Beloved Infidel by Dean Young

My favorite poet is Billy Collins for three reasons: 1. simple language, 2. clever metaphors and images, and 3. a dash of humor along with some profound truths. His poem, “Shoveling Snow with the Buddha,” is my favorite of his works, and you can easily find it on line.

At the other end of the spectrum is Dean Young. He uses pretentious language – “cothurni” (boots) – which might be pleasing to his ear, but not to mine. He tortures words and leaves me with images I cannot fathom no matter how hard I try. In a recent interview on NPR, he was asked to explicate a line, and he said, "I have no idea what I meant." Tony Hoagland, a well-known scholar and poet, expressed a similar sentiment when when describing another poem by Young.

Poetry shouldn’t be a struggle. 2 stars for a handful of interesting lines.

--Chiron, 9/7/09

Allegheny, Monongahela by Erinn Batykefer

This pleasing volume of poetry arrived in the mail as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewer program. Unlike others in the series, this is not a galley, but a first edition.

Her first book of poetry, I have to say, hit at least a triple, and a few feet higher at that left fence would have made it a homerun. Most of the poems have sparkling language and great metaphors, but a few seemed strained to me. My favorite is “Sky with Flat White Cloud” inspired by a 1962 painting by Georgia O’Keefe. Several other poems had the same genesis. Batykefer writes,

“I remember us through a haze of white.
Flat clouds pressing down like summer,
the botanical gardens steaming.” (76)

Anyone familiar with O’Keefe’s work will recognize the clever melding of weather, the painting, and themes that run through many of her paintings. This painting is rather plain, with bands of white (a sandy stretch of desert without any vegetation?), then a band of yellow-green at the horizon, then layers of flat white clouds at the top. The painting feels like an oppressively hot, dry summer day, and Batykefer has captured that same feeling.

All her poems ring true like this. Only a few tortured lines cost her half a star. 4-1/2 stars.

--Chiron, 9/7/09

The English Major by Jim Harrison

I picked this book strictly for the title and the cover. I never heard of Jim Harrison, despite the fact that he has written over 25 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He has also won a Guggenhiem and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Conspicuously absent are a Pulitzer, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and a National Book Award.

The story he tells holds a lot of interest for me, even though this is my third recent read involving aging teachers undergoing a mid/late-life crisis. Cliff’s wife Viv has left him for a high-school flame. As part of the divorce, she has sold their farm out from under him and turned him out. He takes his share of the divorce money, and hits the road. Along the way (from Michigan to Washington, down through California, Arizona, New Mexico, then back up to Montana and home to Michigan) he meets a variety of characters from his past and some new ones. While it is not riotously funny, it does have its moments with some sassy, snappy prose.

One thing that annoyed me was Harrison penchant for parenthetically explaining some pretty ordinary things. For example, he writes, “I had been a chaperone and driver for a bunch of 4-H (Head, Heart, Health, and Hands) kids going to a big meeting” (6). Later he provides the same service for “ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)” (28). Maybe his teacherly hat fell down while he was typing.

A pretty decent road novel worth a couple of lazy afternoons. 4 stars

--Chiron, 9/3/09

A Year of Cats and Dogs by Margaret Hawkins

This rather interesting novel delves into the life of Maryanne, who has recently found herself abandoned by her “ex,” Phillip, and now lives alone with a dog, Bob, and a cat Clement. Maryanne is, to say the very least, an interesting character. She is strong, confident, reflective, and able to take care of herself -- after a fashion. While she is not the best housekeeper in the world, she does manage reasonably well.

Hawkins’s prose flows nicely in and around the vicissitudes of Maryanne’s life. The relationship has died, and she faces “death” in a variety of forms, handling each with a calm grace and an attitude that recognizes the inevitability of loss.

Numerous events in Maryanne’s life also involve food, and she supplies recipes for many of life’s turning points. All the recipes seem to include bacon, well-done, and crumbled into the recipe. The I-Ching also figures in the plot, as the 64 chapters each reflects a sentiment expressed by one of the 64 I-Ching tiles. As the author’s note tells us, the I-Ching has been around for several thousand years and advocates reflection and passive acceptance. Maryanne’s calm demeanor follows this spiritual guide.

