From the Box Marked Some Are Missing New and selected poems by Charles W. Pratt

 

From the Box Marked Some Are Missing

New and selected poems by Charles W. Pratt

Brookline, NH: Hobblebush Books, 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0-980167283

86 pages

$15.00


 

Review by David P. Miller

This first volume in the Hobblebush Granite State Poetry Series presents selections from Charles W. Pratt’s three previous books – In the Orchard (1986), Fables in Two Languages and Similar Diversions (1994), and Still Here (2004) – with about half the volume consisting of previously uncollected poems. The first and third of his earlier books center on the lives he and his wife Joan have led as owners of an apple orchard, though the poems spiral out from there to touch a variety of themes. The subject matter of the recent poems range more widely, though several are inspired by memories of family summers and trips to the British Isles. His work is marked, for me, by a keen sensitivity to the metaphors that life itself presents to the observant mind, fresh descriptive power, and an elegant approach to form.

It is difficult to explain, to those who are New England-hostile, the specific attachments this region holds for those of us who do better than tolerate it. In many of his poems, Pratt expresses the distinct sensuality of New England of this part of the world, as in the final stanza of “Harvest”:

Midnight, midwinter. Under the full moon

The trees, like twisting smoke, like rocks

Whorled by tides of air,

Stand stock-still in their shadows

On the new snow, precise and mysterious

As spiders on a linen tablecloth.

Though he writes about the full spectrum of seasons – in the same poem, he describes “the mild October sun / That brings back summer, softened” – he understands winter as something quite other than the dead time too many mistake it for. (And perhaps, as I write this review on the threshold of winter, these images draw my attention most.) In “Prayer for December,” the cold time comes as a blessing after the strained labor of harvest:

Clusters of grapes like udders droop from the vines

And the burden of apples bends down the apple boughs

Till the boughs break from the burden,

As we bend to breaking now.

Thin December, come, with your landscape hardened

By a reticent sun, come with the comfort of snow.

Throughout, Pratt finds the image or event that suggests a greater subject for contemplation. In “Learning to Prune,” though he imagines his poetry will benefit, he discovers life allegories while working with his expert neighbor:

I had it in mind this morning

I’d get a poem out of pruning,

about discipline, I thought, and form,

like Herbert’s “Paradise” –

but Jock has taught me already

it’s not a question of that so much

as of opening up the center

to sun and air, taking out what

grows too upright or crosses,

and keeping the top in reach.

In “Wolsey’s Hole,” Pratt learns that “a hollow carved by an eddy into the sheer / Granite under a fall” was named for his father, who sixty years earlier “slipped into it swimming and couldn’t get out.” His father was rescued, but this sudden knowledge brings an epiphany:

Oh, when I heard,

How there arose from some hole in my heart a magnificent bellow,

Cold and afraid and delighted!

.  . .

And I thought:  Can I learn

To think of death not as infinite contraction,

Curtains closed over midnight, but as curtains drawn back

To let in the moon and the stars, the whole horizon,

To let in the dead and the living–a rope thrown down

To haul me from the hole of my heart, all dripping and shining?

Of the many poems here which reflect on time and its resonance with family generations, I am particularly taken with the brief “In Drumcliffe Churchyard.” As two of his children pose for a photograph by the grave of Yeats, Pratt sees “the shadow / Curling over them like a wave.” This warning of the inevitable, which might paralyze, must nevertheless be lived:

Though our crazy hearts may rave

And insist it isn’t so,

We know there’s nothing we can save,

Mountains fall and children grow.

Snap the picture, then, and go.

This insistence on the darkness as something inextricable from the daily, celebrated life is sharpened to paradox in the final poem, “Resolution”:

When the tsunami draws back its fistful of waters

And crushes the city, let me for once be ready.

Let me be washing the dishes or patting the dog.

. . .

When the suicide bomber squeezes the trigger

And fierce the flames spurt and wild the body parts fly,

Let me be holding my lover or drinking my coffee.

