New Century Reading

When My Brother Was an Aztec

Holy moley, people, this book. Wow. Wow wow wow. Once again, I have to say I'm indebted to Heid Erdrich and Graywolf Press for introducing me to her in New Poets of Native Nations. I keep trying to think of adjectives that aren't total cliches to describe this book, and failing miserably. So let's just go for it, shall we? Intense. Searing. Powerful. Gripping. Honest. Emotionally devastating.

How's that?

Or I could share a snippet, and you can figure out a non-cliched response. Here's the opening to the title poem, about her brother, a meth addict:

"he lived in our basement and sacrificed my parents
     every morning. It was awful. Unforgivable. But they kept coming 
            back for more. They loved him, was all they could say.

It started with him stumbling along la Avenida de los Muertos,
    my parents walking behind like effigies in a procession
            he might burn to the ground at any moment. They didn't know

what else to do except be there to pick him up when he died."

A book that will bear repeated rereadings. 

 

Nature Poem

Tommy Pico is a young, gay, Native American poet, reservation born and currently a city dweller, who has some trouble coming to terms with nature. That's a big conflict, when the US still insists on viewing Native Americans through highly filtered lens of that old 1970s Keep America Beautiful commercial. 

That's a lot to work with in this one slim volume of poetry, but Pico does that, and more, much more. I discovered Pico through the New Generations of Native Poets anthology and wanted to read more of his work. 

Nature Poem is wonderful. He's got such a strong voice, such an eye for detail, and here he's created a wonderful blend of classic poetry topics (nature!) with pop culture and life in 21st century America. He grapples throughout with the many facets of nature, in all its glory and misery:

"Winter is a death threat from nature, and I don't respond well to predation--"

And vivid, haunting imagery and metaphors:

"Hope
is a charred skeleton
of a house visible from a road that snakes
through the valley of memory
where fig trees burst from the ground like throaty laughter."

His poetic tribute to Aretha Franklin includes the stand-alone line:

"I'm going to be so sad when Aretha Franklin dies."

which led me to check the publication date--before Franklin's death this year--and I nearly tweeted Pico to see if he's OK. 

Wonderful, thought-provoking, mind-expanding, and yes, I'm definitely going back to the store for more of his books.

Alternative Values

I admit the only reason I read books by Frieda Hughes is because she's the daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. In general, I don't think she has anywhere near the same level of poetic talent of either of her (in)famous parents. 

That said, I think Alternative Values is one of her better offerings. It's uneven; there are several poems that might have made better essays or pieces of a memoir (and yes, I wish she would write a memoir, although I certainly understand if she never does). But there are some poems that work on a poetic level and show signs of maturation.

There are artworks accompanying each poem--Hughes is also a painter--but I'm not the most visual person in the world. I can't say that the art spoke to me the way that some of the poems did. In particular, a series at the end of the book that go over her childhood without her mother, and the things that happened (I've often wished someone would do a biography of Plath's mother, who appears in these poems as rather villainous, and who seemed to have unnaturally strong ties to Plath herself, even for a mother-daughter relationship). But unlike previous collections where she touched on some of these themes and got quite vitriolic, here she seems to be quieter, more as if she's working through these painful and traumatizing situations rather than just lashing out about them.

For me, the most stunning poem is the final one. If you don't know the background, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were married for almost 7 years. Plath committed suicide after the marriage failed. Hughes was having an affair with Assia Wevill at the time of Plath's death. Wevill ended up having a daughter (Shura) by Hughes; a few years later, Wevill committed suicide the same way Plath did, but took Shura with her. That's pretty damn heartbreaking all by itself, but I'd never really thought about the half-sister relationship between Shura and Frieda, a complex relationship by itself, but infinitely more complicated due to the family history:

For Shura

Have I denied you a father
As your mother
Denied me mine?

I wanted to undo you
Cuckoo that you were; not one of us,
As your mother undid me,

When she unpicked the threads that wove
My fabric so she could see
Right through my holes

To my own dead mother,
Whose place she took uneasily
As if donning a still bloodied human skin

So we children might not smell
Her different scent; the guilty,
Furtive act of replacement.

In suicide my mother left me, aged three
With a mother-shaped hole
that howled in the wind like a cave.

Perhaps that's why, when your mother
Made the choice to follow mine,
She took you too.

That way you would be spared
All the other would-be mothers
And their thinly disguised aversion to you

As they took your mother's place,
Unable to ignore the fact
You wore your mother's face.

But what she did in stopping breath
Was steal your choice to live a life
Beyond her wish for death.

New Poets of Native Nations

Heartfelt thanks to editor (and poet herself) Heid E. Erdrich and Graywolf Press for putting together this outstanding volume of poetry, all from Natives from across the U.S., including Hawaii, and Guam. I fully admit I did not understand every poem, but that's OK; it's such a wide-ranging anthology, with a full spectrum of styles and voices, that it felt good to just be exposed to them. 