Of course, her relationship with pets will appeal to anyone who has ever had the good fortune to accept an invitation to reside with a cat and dog. Maryanne has a special relationship with her “family” members, as the title suggests. Don’t miss out on this wonderful experience.

Permanent Press will publish this novel in October, 2009. Five Stars

--Chiron, 8/30/09

The Book of Light by Lucille Clifton

I found Lucille Clifton’s The Book of Light interesting, moving, and thought-provoking. Her simple language and clear, clever metaphors delighted the mind and the tongue. Many of her poems touched me personally. Clifton won numerous prizes and two Pulitzer nominations. She clearly deserves all her accolades, in my opinion.

The first poem in the collection which really struck me was “june 20.” Clifton wrote in lines 3-4,

“i will be born in one week
to a frowned forehead of a woman
and a man whose fingers will itch
to enter me.” (Clifton 12)

In a horrific image, the poet, as a fetus, knows what will happen after she is born. The “temporary joy” (line 14) will end because of looming tragedy.

Clifton marked her life, as portrayed in her poems, by tragedy. In “sam,” she moans in lines 12-14,

“oh stars
and stripes forever,
what did you do to my father?” (Clifton 14)

The next poem in lines 7-8, Clifton laments his passing into “the company / of husbands fathers sons (Clifton 15). So her father represents a double-edged tragedy for her – his abuse and his death.

Some of the sweet metaphors she uses include one in “thel.” When referring to her friend, the eponymous “thel,” she describes her as a “sweet attic of a woman” (16). This image conjures up a cozy place filled with memories. She packed so much into that one word, “attic.” Another example occurs in “further note to clark.” She refers to this man (Clark Kent, aka Superman) as a “tourist” – from another planet, but also she hints at a man who comes for a visit to her home, but never stays for long.

Interestingly enough, Clifton makes her title part of the first line numerous times, including “thel” (16) “she lived” (20) “if I should” (41).

Two poems that touched me personally were “move” (35-36) and “samson predicts from gaza the philadelphia fire” (37). I lived in Philadelphia when Wilson Goode, the first black mayor of the “City of Brotherly Love” bombed the house Clifton describes. I can still see the helicopter flying over the house, the satchel containing the explosive dropping, the strap waving like some crazed battle flag, as it hit a shed on the roof and exploded in flames. Only one woman survived the fire, and Clifton addresses the second of these poems to her.

In the first of these poems, “move,” I especially appreciate the repetition of the word move as a link between stanzas. “Move” was the name of the back to nature African cult which became the victims of a horrible police action. Each stanza ends with “away” then the link “move.” The final two lines she reverses this order with “move / away” (36). The terror and the horror these men, women, and children must have experienced clearly comes through in Clifton’s simple language.

If I had another 500 words, I could easily list another dozen poems of this thoroughly enjoyable collection. Clifton has all the things I admire in poetry: simple language, clear and concise metaphors, and grains of humor sprinkled through the tragedies she has seen in her life. Five stars

--Chiron, 8/27/09

Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle

When I first began collecting fiction published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, two things attracted me: Kaye Gibbons’ Ellen Foster and the small format (5x7 inches) of their books. Jill McCorkle ranks number three. Ferris Beach and Tending to Virginia are high on my list of favorite novels. This seems like a year of reacquainting myself with favorite writers I have neglected lately (see Anita Brookner’s Strangers).

This fine collection of quirky stories mostly revolves around the theme of entrapment. Some of the characters find themselves cornered by parents, children, grandchildren, or relationships, and even a lie that takes on a whole life of its own. McCorkle’s easy, quiet prose subtly leads the reader through complex situations with humor and even a touch of biting satire.

My favorite story is “PS” – a letter from a dumped spouse to her therapist reviewing all the failures of her marriage and the attempts to mend the relationship. Unfortunately, this book will not be published until September 22, 2009, so I can’t quote from it, but take my word, you could find many, many worse ways to spend some quiet hours rather than read this collection. I highly recommend McCorkle, and if you have never heard of her, this is a great place to start. 5 stars

--Chiron, 8/27/09

The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville, who lives in Sydney, is yet another Australian writer. Soon, I am going to need a separate bookcase just for fiction from down-under. This story more than held my interest. In fact, I had a hard time stopping, and only a busy week preparing for the Fall semester prevented me from reading it in one long sitting. A good story, well-told.