Let us be drinking our coffee, unprepared.

A review can’t cover the range of imagery, the humor and reflection, the rewards of careful reading that fill this volume, and the constant reminders of “all that our beautiful seeing makes beautiful” (“Exercise of the Imagination”).  The reader might find one kind of summation in Charles W. Pratt’s poem “The Words,” where the words that “shape urns that will endure forever” also “float out like blossoms from an apple,” and that “leap out living” when a book’s cover is opened also  “sweeten like squash laid in the cellar” through the winter. Words and world are one body.

David P. Miller is a librarian at Curry College in Milton, Mass.

Mother of God Similar to Fire Fr. William Hart McNichols

 

Mother of God Similar to Fire

Fr. William Hart McNichols

Orbis Books

$15.36 on Amazon

 

Review by Rene Schwiesow

 

Fr. William Hart McNichols is an artist and a humanitarian.  The icons that he brings to life are stunning in print.  One can only imagine the impact of their aesthetic grandeur when seen in person.  In “Mother of God:  Similar to Fire,” an astoundingly breathtaking work, McNichols joins his artistic vision with the poetry of the mystical author, Mirabai Starr.  Starr, an adjunct professor of philosophy and world religions at the University of New Mexico in Taos, has studied diverse spiritual paths with many well-known teachers.  It is these ecumenical experiences that have formed the universal quality of her work.  She is the author of “God of Love:  A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
 Their joint effort offers the reader Mother Mary’s grace and wisdom as interpreted through the talented hands and hearts of McNichols and Starr.  Mary is diversely and universally portrayed as the Black Madonna, Latina, Bosnian, Greek, Italian and Native.  In 2002, Time Magazine described McNichols as “. . .among the most famous creators of Christian iconic images in the world.”  Fr. McNichols has two previously published books that have won the Catholic Book Award.  Yet, when you meet Fr. McNichols, fame is not evident in his demeanor.  What is evident is that he is a grounded, compassionate, empathetic man who serves the people of Taos, New Mexico with his whole being.

When Fr. McNichols goes in to paint an icon he tells us, “I go in to work like I go in to pray.  Waiting.  Waiting for God to come.”  When I opened the book to the first icon, it was clear to this reviewer that God had arrived.  Each icon whispers its own prayer and the sound is echoed by Mirabai Starr’s words:

Mother of God

similar to fire,

ignite my heart in prayer. . .

lit from within,

let my blazing heart become a sanctuary

for the weary traveler,

until this long night lifts

and dawn unfolds her new radiance.

Two of my favorite icons in the book are “Mother of God Akita” and “Mary Most Holy of All Nations.”  Both of these images include the world.  In “Mother of God Akita” Mary is depicted standing on the planet and in “Mary Most Holy of All Nations” she cradles the world in her arms.  Fr. McNichols has a beautiful way of creating his icons as universal, the spiritual depth of each image accessible to all people so that when we gaze upon “Mary Most Holy of All Nations” and then read the words, “Let the children of all countries of the world be one!” our response is a breathless Amen.

While Fr. McNichols is a Roman Catholic iconographer, the influence of Byzantine icons can be seen in his work.  He indicates that he has no intention of assuming to be Orthodox, but honors and reveres the Byzantine icons. Fr. McNichols has a profound respect for the spirituality of the Orthodox churches.  In addition to the Byzantine icons, he has been influenced by ancient and contemporary Russian icons and finds that he has always been drawn to the beauty of the images we do not have in the West.

“You gaze on the icon, but it gazes on you too.  We need to gaze on truly conversational, truly loving images, images that will return our love.”  Fr. William Hart McNichols.

“Mother of God:  Similar to Fire” will be a library addition that you will turn to again and again for its peace and meditative tranquility.