Bonus: Each poet has a brief biographical note before their section of poetry, but in the notes at the end of the book, several talk about who mentored them, and which Native poets they feel don't get the attention they deserve. It's a quick leap from "boy I liked this poet's work" to "now I should check out this poet she says doesn't get enough attention." I have a nice long list to pursue, both of poets in this book that I'd like to read more poems from, to those they have recommended.

Some of the poets I'd like to follow up on include Tommy Pico:

from Nature Poem:

When she ascends the mountains to pick acorn, my mother
motherfucking waves at oak trees. Watching her stand there, her
hands behind her back, rocking, grinning
into the face of the bark--

They are talking to each other.

I am nothing like that, I say to my audience.

I say, I went to Sarah Lawrence College.

I make quinoa n shit.

Once on campus I see a York Peppermint Pattie wrapper on the ground,
pick it up, and throw it away. Yr such a good Indian says some dick
walking to class. So,

I no longer pick up trash.

 

Also, Natalie Diaz:

from The First Water Is the Body

The Colorado River is the most endangered river in the United States--
also, it is a part of my body.

I carry a river. It is who I am: 'Aha Makav.

This is not a metaphor.

When a Mojave says, Inyech 'Aha Makavch ithuum, we are saying our name.
We are telling a story of our existence. The river runs through the middle of
my body.

So far, I have said the word river in every stanza. I don't want to waste
water. I must preserve the river in my body.

In future stanzas, I will try to be more conservative.

 

So much to learn and draw from. And so much more to explore. 

Wade in the Water

There's a good reason Tracy K. Smith is the Poet Laureate of the United States. Damn, the woman can write.

This slim volume, her latest collection, is not meant to be read quickly, and will certainly bear many rereads. Sometimes she deliberately uses very simple, plain language, almost understated, which can trick the reader into not expecting the emotional gut punch or insights she provides.

Several of these poems are political. She uses, to great effect, a poetic form known as erasure. It sounds like a simple thing, but look how effective it can be when a gifted poet who's also African-American takes on the Declaration of Independence. That poem is one of the best in the book, right along with a lengthy poem called I Will Tell You the Truth about This, I Will Tell You All about It, which is composed entirely of phrases from letters and statements of African-Americans enlisted in the Civil War, along with the family members. It is, not surprisingly, a brutally emotional read.

But Smith also writes about the personal in deeply affecting ways. Just look at this excerpt from a poem called 4 1/2:

Morning finds her curled like a prawn

Around a stuffed blue Pegasus, or the smallest

Prawn-pink lion. Or else she's barging

Into my room, and leaning in close so

It's her hair I wake to--that coarse, dark

Heaven of knots and purple fluff.

_____________________________

She's like an island 

Made of rock, with one lone tree at the top

Of the only mountain. She's like the sole

Incongruous goat tethered to the tree,

Smiling almost as you approach, scraping

The ground with its horns, and then--

Lickety split--lurching hard, daring

The rope to snap. She's hungry.

 

Read the entire poem for a lovely meditation on mothers and children.

So, yes, I loved this and will return to it. 

A Small Porch

This is such a lovely book. Poet Wendell Berry apparently has taken up the habit over the decades of spending his Sabbaths outdoors, wandering his farm and nearby natural spots, and thinking and writing about them. This strikes me as something pretty much everyone could benefit by doing, religious or not. (Although, as I write these words, my area has just received a foot of snow and it's still snowing on Sunday, so I won't be going out exploring today.)

He's a smart man, and careful with his language. The poems are deceptively simple, but that often adds to their effectiveness:

"There is never an end to imagining
the lives of the birds. Or to wondering
at the superfluous beauty and unspeaking
flight of butterflies who light nearby:
the Eyed Brown, the Spicebush Swallowtail,
the Red Admiral, the Red-spotted Purple.
These so visible must stand for countless ones
and kinds easily overlooked or hard to see
or invisible. A world of words could not
describe this wordless world."

The first half of this slim volume contains a number of these spare, thoughtful poems. The second half is an essay called "The Presence of Nature in the Natural World: a Long Conversation," which is indeed long at 77 pages. But it does read like a conversation, albeit one-sided, with a thoughtful farmer (Berry is a farmer) who wants to discuss the views poets (Alain de Lille in the Plaint of Nature, Chaucer, Spencer, Milton, Pope, Pound) have viewed nature and how humans can and do operate within it. But he also wants to talk about the problems men wreak upon nature, especially farmers, and why it's important that the conversation around farming begin to focus on that, before it's too late. He notes with exasperation that many self-proclaimed environmentalists are loud in their support of wild areas, but silent on what's happening to vast swaths of farmland--and what happens to that farmland could (and already is) have a dangerous impact on what's still wild.

Together, the poems and the essay show a fine mind, a thoughtful, concerned farmer, a lover of poetry and language. Can't ask much more out of a book than that.