Grenville tells the story of a young lieutenant in the Royal Marines who finds himself assigned as a navigator on the first ship sent with a colony of prisoners to New South Wales in 1777. His mission, once he arrived in the new colony, included setting up an observatory to confirm the reappearance of a comet expected sometime between October and March. This re-telling of the Pilgrims first winter in Plymouth has a somewhat different outcome.

While not a great literary work, the writing is smooth and, as I said above, extremely interesting. I do want to gather her other seven books, which include a volume of short fiction. Publication scheduled for September 2009, so I can't quote from the text.

--Chiron, 8/23/09

Human Wishes by Robert Hass

Postmodern poetry presents a fragmented vision of life. Generally, I abhor the stretched and difficult metaphors that signify this kind of poetry. Hass appeared on the reading list for a class I am taking, so ignoring it or not reading was not an option. I read some of these poems several times, and many of the metaphors did not make any sense to me. I could not even find one poem I really liked, that was memorable, or that I would want to pin to a bulletin board. He served as poet laureate of the US in the late 90s, but guess what? Sometimes the emperor has no clothes. Don’t waste you time or your money. Read Billy Collins. 1 star for one poem, “Spring Drawing,” which did have some nice, intelligible images.

--Chiron, 8/23/09

The Dying Animal by Philip Roth

First of all, a disclaimer: as a college professor, I believe personal relationships with students have always been absolutely out of bounds. Not everyone agrees with me, but for the 20-some years I have been teaching, this has been a hard and fast rule. Of course, the number of women who flirt -- believing this will help their grade -- is astounding. Recently, a woman tried this trick, and I knew exactly what she was up to, so I reported her actions to the dean, and kept him informed. When she was unhappy with her grade, she appealed the matter to that same dean and tried the same trick with him. So, I was vindicated in all respects.

Then, along comes Philip Roth and another of his vintage, raw stories of sexual relationships -- this time set in academia. Of course, David carefully cultivates these women all semester, and after the grades have been entered, he begins a campaign to bed the woman chosen from the year's students. As the book opens, he recounts one such student, with whom he begins a passionate affair described in the minutest detail. That about ends where I can go with the description of the plot.

While Roth writes with his usual talent for delving deep into the minds of his characters to ferret out the motivations and emotions they are experiencing, this novel definitely rates an NC-17 rating. If you can get past the frank descriptions, Roth offers a marvelous portrayal of an aging professor still searching for some answers to life's most enduring questions about love and relationships.

Actually, I don't mean to imply that every page has a graphic scene, but the ones that do occur are so powerful, they might as well come with soft lights and slow, smoky jazz. Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz portray David and Consuela in the film version titled Elegy. Netflix will allow me to compare the book and the movie. 4 stars for a rather unsatisfying ending.

--Chiron, 8/19/09

Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller

A friend recommended this novel and warned me it was “nothing special.” I beg to differ. Miller’s descriptions of the natural settings of Queensland remind me of Peter Mathiesson. His characters – stoic, wise, chain-smoking ringers (cowboys) – spring right out of Cormac McCarthy’s, All the Pretty Horses.

Annabelle Beck, abandoned by her philandering husband, escapes to Queensland to see her sister and an old friend. She meets Bo Rennie, part Jangga (aborigine) and part white. Together they explore the area, but a visit to Bo’s aunt turns things upside down. Leaving the home, Annabelle is confused, and must reevaluate her plans. I won’t say anymore, because the ending completely surprised me.

This absorbing story is not without its faults. Some of the dialogue seems a little stiff and artificial, but the descriptions are marvelous – almost Zen-like. Miller also tends to be a bit repetitious. He tells us three or four times, in a short span, that “sandlewood is the incense of the bush,” and he mentions “road kill wallabies along the verge” (shoulder of the road) numerous times.

I also picked up quite a bit of Aussie slang, which was a lot of fun, like “billy,” “swag,” “agistment,” and “rort.” Miller also has a fine touch evident in quite a few of his sentences. For example, “The dry groundcover crackling beneath Bo’s boots, realeasing the musty odours of dead time” (55); “Her memories of Mount Coolon had not been memories at all, but the unreliable inventions of nostalgia” (282). He also uses a lot of fragments – broken pieces of description, much like the landscape with rocks and clumps of grass and weeds.