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore poetry venue, The Art of Words.  She writes a column in The Old Colony Memorial for the Plymouth Center for the Arts

Time On Its Own By Kenneth Frost

Time On Its Own By Kenneth Frost

Main Street Rag Publishing Company

Charlotte, North Carolina

www.MainStreetRag.com

ISBN: 978-1-59948-404-4

50 Pages

Review by Dennis Daly

Kenneth Frost writes poems with imagery that touches our nerve ends directly and demands our immediate response. His surreal juxtapositions are delivered for the most part with a slow jazzy beat. There is a poem for everyone here. Frost’s subjects range from landscapes to metaphysics, from spiders to theology. I read the last poem in the book first and I’m glad I did. It seems to set everything else up. I think it comes very very close to, in fact I think it caresses the relationship-conundrum between artist and art. Since this is a posthumous collection and the poem is short, I’ll quote it in its entirety. It’s called Suddenly and here it is,

there you are

in the

electric

eternity

of a dream.

Who shall I

tell them

you are

with your

long hair,

embodied light?

The poet’s question in the second stanza boasts of creative power and intimates a plethora of alternatives, yet the poem’s feel is weightless and lovely.

The longest poem in the book entitled The Figure Skater delivers enough gravitas to anchor the collection. Frost magically turns a female skater into a creator of universes and an archive of memories. The poem begins with an unstoppable locomotive barreling down the tracks toward the proverbial innocent maiden bound to the tracks by some dastardly evil doer. It’s the train’s headlight that the poet finally focuses on and merges into the athletic performance. The weight of the skater’s momentum changes into pure energy and flashes out little zodiacs. The next movement of the poem crests with a Jesuitical question and then enters Oklahoma in the thirties. Sound a bit strange? Here it is,

…how many angels

On the steel-tipped

Infinity

Of her skate-blades

While her esprit woos

The fortune

A dust bowl

Remembers

In the whirlwinds

Till a star leaps

Out of the coils

Of gravity.

The poem ends with the skater “escapading” and scattering apparitions like mercury.  I like the poet’s use of the word escapade (think ice capades) and the hint of danger it introduces.

The poem Buddy Rich on the Drums conjures up a more up tempo beat as it should. Frost pieces together one inspired image after another. He has a personified heart taking dictation from thunderstorms. Those same thunderstorms crumble static in a god’s throat. The poem ends in a holy froth mimicking that fiery drummer perfectly. Here’s the last stanza,

whipping his head

so fast his tongue

stutters his own

drumsticks to point

backward and gulp

the lost divine.

Another poem that deals with the nature of music is He Floats out. To Frost the artist-musician literally becomes his notes and he seeds the environs around him with apparitions. Listen,

… the rooms

around him

wander

and a strange tree

of dreams

takes root

on every

windowsill.

Frost’s title poem, Time On Its Own, drifts through the imagination with mystery and speculation. The poet seems to be in a competition of sorts with an omnipotent and undeterred adversary. The poet searches for himself in the universe and Time also searches for him, sniffing him out from under the world’s detritus. In the penultimate stanza the poet makes an interesting argument concerning risk taking that I found myself nodding to in appreciation. The poet says,

Somewhere beyond

my centipede of echoes

someone insists, “Climb higher, a circus dive

will pull along

cold feet.”  

The poem Girl in a Singles Bar looks through a glass of scotch darkly and perceptively. Frost’s protagonist girl sees her life through a lens of despair and regret. She wants out. An advertisement poster offers a jet plane, which captures her imagination. But reality intrudes and with it comes a heartfelt crescendo of regret. It ends this way,

I put my glass

Against the wall

To bug this ark,

“What have we done,

What have we done

To one another?” 

Year ago I read The Interlopers, a short story by Saki, and liked it very much. Frost’s poem Closing In somehow brought back that memory with its own mesmerizing rendition of the same terrifying image. Saki never actually describes his wolves, whereas Frost draws you inside their killer eyes, through dreamlike tunnels into their essential nature. Of course the poem is about something else—the nature of memory. It worked for me. The poem concludes,

wolves’ eyes draw

their prayerbeads

through whispers

their memories

corner.