Don't Call Us Dead

I was trying to think of a non-cliched way to describe this book of poetry: Harrowing. Fierce. Searing. OK, great, I'm not succeeding in my originality quest.

Don't Call Us Dead is the second collection from Danez Smith, and it's a grab-you-by-your-throat-and-don't-let-go book. Danez writes poems from a compound voice: a black man, gay, HIV-positive. The book opens in an afterlife populated by black men who have been shot and killed by police. Smith goes on to look, unflinchingly, at all the kinds of forces that affect black men in general and he himself in particular. Touching on gun violence, racism, living with HIV, and suicide, there's anger and despair, but there's also glimmers of hope, but no glimmer comes without its history present:

"O, precious God! O, sweet black town!
i am drunk & i thirst. when i get to the boy

who lets me practice hunger with him
i won't give him the name of your newest ghost

i will give him my body & what he does wtih it
is none of my business, but i will say look

i made it a whole day, still, no rain
still, i am without exit wound

& he will say tonight, i want to take you
how the police do, unarmed & sudden.

Who Reads Poetry

Who Reads Poetry is a collection of 50 essays originally published in Poetry magazine. It's a lively collection that disputes the old stereotype that only English professors read poetry, and that poetry is a dying art. It also demonstrates poetry's power, particularly in difficult times; one essay records the memories of a Warsaw ghetto survivor, who used poetry as a way to remove herself from the horrors around her; another, by a war correspondent, talks about reading MacBeth (yes, a play, but a play in verse) while covering the war in El Salvador.

But not all reflect dire circumstances, which is entirely appropriate. Musician and songwriter Neko Case, in an essay titled "My Flaming Hamster Wheel of Panic about Publicly Discussing Poetry in This Respected Forum," writes: "Poetry is such a delicate, pretty lady with a candy exoskeleton on the outside of her crepe-paper dress. I am an awkward, heavy-handed mule of a high school dropout. I guess I just need permission to be in the same room with poetry." See? Even someone as amazing as Neko Case can find poetry intimidating.

Daniel Handler--he of Lemony Snicket fame--contributed a hilarious essay about finding the right time--and right amount of time--to read poetry. Hip hop artist Rhymefest talks about his life as a poem, and the poetry of rap. Retired US Army three-star lieutenant general and former West Point superintendent William James Lennox Jr. talks about why poetry is taught to cadets at West Point (something another writer touches on later). 

So, if you, or someone you know, wonders who exactly reads poetry these days, the answer is: A lot of people. And for many different reasons.

 

Autopsy

Donte Collins' debut collection, Autopsy, is stunning. The title (and cover artwork) is more than apt. The idea of autopsies reverberates throughout these poems: the autopsy of his dead mother, dead sister, his early childhood before being adopted, his life in the closet, his life as a young black man in times when that is a terribly dangerous thing to be--and also to be gay. 

There's a ton to unpack here. Collins has a strong imagistic voice, and he articulates the particulars of grieving so very, very well:

& look: you're just a boy / grieving until he
too is a thing
to grieve / until
his pulse is as thin & damp as an obituary
panting beneath quaking

hands & what
is an orgy, if not the opposite
of a funeral, if not an attempt to
press your
pulse to as many strangers as possible: to
compare
how alive
you still are

He also takes a close, unsparing look at a difficult mother/son relationship, showing it in its good times and bad. There are times when he slips a bit out of the poetic mode, and in a couple of spots I wished he could have stayed in a metaphoric/image type of language, but overall, this was a gut-punch of a read. I will definitely watch for his next book.

Whereas

Wow. Where to begin? Layli Long Soldier's Whereas is a collection of poetry that explores the personal and the political, but the latter from a deeply personal perspective, all the while looking at how language is used and abused and restructured and changed. It's a book in which poems take many forms: prose poems, simple lined poems, poems where the word placement on the page is every bit as important as each word itself. The language itself is often deceptively simple, but devastating. The title comes from a section of the book, Whereas, which is a response to the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans signed by President Obama. True to the book's direct look at literature itself, each part of this section opens as if it were some kind of governmental proclamation: "Whereas"...

"WHEREAS a woman I know says she watched a new program a reporter detailed the fire a house in which five children burned perhaps their father too she doesn't recall exactly but remembers the camera on the mother's face the mother's blubbering her hiccupping and wail she leans to me she says she never knew then in those times that year this country the northern state she grew up in she was so young you see she'd never seen it before nobody talked about them she means Indians she tells me and so on and so on but that moment in front of the TV she says was like opening a box left at her door opening to see the thing inside whereas to say she learned through that mother's face can you believe it and I let her finish wanting someone to say it but she hated saying it or so she said admitting how she never knew until then they could feel."

I fully admit there were sections I didn't understand. But I think this is a book that bears multiple readings. There is a repeated motif of grasses which is explained later in the book, and just having that info will give a different reading the next time around. And isn't that poetry--the ability to find new things, learn new things, see new things, with repeated visits? Highly recommended.