The U.S. is not the only country that horribly treated the native peoples it found in a new land. It sounds as if Australia madkes a good-faith effort to mend some of those injustices, but bitter hatred remains in some hearts. This idea is central to this story.

Journey to the Stone Country draws the reader in quietly, softly, and makes the reader part of the story. I call these “message” books, because someone is speaking to me – an extremely rare kind of novel. 4-1/2 stars

--Chiron, 8/15/09

Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner

Searching for a word to describe this book, many flood my mind – peculiar, odd, quirky, interesting (yes, most definitely interesting), and, well, I guess they all fit.

The story is of three people: an unnamed narrator who works in a book shop, who only occasionally pops into view; a man named Noah, who has lived most of his life in a trailer wandering all over Canada with his mother, wondering about his father who disappeared shortly after his birth, leaving behind a plastic compass (the “Nikolski Compass”) and a handful of letters; and a woman named Joyce who runs away to Montreal in search of her pirate ancestors, lands a job in a fish shop, and becomes a pirate (of sorts) herself.

These three characters intersect in odd (there’s that word again) but decidedly interesting ways. Each seems to have a piece of a giant puzzle which centers around a book with no covers. The book store clerk calls it a “unicum” – a term which does not appear in any dictionary or book about books I have. He describes it as a book cobbled together from three different sources and sewn together.

I am going to leave it at that. If this isn’t enough to whet your appetite, you need a new appetite. And, why are you reading a book blog? 5 stars

--Chiron, 8/10/09

Selected Poems of Anne Sexton edited by Diane Wood Middlebrook and Diana Hume George

I found Sexton depressing and difficult to read for more than 15-20 minutes at a time. While her poetry did show occasional flashes of humor, her verse did not appeal to me at all. I am really sorry she could not use her poetry to exorcise the demons tormenting her. We often hear of the cathartic effect of writing about personal difficulties, but apparently that effect was not at work in Sexton’s psyche. I can offer personal testimony to the positive effect writing can have when dealing with traumatic events in my past; however, Sexton must have been completely overwhelmed by her marital problems and her depression, compounded with her addiction.

Clearly, she had a great deal of talent. Quite a few of her poems struck me as more than interesting. For example, two of her recollection poems – “I Remember” (51) and “One for My Dame” (73) – showed me some flashes of humor, while holding my attention with her word choice, structure, and clever images. These undoubtedly were my favorites. Unfortunately, a half-dozen or so nuggets appeared far too infrequently to make me any sort of fan of Sexton’s.

Her religious poetry – regardless of some negative imagery – did not appeal to me at all. Her cries for help seemed desperate and (we now know) hopeless. Even her faith could not give her the comfort and support she so anxiously sought.

Her popularity among young women in the 60s and 70s puzzles me. I can imagine their feeling a connection with her anxieties and difficulties dealing with day to day existence. However, did that many women share her experiences? Was it merely a matter of sympathy and solidarity? Perhaps some larger issue works among her readers creating a connection which enables them to plod on, since, in comparison, their lives were so much better.

Only a couple of Anne’s poems have crossed my desk over the years. None of them urged me to explore her work further, and now I am convinced I made the right choice then.

Maybe I am wrong by a wide margin. I would love to hear from some Sexton fans about this.

--Chiron, 8/6/09

Strangers by Anita Brookner

Anita Brookner won the Booker prize in 1984 for Hotel du Lac. As with many of her books, the main character runs (in that case, to Switzerland) to escape and struggle with demons in the present or past. I have read all but six of her 24 novels. Her is Strangers.

Now, this might seem boring – mining the same plot line over and over, but she draws her characters as finely as a detailed, realistic painting. Not surprisingly, Brookner spent years teaching art history in England. Furthermore, each of these characters deals with the escape and resolution in an entirely different manner.

Paul Sturgis has retired from a responsible position at a bank, and gradually, he is shucking off all his old associations. Several women inhabit his real and imagined world at the moment. Brookner writes, “The illusion once again, proved superior to the reality” (214). This sums up Paul’s problems with indecisiveness and an inability to put his foot down when he knows he should and, in fact, planned to do so. “Air was his element, weightlessness his ideal condition” (173).