Well done. And efficacious as hell!  

Outside the Lines Studio: A place outside the mainstream that fosters outsider art.

Outside the Lines Studio: A place outside the mainstream that fosters outsider art.

By Doug Holder

 At a recent meeting of the Somerville Bagel Bards, I met with artist Anne Johnstone and Tufts University student Libby Schrobe. Both Johnstone and Schrobe are involved with the Outside the Lines Studio near the Tufts University campus. The studio is a sort of clubhouse serving people from Somerville and Medford area with mental disabilities. Schrobe, an intern at the studio said they offer classes in art, cooking, and other activities for members. The studio has hosted shows of various students’ artwork at local coffeehouses like True Grounds in Ball Square, and others.

Johnstone a teacher at the studio, is an accomplished artist and she works with clients often using papier-mâché to create puppet characters. She also works with members through painting and creating structures with chicken wire, and other media.

Johnstone studied at Brown University, and U/Mass Boston. She has had her own exhibits at the Salem Art Association, the Ga Ga Gallery in Swampscott, Mass. and other venues. She has a space at the Mt. Vernon Street Studios in our town, and lives in the Davis Square area.

Schrobe, who has many duties at the studio, told me: “The studio gives folks a place to pass time in an interesting way—rather than just sitting around. It gives them a sense of accomplishment, self-esteem.”

Schrobe said she is a clinical psychology major at Tufts, and often helps running the art classes.

Schrobe has many projects on the burner for the studio including an exhibit at the Tufts University Art Gallery, and a subsequent art auction.

Both Schrobe and Johnstone agree that there is a lot of raw talent among the artists they work with. This is yet another layer of talent that adds to our rich milieu in the Paris of New England.

 http://www.outsidethelinesstudio.org/main.html

Review of A CHILD TURNS BACK TO WAVE, POETRY OF LOST PLACES by Peter Neil Carroll

Review of A CHILD TURNS BACK TO WAVE, POETRY OF LOST PLACES by Peter Neil Carroll, winner of the Prize Americana, The Poetry Press, of Press Americana, Hollywood, California:  Americana, The Institute for the Study of American Popular Culture, 7095-1240, Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90028, www.americanpopularculture.com, 79 pp., 2012, $15.

Review by Barbara Bialick

This book, A CHILD TURNS BACK TO WAVE, POETRY OF LOST PLACES, which inspired a Hollywood publisher of Americana, is a visual image-filled volume which pivots on the theme of degradation and the fading away of any sign of certain Native Americans and others. This visceral knowledge came from traveling extensively in Western America where he observed how people, buildings, roads, vegetation and rocks crumbled or disappeared under other layers through time, both naturally as well as from the holocaust against Native Americans in the Old West’s history. The ensuing metaphors leave the poet with a deep feeling of loss as he continually came upon remnants of almost magical appeal.

An example of this phenomenon can be seen in a list poem called “Names”:

“Names bleed through dusty brick./HEN & BEN/THE SHOE MEN/MARTINGS DEPARTMENT STORE/Here for you yesterday/here for you today/

And gone last week. Names/that ran the river towns/…Windows in deserted shops post/names of jobless girls who stuck around,/got pregnant, chilled on pills, fell in/and out of love, and too young died…”

In “Waiting for the Moon” he writes, “…Time then to enter shaman country—/gypsum dunes white as snowfall, wilderness of yucca and violet roses/bedded on crests slippery as the sea./The full moon’s expected, first/night after the longest day. How/the ancients marked this celestial/coincidence is lost. I’m on my own…”

As Crazy Horse of the Lakota said, “The Great Spirit gave us this country/as a home. You had yours.”

