New Century Reading

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

This is what I spent Thanksgiving weekend reading, and it could not have been a better choice. I hadn't read Ross Gay's work before, but I'll definitely read more going forward. In this collection, he explores the theme of gratitude from various angles, including through the lens of loss, and the lens of having gotten through hard things. He often uses short lines with interesting, thought-provoking line breaks, inviting the reader to take their time and think--and feel--what he's talking about.

He's also not afraid of writing long poems, with several running multiple pages and often telling a story, or having a turning point midway that changes your perspective.

It's hard to choose a favorite, but if I had to, the title poem would probably be the one: Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. It reminded me of the lovely Anne Sexton poem, Live. 

Good Bones

Everyone should read this book. Everyone.

I was introduced to Maggie Smith when the title poem of this collection went viral after the 2016 election. You can read it here: Poetry Foundation. Why it took me so long to finally read the entire collection, I have no idea. But definitely better late than never.

Smith writes movingly of the troubled times we live in and what it's like to parent and to even exist in them. Her language is deceptively simple, with clean, clear images that paint vivid pictures. The book opens with a poem called "Weep Up," a phrase her young daughter used to mean "wake up," and ends with a poem about rain on New Year's Eve, and in between are lifetimes. 

I went through this book several times, trying to find short quotes to show the beauty and truth in it, but honestly? Just read the book. That's the better approach.

Deaf Republic

Holy cow, this book. Even if you think you don't read poetry, try this one. Just try it. The poet, born in the former Soviet Union and now a US citizen, uses very straightforward, spare, prose-like poems, and he tells a story. In fact, it's almost like a script; he provides a cast of characters up front.

In this story, he tells of a fictional Eastern European town called Vasenka. The town is occupied at some unknown time. There's a protest, and during the protest, soldiers kill a deaf boy. As a result, the entire town becomes deaf. The townspeople communicate with their own form of sign language as some continue to fight back, while others accept the status quo. More and more people die; all the while, Momma Galya runs a subversive puppet show that frequently leads to the death of soldiers.

For all its spare, simple language, there's a lot going on here, and a lot that's all too relevant to life in the U.S. these days. As Kaminsky says in one of the later poems:

"Our country has surrendered.

Years later, some will say none of this happened; the shops were open, we were happy and went to see puppet shows in the park."

And, even more ominously,

"Inhabitant of earth for fortysomething years
I once found myself in a peaceful country. I watch neighbors open

their phones to watch
a cop demanding a man's driver's license. When the man reaches for his wallet, the cop
shoots. Into the car window. Shoots. 

It is a peaceful country."

Read this book.

 

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.