Reflecting on the memory of a childhood friend, Paul recalls waving to a woman every day as he passed her father’s shop, “they had lost touch, had lost sight of each other, and would never meet again, never raise their hands in acknowledgement as they passed each other on the street. That was what growing up did to some friendships, and growing older failed to redeem them. But somehow the memory persisted, in the strangest of ways, and she would appear to him in dreams, unaltered, much as she had been when first encountered, on her way to school” (51).

Paul enjoys reading and mentions Henry James on numerous occasions. That connection carries a lot of weight, since I could not help thinking of James’ story, “The Beast in the Jungle.” In this long, marvelous story, John Marcher has difficulty communicating his feelings, and loses an opportunity for a relationship with a woman who loved him. Finally, late in life, he has a chance to make amends, but he reverts to his old behavior and loses her again. Brookner delves as deeply into Paul Sturgis’s psyche as James does Marcher’s -- only she composes her sentences to a much more manageable length.

I have been a long time away from Brookner, but I have remedied that situation. Now I need to find those missing six novels and fill in the gaps. If you have never read Brookner, or never heard of her, start with Hotel du Lac. If you like psychological fiction and interesting characters in absorbing situations, you will be hooked. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 8/2/09

Great Expectations: The Graphic Novel Text adapted from Charles Dickens

My Signet Classic paperback copy of the full text of Great Expectations runs to a little over 500 pages. While I am not a great Dickens fan, I do have my favorites, and I have read this one a couple of times. So, imagine my surprise when I sat down Sunday afternoon to read the graphic version published by “Classical Comics” and finished in time to cook dinner. There is no way I could possibly read this great story in a couple hours.

Now, this may seem a benefit to some people who see reading as a waste of time. True, the illustrations have a lot of creativity, and they match, to a small degree, my idea of what the characters look like, but any serious reader will agree that the pleasure of assembling this cast of characters from the imagination is far more rewarding than adopting some other person’s ideas.

Wait, it gets better. Inside the back cover, Classical Comics is now issuing books in three formats: full text, “plain text” (wherein all the language has been modernized), and “quick text” for, as the ad says, “a fast-paced read.”

How much faster could anyone possibly want to skim through a great novel than an afternoon? What’s next, novels on Twitter? Oh, sorry, I forgot about the article I read a couple of weeks ago about “twitterature” – novels and plays reduced to 140 characters.

We are going backwards. Soon we will have novels only in pictures -- all that will be missing will be the cave wall. Graphic novels are comic books for adults without the patience or the attention span to sit down and read words. When I was a kid, I loved “Classic Comics.” I had dozens of them, but I also read many, many books. Fortunately, my curiosity about what lay “between the panels” drove me to read the texts of the stories. I doubt graphic novels will do that to today’s non-reading young people.

One star for the great drawings.

--Chiron, 7/26/09

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

This novel won the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award and a friend recommended it after a discussion of some of its post-modern qualities. Although well-written, I am not entirely convinced it deserves the accolades showered upon it.

First of all, it flips back and forth between first and third person, much like the narrative flips back and forth between present, future, and past. This book most definitely will require another read, so I can track these changes and see if some narrative justification exists for these shifts.

O'Neill has written a fine, interesting story of a Dutch financial analyst, Hans, who travels with his wife, Rachel, to New York from London. The reason for these job changes does not come out in the early chapters, but only much further along. Had I had this information, my understanding of the events in the "present" would have made more sense, and the "future" events would have been more logical. Because O'Neill jumped around, following the motivations of these characters became a chore.

Also, the early parts of the book -- the prose seems a bit stiff -- possesses a voice different from later parts, which seem more natural, like this passage, when Hans describes an incident from his childhood in the Netherlands:

"The old visual domain was unchanged: a long series of unlit back gardens leading to the almost indiscernible silhouette of dunes. To the north, which was to my right, the Scheveningen lighthouse twinkled for a second, then fell dark, then suddenly produced its beam, a skittish mile of light that became lost somewhere in the blue and black above the dunes. These sand hills had been my idea of wilderness. Pheasants, rabbits, and small birds of prey lived and died there. On escapades with a friend or two, we would urge our twelve-year-old bodies under the barbed wire lining the footpaths and run through the sand-grass into the wooded depths of the dunes." (86)

I got the impression this represented the height of mischief and rebellion for the young boy. This passage also reminds me of young Stephen Daedalus coping with the vagaries of Clongowes in Poratrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The novel contains long paragraphs that seem ever so slightly organized to prevent the conclusion that Hans is day dreaming or we are experiencing his stream of consciousness, I found myself frequently back-tracking to find out where I was.

