New Century Reading

American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time

If you don't read a lot of poetry and wonder how such an ancient form might be holding up in today's world, look no further than this stellar collection edited by current U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. A slim little volume that could easily fit in a backpack or handbag, Smith has filled its pages with a diverse group of American poets, writing about so many different aspects of life in America today. 

Some of the poets included are long-time American icons, such as Ellen Bryant Voigt (whose poem here, The Field Trip, is just wonderful) and Mark Doty. But there is a strong representation from newer poets too, including remarkable work by Danez Smith, Layli Long Soldier, Natalie Diaz, and Ada Limon. The poems range from deceptively simple (and accessible) to more difficult, showing that poetry is so many things--if you don't like/understand one poem/poet, don't give up! Like any other form of writing--fiction, memoir--there are so many choices that it's worth continuing to seek out alternatives.

This is an excellent jumping-off point then: A great way to explore a wide range of voices and styles, and then follow up the ones that connect with you to explore more of that poet's work. I'm happy that I was familiar with several poets in here, but there are far more that I'm not familiar with. Yet.  

The Mother's Tongue

Poet Heid Erdrich's lovely slim volume, The Mother's Tongue, would be a wonderful gift for a mother-to-be, or, for that matter, a mother at any stage of maternal life. This is a sensuous book of poetry, full of all the senses, and through these senses we get all stages of motherhood: Not yet a mother, not sure how to be a mother, becoming pregnant, losing the pregnancy, maintaining the pregnancy, delivery, the hard weeks of new infant life, the simultaneous tedium and thrill of the long years of early childhood. Laced throughout are meditations on what it is to be a girl, a woman, and particularly a Native woman. There's beauty here, and tenderness, and exhaustion, and fear.

And solidly good pokes at the popular What To Expect When You're Expecting and Dr. Sears (major proponent of the attachment theory of parenting) books in a series of poems called Popular Parenting. This is from one is subtitled Again, People to Hate at 3 a.m.:

Dr. Ears.
Good and hard this time. 

And the singed outline of that simpering woman
who once rocked on the cover of What to Expect...

Your mother, every mother
you've ever met. Prevaricators.

I really loved this and wish it had existed when I was going through the early days of motherhood. I did have Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions, but this would have been an invaluable companion too.

 

 

The Poet X

Oh, man, did I ever love this book. A young adult novel written in the first person by a teenage poet--who writes the whole book in poems? Yes indeed. 

The timing was excellent, coming off of January's report that young people, including teens and Millennials, are returning to poetry in droves. It's exciting to think that they're turning to poetry too, and that an author thought to use poetry as a communication vehicle, and a publisher like HarperCollins saw the potential and brought it out.

The story is told by Xiomara, the twin daughter of Dominican Republic immigrants, who has poetry running through her veins. She keeps it a secret, not sure what she thinks about being a poet, and already aware that her mother thinks Xiomara's twin brother is the genius and special one in the family. But the poems she writes and memorizes look at all aspects of her life, from her awareness of what it's like to be a curvaceous female in high school, to wondering if God is real and whether her mother would even accept it if Xiomara doesn't believe in God, to feeling the difficulties of first love, especially when your super-strict mother is absolutely paranoid that you're going to end up pregnant and alone, and thus makes your life really hard when it comes to normal teen things like dating. And then there's that pesky teacher who keeps pushing you to come to Poetry Club.

These poems are fun, exhilarating, moving--I even teared up a couple of times. It's quite a feat--the author has created poems that are accessible and read as if they were written by a gifted teenager, but still hold up as poems. But the book also moves with the pacing of a well-written novel. I felt utterly satisfied by the end, and yet I can't say I'd be disappointed if Xiomara decided to write the next chapter of her life for a follow-on.

Savage Conversations

Yet another stellar writer I learned about from reading New Poets of Native Nations. First Tommy Pico, then Natalie Diaz, and now LeAnne Howe.

Savage Conversations is poetry set up as a script with just three characters: Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of Abraham Lincoln who has admitted to a mental hospital in 1875 where, among other things, she claimed that an Indian spirit was coming to her at night and removing bones from her face; the Savage Indian; and the Rope. For those who remember Abraham Lincoln solely as the president who finally began the process of dismantling slavery, he also had a hand in the mass execution of 39 Dakota people (although Lincoln did commute the sentences of 264 more), the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The Rope represents the nooses used to hang those 39. 

The book raises questions of what Mary Todd Lincoln knew and/or believed about this execution. But in addition, poet Howe's extensive research about Mary led her to come to an unsubstantiated, but potentially realistic and troubling claim: that Mary may also have had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This is obviously something that can no longer be proved. But three of the Lincolns' four children died young, and Howe's research found troubling instances where the children were in other people's care and their health improved, but when they were returned to Mary, who had apparently had all kinds of concoctions and drafts for them, their health worsened. Who knows? But it's interesting to consider.

Regardless, this slim volume is incendiary. Howe creates a hallucinogenic portrait, one which I've combed through, looking for a quote, but I think it's better read in context. Mary's mental health, the traumas she lived through, her cavalier attitude about Native Americans--all portrayed here in thought-provoking manner.

What will I discover next from the aforementioned collection?

 

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.