The author of this collection, Peter Neil Carroll, has written about place in America as both a historian and a poet. This is his second poetry collection. He is also the author of RIVERBORNE: A MISSISSIPPI REQUIEM. He has published in many journals such as Pacific Review, New Mexico Poetry Review and Monterey Poetry Review. He has taught creative writing at the University of San Francisco and history at Stanford University.

He hosted “Booktalk” on Pacifica Radio and edited the San Francisco Review of Books. Born in New York City, he lives in Belmont, California.

Clangings by Steve Cramer

Steven Cramer

Clangings


Steven Cramer

Sarabande Books

ISBN 978-1-936747-46-7

2012 $14.95



Clangings is a poetry book open to mystery. Each poem

is titled and paginated in the table of contents and with each page

devoid of the poem title. At first I imagined the poem as one

or several long poems with a blank page separation. Interesting

how I came to understand the poems as individual and also as one

poem, by studying the reasons for Cramer's intention. The cover art,

image by Johann Fournier, with three exact heads, reminds me of a

Buddhist statue and also requires closer attention. There is a movement,

an adjustment and concentration to the details in the way the poems read

and the cover image portrays. Often as in a concrete poem the reader

needs to be open to the many layers a word may contain. The one

word concrete poem lends definition to the word, being itself as it

is scripted, but it is also a reflection on the many meanings it brings:

...

“Dickey says we're born in a reek

kind of ammonia, sort of a Comet

paste thickened with piss. The wet

crimps your nose and stinks if we kick.”

…



We are brought to an immediacy, the birthing, as a poem, as metaphor,

images in a particular reality, lends to the imaginings a poem may

utilize, or not use. In this segment of the larger parts, in this verse our senses

are used so that we may recognize the poem as birth. All the poems therein

are about truth, a surreal, dada truth, an experimental truth, born from one's

reality and the way the mind often may perceive. The poems live on the page:



…

Forks can't solve it any more than a kettle.

Forks and kettles are found in the gospel

where they go horn to horn with the devil.

Look, here's his hide, bristling in a bottle.”

…



The rhythm carries the words. The perfect separation, the line breaks

sing into the next line. Meaning is constant in the images and metaphor

and what the image may conjure is plainly seen and I accept their meanings

in a real and in a poetic sensibility, “he overshadows the light divided,”

as if the poem becomes a gospel, each word thought connection then

flowers and thistles each verse, thus making reality dance with all the

meanings and their concrete connections:

…

“I could clang wish-bells, break out a dish,

but I know he's the headache at the base

of my throat. He's left ice in my voice,

foam round rocks where we used to fish.”



The word journey continues on every page we encounter

“a finch in my chest flinches to get heard” the poems engage us

in conversations about our own thought process, on how to read

poetry, or write poems. Cramer's poetic form is impeccable;



“Dickey my door, I'm seeing. Yesterday

I can tackle after all, and I feel like it

opens an ocean view from my parapet

of mountains and moons of Mercury.

…



This is a fantastic read and an enormous gift for anyone who appreciates

good poetry and perfected four line verse.



Irene Koronas

Poetry Editor: Wilderness House Literary Review

Reviewer: Ibbetson Street Press

An Affair of Concoctions‏ by Eamon Loinsigh

An Affair of Concoctions

Eamon Loingsigh

Shanachie 51 Press

$10.99 on Amazon

Review by Rene Schwiesow

If you’re expecting the usual trite template for a work of fiction, you will not find it in this first novel by Eamon Loingsigh.  The work is short, a novella, and offers readers a refreshing change of pace from the tired standard fare.  “An Affair of Concoctions” is intriguing.  According to Loingsigh in a 2009 interview, “. . .I knew that the story couldn’t be told in a traditional format. At least not to the effect I was looking for. It needed to be sparse, obscure and it needed to say a lot with very little words. It needed to be written in a way that would leave a lot to the imagination.”

And the work certainly does say a lot with few words. 