Despite these drawbacks, I could not bring myself to abandon the story. I cared about Hans, and took his side in the discussions with Rachel. Fortunately, I have a large book of cricket rules, so I could make sense of some of the many references to the sport. However, some deeper connection between life and cricket must lie buried in all this, but I do not know enough about the sport to figure that out. Four stars

--Chiron, 7/25/09

dancing in odessa by Ilya Kaminsky

In the introduction to his website, http://www.ilyakaminsky.com/, Ilya Kaminsky quotes the first poem of this collection: “at the age of four I became deaf. When I lost my hearing I began to see voices.” This explains a lot of the images and sonics of his collection, Dancing in Odessa. Many of his images and word choices have a visual and sound quality which impacts the reader’s appreciation of the poems, as well as affecting the visuals created in the mind.

As his website relates, he was born in the former Soviet Union in 1977 and came to the US in 1993. He lost his hearing when he was four and his father a year after coming to America. Dancing has won several awards, and he has a collection of 20th century poetry in translation from Ecco press coming out next year.

Kaminsky’s website provides quite a few excerpts from interviews. Perhaps one key to his poetry might be found in a remark he made during an interview with Colleen Marie Ryor of the Adirondack Review. While describing the situation of his family when they first came to the US in 1993, he said, “none of us spoke English -- I myself hardly knew the alphabet.” Could his strange poetic diction be the result of some lack of understanding of the nuances of English? Has something been lost in the translation? The publication date for Dancing is 2004 – barely ten years to master a difficult language with an almost infinite variety of shades of meaning of countless words.

After reading this collection four times, and pouring over some of the lines literally dozens of times, attempts to make sense of some of his images have failed. A search for patterns shed little light on his meaning. One pattern easily discernable flows from the title. The thread of dancing recurs throughout the collection. The opening line of “In Praise of Laughter,” offers a clever image which conjures an image of dancing when Kaminsky writes, “Where days bend and straighten / in a city that belongs to no nation” (6). The sound quality of both these lines has the rhythm of music to them, and provides a sonic effect in addition to the visual quality of his diction. This line recalls Robert Herrick’s ode, “Upon Julia’s Clothes,” when he writes,

“Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free ;
O how that glittering taketh me !

The relatively simple language (for the time) conveys the movement of a woman in an elaborate silk gown. The “frou-frou” of her swishing silks clearly comes into the consciousness.

Several stanzas later Kaminsky writes, “He ran after a train with tomatoes in his coat // and danced naked on the table in front of our house” (6). The surreal nature of the connection of disparate images in the second example here might describe Kaminsky’s poetry, and it might even make for an interesting experience, but it does nothing to further understanding of his intentions or his verses.

A careful reader can find these tortured lines on almost any page. For example, in “American Tourist,” Kaminsky wrote, “In a city made of seaweed we danced on a rooftop,” (11). Odessa is near the shores of the Black Sea, but does this mean the house was financed by an occupation involving seaweed? Surely he cannot mean a house literally made of seaweed. In Global Coastal Change, Ivan Valiela reports a study of the ecology of the Black Sea which reveals in the 1960s and 1970s, an “anoxic” episode killed over half the population of fish, plankton, and seaweed. By the 1990s, the viable area of the sea floor had been reduced to about 5% of the original habitat (8). How deep does a reader need to dig to understand a poem? The trail to understanding this particular line dead-ended here.

However, Kaminsky does have his moments. Although much rarer, the collection has some memorable lines and images sprinkled throughout. For example, in “American Tourist,” he writes,

“When Moses
broke the sacred tablets on Sinai, the rich

picked the pieces carved with:
‘adultery’ and ‘kill’ and ‘theft,’
the poor got only ‘No’ ‘No’ No.’ (11)

These powerful lines also have the sonic and rhythmic qualities mentioned previously. The repletion of “no” gives this poem feel of a song along with the sense of movement.

