a place of gentle acceptance, a resignation to the impending arrival of that good night.
A New Path to the Waterfall is also, in many ways, an autobiography in verse. It’s all here: life, love, death, marriage, divorce, family, children, writing, art — even fishing. Fast approaching the precipice, Carver fearlessly examines a life well-lived and well-loved.
In the edition I read, published in 1994, Gallagher wrote a tender introduction that provides a rare glimpse into Carver’s life and work. She illustrates beautifully how very central poetry was to her late husband’s life, providing, especially in his final days, an escape from the pain in the harbor of safety words can provide. But never in his life was Carver just “‘building a career’,” Gallagher writes. ”He was living a vocation.”
And we are all the better for it. Grade: A-
Book Title A New Path to the Waterfall
Author Raymond Carver (with an introduction by Tess Gallagher)
Publisher Atlantic Monthly Press
Year Published 1994
ISBN 0871133741
Snarkbytes Robert Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts was based on several of Carver’s stories and poems. Altman switched Carver’s original settings (mostly in the Pacific Northwest) to modern-day Los Angeles. Trailer below.
Image Source The New Yorker
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WHAT IS A SNARK?
The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.
But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.
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