An Affair of Concoctions bears the fingerprints of many authors, perhaps most poignantly the existentialists.  In “The Stranger,” Albert Camus writes, ““I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”  Loingsigh’s protagonist, Jonathan Piltdown, realizes the world’s indifference too:  “Wasn’t it Camus,” Loingsigh writes, “who said the horror of indifference is that the universe doesn’t care about our struggles?”

Two pages later, Piltdown’s daughter dies.

The name of Loingsigh’s male protagonist is no coincidence.  Piltdown was the name of a hoax perpetuated from bone fragments declared to be the remains of an early human.  It was 40 years before the forgery was exposed.  Piltdown, a seemingly typical corporate suit, may also be other than he appears.  However the reader may interpret Loingsigh’s characters and story, it is evident that Piltdown and the female protagonist, Maison, suffer from existential angst.  Throughout the book they experience a pervading spiritual fear and a struggle to get back to and be more responsible to God.

The relationship between Piltdown and Maison is the heart of the story.  If you are at all interested in the psychology of relationship, the pair will present you with plenty fodder for examination.  An online connection leads Piltdown to attempt a real-world tete a tete, which becomes more a game of cat and mouse than functional meeting.  From this reviewer’s perspective, curiosity ensnares you page by page as Pildown’s motives, psyche and emotional stability are questioned.  Exactly what is his attachment to the idea of Maison?    Throughout the book we are left to wonder whether the relationship is really as it appears.  The subjectivity inherent in “An Affair of Concoctions” will give book club members the opportunity for lively discussion.

If you swoon to predictable series like “Twilight,” “An Affair of Concoctions” may not be the book for you.  But if you prefer not to be spoon fed plot and enjoy the avante garde in a story; if you are looking for attention to craft and detail; if you long for something that will feed your desire to delve into the psyche of the characters and, perhaps, even make a connection to this postmodern world, then Loingsigh’s “An Affair of Concoctions” is definitely the book for you.

Loingsigh, who at one time was called “New York’s shanachie,” is an author to watch.  Though he no longer appears frequently on New York’s literary circuit, he remains a master at telling a tale.  Give yourself an early holiday gift, drop by Amazon and order your copy of “An Affair of Concoctions.”  Loingsigh’s story weaves an amazing, intricate web.  Become entangled.

Rene Schwiesow is co-host of the popular South Shore Poetry venue, “The Art of Words.” She writes a column for the Plymouth Center for the Arts in The Old Colony Memorial and when she is not writing can be found reading, cooking, or searching for amazing shoes.

Boris Pasternak My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems Translated from the Russian by James E. Falen

 

Boris Pasternak

My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

Translated from the Russian by James E. Falen

Copyright © 2012 James E. Falen

Northwestern University Press

Softbound, 164 pages, $17.95

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Translations from some foreign languages with which we have some smattering of familiarity are less difficult for the translator-reader relationship.  Spanish and French come to mind.  Other languages, because of multiple meanings of words (or characters) leave a reader to wholly depend on the translator. Russian and Chinese jump out, as do some Eastern European languages, Hebrew, Arabic, where the reader cannot connect in any way with the original, even when it is printed on the facing page.

Once, a long time ago, I owned a book of Boris Pasternak’s poetry.  Most people remember him as the author of Dr. Zhivago, but it is his poetry that brought him fame in his native land.  My copy was borrowed by some forgotten person and never returned. That was one of the books that “disappeared” and led to my “do not lend” policy.  

Anyway, I discovered a brand new translation of Pasternak’s My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems in one volume, translated from the Russian by James E. Falen.  Falen has previously translated Pushkin and Akhmatova, two very difficult writers to translate, so I was not worried about Pasternak being hacked up.

In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at his ability to bring what might be considered archaic words and forms to the page with ease and elegance.  Even the rhyming schemes, when used, work well. Falen has done an excellent and enjoyable translation of Pasternak’s work. One of the book’s strengths for me is the lack of facing page original language.  That leaves 164 pages of English translation and a totally readable book.