In the prose poem “Traveling Musicians,” he writes, “In the beginning was the sea – we heard the surf in our breathing, certain that we carried seawater in our veins” (39). Strong, memorable lines like these require a lot of digging to unearth. Each reader must decide whether they are real diamonds or glass; that is, are they worth the effort?

Another example of peculiar but strong imagery occurs in “A Farewell to Friends,” “you have for sisters wild carnations, / nipples of lilacs, splinters of chickens” (41). Mysterious, unfathomable connections abound in his poetry.

The simple language of these examples deserving of admiration may have made for an easy transition from Russian to English, but some of the more complicated lines might have lost the nuances of his mother tongue in translation.

Sometimes, the emperor is not wearing any clothes, and sometimes a poet tortures a word into a line for the purpose of shock and surprise with the intent of perplexing, at best, or confusing, at worst. I simply do not understand why any poetry – modern or otherwise -- must be tortuous, or why the diction must sound forced. No doubt, Kaminsky has his fans; unfortunately, I am not one of them.

--Chiron, 7/25/09

Leadbelly by Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess has mined the agony and suffering that flows through the Blues. Someone once told me, “The Blues are not about feeling good; they’re about feeling bad.” Reading these poems the “feeling bad” aspect comes through almost every line.

No question these poems are tied together by the chains of suffering in the African-American community. The poems are filled with clever images, however, unfortunately, most of them are lost on me. For example, in “John Wesley Ledbetter,” he writes, “it shrieks up a crop of cancelled debt into your wagon” (Jess 14), and in “Colt Protection Special,” the poem seems to be about a gun, or a visit to a prostitute, or, possibly even suicide.

his daddy brings him to me
fresh and fifteen, a boy beggin’
to know me like a virgin
wind risin’ to fuck a hurricane.

While his fist cloaks me
with the hush of broken youth,
I singe my bullet-toothed birth-
right into his fingertips. he hefts
my black powdered blue steel
mass, aims high to heaven,
wonders how easy it is to slip
into god’s dirty clothes. (15)

After a couple of dozen readings – literally – I feel the agony, and frustration, but what is this poem about? Too many of Jess’ poems leave me bewildered.

My confusion might have abated some, had the book contained an introduction to the poet and the characters mentioned. For example, I figured out that “Stella” was his guitar, but who is Martha Promise? Exactly who is John Lomax? Perhaps more knowledge of the Blues, jazz guitarist Leadbelly, and Lomax might have made this volume more enjoyable.

I recently reviewed Meadowlands by Louise Glück, which I really enjoyed. The difference between these two volumes is enormous. The fact of my familiarity with Homer’s Odyssey widens that chasm. Since I know the story, the characters, the epithets and images of Homer’s epic work, I can bridge the gap between Homer and Glück. However, when it comes to Jess, I can only stare across the great divide and wonder what he meant and what he must have suffered to cause him such agony.

Poetry should not, in my opinion, involve such a struggle; it should not require so much effort. I simply could not get my mind around Jess’ work. I felt the sadness, the anger, the hurt, the frustration, but that arose from the lack of clear, positive images. The constant struggle, the negative words and ideas – while absolutely real to the poet, and, I might add, more than justified – made connecting to them on any more than a thin, cursory level not possible for me at the moment. I will save this book, and when I have some time, I will research Leadbelly, the Blues, and John Lomax and try again. Hopefully, I can then cross the space dividing me from this work. 3 stars

--Chiron, 7/16/09

The Centaur by John Updike

My favorite Updike novel and the second of his I read (the first was Couples). It has been a while since I sat down and read it cover-to-cover, although I frequently open to random pages and read a few lines, or paragraphs, or pages. I still love it. This novel sparked my 40+ year love affair with the work of John Updike. I liked Couples, but it did no bowl me over the way Centaur did.

One thing I had forgotten about the book involved the warm relationship between Peter and his father. George Caldwell has a bit of the clumsy about him, and he suffers from a serious lack of self-esteem, but he does love Peter and tries to take care of him.

