The World Doesn’t Know You
Poems by
Tim Suermondt
Pinyon Publishing
Montrose, CO
Copyright © 2017
by Tim Suermondt
ISBN:
978-1-936671-47-2 78 pages, softbound,
$16
Review by Zvi A.
Sesling
Take Billy
Collins, mix in a touch of Charles Simic and you get Tim Suermondt. He is an entertaining,
thoughtful and serious poet whose newest book is The World Doesn’t Know You. The
poems reinforce his reputation as a
poet whose work presents him as one who is romantic, without sentimentality, and
intellectually profound.
In “EATING A
SAUSAGE DOG WITH MY WIFE ON HER BIRTHDAY, he can turn a cold winter day into a
warm romantic event --thanks to a sausage:
The first snow
of the season
lies flecked
like birdseed
over the
landscape of the city—
the atmosphere
so crisp I’m sure
I heard the
universe crunch.
“This is what
you call
feeding your
face,” she says,
trying to
laugh as she
struggles and
chomps away
at the big
sausage and bun,
a mustard
stained napkin
dropping from
her hands, fluttering
in the
wind—how silly
we’ll look in
the photos, and how happy.
He also digs
into sports – baseball – in this case to capture the frustration of a losing
streak while enjoying the company of his friend:
LEAVING THE
STADIUM AFTER THE HOME TEAM LOSES
Being good
citizens my friend and I
deposit our
hot dog wrappers and beer bottles
in one of the
designated trash bins.
Were we able
to we’d deposit the entire team
now nursing a
nine game losing streak.
Someone yells
for the manager to be fired—
or worse, and
everyone within earshot yells their assent.
We climb the
ramp leading to the subway,
the stadium
rather prison-like in its dimming lights
made worse by
the fog of a relentless drizzle.
My friend and
I who believe sports is a type of magic
watch the
reflections from the train window—
apartment
houses, bodegas, and miles of cemeteries
where in this
lost season no Lazarus will rise.
Within each of
these poems his humor rises like cream; so does his serious side. The first
poem about his relationship with his wife, both starts and ends on serious
notes, albeit the latter in a gentle, sweet conclusion, while everything in
between is a light-hearted look at the couple eating.
The second
poem presents three aspects of Suermondt’s poetry. First, he is a sports fan who does not like
his team’s losing streak. Second, he has a good friend with whom he shares the
disappointment of loss. And third, unlike many rabid sports fans who believe
their team will prevail, Suermondt realizes his team will not overcome its poor
efforts.
In all poems
in this volume of poetry Suermondt reveals his optimism and his knowledge of
different subjects whether it is baseball, a cold winter day, or watching a
playground basketball game in which he thinks “I should butt in, show
them/moves they’ve never before …” Basketball
is a recurring theme and makes one hope his team is doing well or Suermondt is
out on the court and he has made some clean hoops from the three-point line.
Suermondt also
travels and in HAN-SHAN he is off in China:
I lean against
the palace’s golden balustrade
twined with
apricot blossoms
and look down
on the streets of Beijing
like the
emperor himself may have done
when his
subjects stirred in him a longing
to join them
in the chaotic world, no less
beautiful for
all its hubbub.
There’s the
woman I bought a sweet potato
from before I
climbed up and there’s
the young
couple decked out in designer duds,
the LAKERS
yellow shirt on the man
shining like
the sun and there’s the old man
who said he’s
the last communist and offered
me a tiny
porcelain bust of Mao which I bought
and buried
deep in the bottom of my bag.
Here he
presents a more serious side in his poetry including hiding the most famous
symbol of communist China “in the bottom of my bag.” He anticipates problems in
China or some other country( including the United States) should it be discovered.
Suermondt’s
poetry is delightful. He has an easy, low key approach, with occasional surprise
endings and always a keen understanding of what is accessible and entertaining
to the reader. I highly recommend this book to all fans of fine poetry.
__________________________________________
Zvi A. Sesling
Author, The Lynching of Leo Frank
Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review
Editor, Bagel Bards Anthologies 7,8&12
Nice review!
ReplyDeleteExcellent review! Well done, and makes really want to read and have this book.
ReplyDelete