One example from My Sister Life is “How Well You Played that Role” in which the poet bemoans a past, unfaithful love:

How well, how well you played that role!

While forgot my cues!

Forgot that you’d sing other roles,

As someone else’s muse.

Along the clouds the boa sailed on

Through field of new-mown hay,

And oh, how well you played that role,

Like sighing ripples play!

And leaning low above the oar,

A swallow on one wing,

You played that role far better, dear,

Than all the rest you’ll sing!

From the same sequence is another of Pasternak’s love poems.  Though one would gather from the novel Dr. Zhivago that there exists deep passion in him, it is the poetry which reveals his most passionate writing.  

Crossing The Oars

Rockaway boat in a somnolent breast,

Willows sweep down over collarbones kissing

Elbows and oarlocks … but, oh, take a rest,

This is what nobody sensible misses.

This is a song for more than a few.

This is a song … of ashes of lilac,

Splendor of chamomile crushed in the dew,

Lips upon lips to be bartered for starlight!

This means embracing the vault of the sky,

Wrapping your arms around Hercules, clinging …

This means to squander—and never day die—

Night after night on the nightingale’s singing!

In The Zhivago Poems, the second part of the book, we find Pasternak still writing about romance and love.  Take the first two stanzas of “White Night” for example:

I dream of a far-distant time,

Of a house on the Petersburg quai.

A landowner’s daughter from Kursk,

You came as a student on day.

You were charming and had your admirers;

And the two of us all the white night

Found a place at the window enclosure,

Looking down from your skyscraper height.

Or there is this stanza from “Autumn”

At one we’ll sit, at three we’ll go—

I with a book, you with your knitting,

And in the dawn we’ll never know

What time it was we left off kissing.

Clearly, for me, Pasternak is a poet of passion. His subtle metaphoric references of love and romance, love making and separation, the elegance of his writing is what many poets who toss a cup of it in your face, or let it spill out to expose themselves and most often former spouses or lovers leave little for the imagination.  No, there is nothing explicit here like those who write about body parts, bones, sexual prowess, cheating, etc.

Pasternak, who lived from 1890-1960 is more closely aligned with the Romantic poets than with our confessional poets, though in his own way, Pasternak’s confessions unfold in a more alluring manner.

__________________________________

Zvi A. Sesling

Author, King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street, 2010) and Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 20110)

Reviewer, Boston Small Press and Poetry Scene

Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review

Editor, Bagel Bards Anthology 7

Jared Smith on the late small press icon Harry Smith: A MOMENT IN THE MAGNIFICENT TIME WE SHARED