The word choice and the descriptions, however, sparkle throughout this peculiar novel that mixes mythology and reality in clever slides from one to the other. One of my favorite passages recounts a trip to New York Peter and George took. Peter wanted to see some paintings.

“Though we walked and walked, we never reached any of the museums I had read of. The one called the Frick contained the Vermeer of the man in the big hat and the laughing woman whose lazily upturned palm unconsciously accepts the light, and the one called the Metropolitan contained the girl in the starched headdress bent reverently above the brass jug whose vertical blue gleam was the Holy Ghost of my adolescence. That these paintings, which I had worshipped in reproduction, had a simple physical existence seemed a profound mystery to me: to come within touching distance of their surfaces, to see with my eyes the truth of their color, the tracery of cracks whereby time had inserted itself like a mystery within a mystery, would have been for me to enter a Real Presence so ultimate I would not be surprised to die in the encounter” (68).

Anyone who has walked into a room of a museum and confronted a well-known, favorite work of art understands this passage completely. Last weekend, while in Chicago, I put all things aside to spend an all too brief afternoon at the Art Institute of Chicago. I remember the first time I walked into the gallery and saw six versions of “The Haystacks” by Monet. I felt so overcome with the beauty of these six views at different times of day in different seasons, I could barely move. When I entered the museum on Sunday afternoon, I headed straight there and sat for a long time simply staring. Those moments more than made the price of admission worthwhile.

I met John Updike on several occasions, and once I told him The Centaur was my favorite of his books. He told me, “Well, yes, it is the warmest book I wrote.” Yes, warm, emotional, interesting, curious, and I book I will come back to again and again and again. 10 stars

--Chiron, 7/13/09

Runaway by Alice Munro

Alice Munro won the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her fiction. I have occasionally come across one of her stories in an anthology or The New Yorker, but I have never actually read an entire volume of her work. I understand why she deserves this prize.

These stories have a smoothness to them: no rough edges, nothing unusual, simply people living ordinary lives. Of these eight stories, five stand alone, but the most absorbing and the most interesting are three involving a character named Juliet. This set lies so close to the border of a novel, I wish with all my heart it comes out finished and complete. The ends are tied up too quickly, because I did not want the series to end.

This is not to say that I did not enjoy all of them – I absolutely did! But I found myself deep into Juliet, because Munro’s prose is that clever, that clear and bright. Here is a passage from the first in the series, “Chance”

“Juliet cleaned up the stroller, and Penelope, and herself, and set off on a walk into town. She had the excuse that she needed a certain brand of mild disinfectant soap with which to wash the diapers—if she used ordinary soap the baby would get a rash. But she had other reasons, irresistible though embarrassing.

“This was the way she had walked to school for years of her life. Even when she was going to college, and came home on a visit, she was still the same—a girl going to school. Would she never be done going to school? Somebody asked Sam [her father] that at a time when she had just won the Intercollegiate Latin Translation Prize, and he had said, “’Fraid not.” (101).

Munro shows us the overarching theme of these stories in the title. Each story has a character trying to escape, but most often, -- even when they do get away – ties that bind hold them to the past. As Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” And you can’t get away from home either. Five stars

--Chiron, 7/5/09

Meadowlands by Louise Glück

This volume of poetry is part of my reading assignments for a graduate poetry seminar. These connected poems weave through Homer’s Odyssey with appearances by Penelope, Telemachus, Odysseus, Circe, the Sirens, Greek soldiers, along with a few references to the Bible. The overarching theme is loss and separation and sadness.

Glück connects these serial poems (the subject of the assignment) with a variety of threads – birds, flowers, music – and a series of parables on the king, hostages, a trellis, a beast, a dove, flight, swans, faith, and a gift.

Quoting individual poems in the series will not give the flavor or the unity of this collection, but there were a few outstanding lines that especially struck me. For example, “from this point on, the silence through which you move/is my voice pursuing you” (5); “change your form and you change your nature/And time does this to us” (32); and “if I am in her head forever/I am in your life forever” (46).

Part of the fun of this collection is piecing together these individual poems and seeing how they fit into the overall narrative of Homer’s epic poem.

A great collection of poetry – even for those who do not read a lot of poetry. 5 stars

--Chiron, 7/2/09