Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Plaint Poems by Richard Darabaner

Plaint

Poems by Richard Darabaner

Edited and with an Intro by

Daniel Gabriel

Published by Dos Madres Press

www.dosmadres/com

According to Daniel Gabriel's introduction to this relatively small but rather pristine

collection of poems, the author, Richard Darabaner, was motivated by “the quest for knowledge

and religion” in his life and work. He earned a B.A. in English at Cornell University (summa

cum laude;) an M.A. In English Literature at the City College of New York; and a Master of

Philosophy in English at the City University of NYC, Graduate School. He also taught at

various colleges and high schools in the NY area. In addition he has written several short stories and a novel entitled, “Every Wound a Memory.”

Indeed the wounding forces in both love and religion are made manifest in many of

Darabaner's poems. The title of the collection “Plaint”is apparently an invented word to mean,

the allision of lament and complaint. His faith in God is shadowed with irony and indifference

as well as an “ironic recovery of that love....and an ironic redemption.” (Intro.) As with Emily

Dickinson's darker side, the shorter pithy poems seem to be intimate with impending death.

Darabur committed suicide in 1985 in New York City.

In his poem “Desire” he writes:

(I am, as a poet, accustomed to consummation in despair.

I am not longing to desire the sand. This is a commitment of faith.) p. 3

For some reason, the sand, the object of the 2^nd sentence raises questions. Is it the sand in

an hour glass and thus the sands of time; is it the sand of some ravaged Dalian desert; or

perhaps the warm beige sand Edith Piaf was found adoring after her life as a powerful and

moving scion-singer of France was cut short by alcoholism? Maybe this sand is just sand,

a metaphor for the earth, but closer to the ocean and its tides. Anyway, it seems clear

that he sees the fate of a poet to be “a consummation in despair..” But “the renunciation of sand” is also a commitment of faith.. Faith, then, in what? God, one imagines but can't

be totally sure....

In another poem, more Biblical and stately in syntax, the author speaks of Christ, “The

Savior,” and says:

“Yet I have a heart of things unspoken

You turn again.

You would not hear me if I were there.

….......

Only the thought of Him and you were resigned.”

“This is a great gift from Him to thou.”

from [Not Yet Have I Begun The Poem of My Heart.]n p 2

The poet moves from the first person speaking to perhaps God, or Christ,

and then moves to the thought of Him (Christ) as a resigning stance. And

calls this through not prayer or invocation to be a “great gift,” using thou

instead of “You” at the end. It is as if an absent or aloof Christ is possible

to believe through a thought, just a touch of memory, perhaps, and is then

a great gift. A deft sequence.

The woundedness of poets and artists (of faith) is apparent in “Out of the Maelstrom

and Intro the Hagstrom.”

“Wounded those years are

when one finds one's steps”

“Wounded those bodies brought to task

Should their memory worn plots of the Old City...”

“Wounded those ones who feel the wound

But not the body wounded,

Without the grey sky of dawn

To recall in a tiny cell of detachment

The steadfast calm of their agony.”

The last two lines are quite striking:”to recall in a tiny cell of detachment/The steadfast

calm of their agony.” This also suggests the poet's or seer's position – detachment

recalling, and the stoicism he keeps in agony, while surveying all pain and pleasure.

On a more lyrical note, the poem “Wave” which also seems more modern somehow in

its diction because it plays with the meaning of the word “wave,” and its possible

variants. A wave could mean hello or goodbye, wave as that gesture of moving one's

forearm and hand back and forth. The other wave could be like a wavelength or a

wave of water in the sea, i.e. large ripple, etc.

In a turn towards humor he writes:

“Don't wave at me with your mouth full

I don't know whether you're waving or eating. P 17

And ends more solemnly with:

“Not you but your wave I felt secure with

Your wave wasn't eating

You were

Your wave wouldn't let your brother hunger.” p. 7

Thus separately the goodwill of the gesture or wave, from the body its attached to,

ingesting mere food, but food necessary to prevent hunger, another state of deprivation.

It is so also, in the “light verse” of [I'm Not Touched an Inch by Your Salamander”]

which ends:

You assume I'm syncopated like the wind.”

Poems such as th3ese are grace notes in a collection of mostly short,. 6-10 line works

and a few longer ones. His poem, “Echo” clearly speaks of reverberation of the Crucifixion in a quite original way. As if speaking directly of Christ in effigy:

“Without an echo of your former truth alive

Alive out of memoryless waking you come

to hold the rack of Calvary.” p. 12

Interesting that he doesn't use the more direct and psychological sounding word, “amnesia” but inste4ad, “alive out of memoryless, waking you come....” to your

fate of death. Christ is awake but has no memories of his life on earth as he takes

the rack of Calvary.

For those accustomed to more colorful scenery and objects and sensual modes and emotions from the “real world”or a real rather than metaphysical riddle in their poetry, this collection may not suffice. But for any with a yearning to explore theological equations or dissonance within the framework of religious faith, I recommend this short volume of select poems by the late Richard Darabaner. He paints in greys and blacks and whites with the occasional splash of sand or wave, beige or green.....

Reviewed by Lo Galluccio

for Ibbetson St. Press

www.logalluccio.weebly.com