A MOMENT IN THE MAGNIFICENT TIME WE SHARED By Jared Smith To even begin to understand the scope and power and dignity of Harry Smith, you have to understand the social and intellectual maelstrom that he rode the center of in the 1960s and 70s onward in New York City.  Rage.  Vietnam.  Women’s rights: Our Bodies Ourselves. Civil Rights.  Gay pride.  All piled against the vast complacency of the mainstream media, initially unfocused  through a rising up-swell of tortured voices that were easy to ignore in the beginning. And there was Harry Smith moving into the center, a bear of a man rolling boisterously with the passions of the time and focusing all that power through his own words and actions, and also through organization of the un-organizable, his giving voice to The People, his own majestic poems that included both formal verse and open jagged dashes into the solar plexis of complacency.  And his publishing.  The small press world we draw our writers from today would not have existed without the work of Harry Smith and only a handful of others who worked with  him.  Harry was the poet and publisher I sought out and pursued diligently through eight years between his inclusion of my early work in an anthology of young poets and his finally accepting my first book of poetry in 1983.  Harry Smith, who brought together Menke Katz, Poet Laureate of Lithuania, with the likes of Sid Bernard, Tom Tolnay, H.L. Van Brunt, and the heart of the dissatisfied New York writers into a powerhouse of revolutionary cultural change that he combined with the voices and machinations of Len Fulton and Hugh Fox to create a full cross-country counter-culture of change through his work at COSMEP, CCLM, the Pushcart Awards, and other ventures. But what right did I have to even approach Harry Smith, I thought, as I walked into the beehive of activity that comprised the offices of The Smith at Beekman Street in Manhattan? Stan Nelson was rushing out the door.  Sid was dripping cigarette ashes over a pile of manuscripts, having just stopped in from his work as a freelance writer and a roving editor for Smith.  Lloyd had a phone clutched in each hand as he strode up and down the office.  And Harry sat calmly in the middle of it all, his high forehead and white mane of hair reminding me in that first moment of Melville’s blank white wall—whether of good or evil, impervious and containing massive power that came from something indescribable that transcended our beliefs and wove them together.  I found myself at a complete loss of words, merely mumbling and scraping and lowering my own eyes in order to merely be around Harry and these other men, and listen as intently as I could in the time given me to the words they had to say, knowing those words would become a part of me. I was young and very small, but Harry was magnificent and welcoming and generous, bringing me into the center.  He took me to Suerken's a restaurant  (near his office)  where he maintained a table famous among the New York literati, introduced me to mid-morning Bloody  Marys, and offered a very generous advance for what was after all a first book of poetry.  I see him to this day, with the broad dark round table set before him with white napkins and a rose in a vase upon it along with “whatever food  you would like,” his arms opening wide with welcome repeatedly as ideas took shape and were tasted between us..  Here was the ferocious man who played passion into the poetry of his time in the same way that William Packard was playing control and craft into the same scene through his work at The New York Quarterly.  Here was the writer of Trinity and so much more, an intellectual magnet, and we were there together at the center. We moved our separate ways again as time moved on, though Harry published a large number of my poems over the years since.  And we remained the closest of friends even after I moved west.  I would visit him in his  brownstone years later in Brooklyn, and we would exchange poems and ruminations and praise for the natural world after he moved to Maine.  But that center, that Suerken's  where we sat and had our fill of literary alcohol has always been at the heart of my most cherished memories. Harry, we would not have had the world we live in now—would not have had the freedom of choice over words and actions that we have—had it not been for you, your strength, generosity, philanthropy, and creative majesty.  I think that we all wish that we could have given you more. Bio.Note: Jared Smith is not related to Harry Smith, though he wishes he could claim the connection.  Harry published Jared’s first book, a book-length poem, Song of the Blood, and it is reprinted in full in Jared’s Collected Poems: 1971-2011, published by NYQ Books,  and available through Small Press Distribution at http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781935520511/the-collected-poems-of-jared-smith-19712011.aspx?rf=1  THE WORDSMITH (for Harry Smith in Memoriam) "And how from all death life is reborn" Louis Aragon We remain here forgetting little of your departed life full of winds of mirth and reverie of burning nights in attics for restless exiles and new arrivals sacrificing time for others who struggle to locate the right phrase from the ephemeral, Harry,always colliding with idealism often with the young, outcast and invisible, in a protective fate of keeping your Word and us alive on cerebral tongues as a warm inner light for generations. --B.Z. Niditch

A letter to Kathleen Spivack: With Robert Lowell and His Circle

A letter to Kathleen Spivack:  With Robert Lowell and His Circle

By Irene Koronas

Dear reader, I will review this book, initially, by addressing

it to the author, Kathleen Spivack. Please be reminded that

it is a review and I bring the review back to you as a reader.

Dear Kathleen

Last night, I first made my way to the bookstore,

and with some effort the young sales person helped

me find your new book, “With Robert Lowell and

His Circle,” on the shelf under the L's. Then I traipsed

off to a poetry reading with the book in my mind, anxious

for its story. I had to separate myself from seeing your image

as we greeted each other at the Saturday morning Bagel Bard gathering.

Once I left my own images and concentrated on the words

on the page and when much later I was open to the

newness of this book, I found myself engrossed with the

historical, instead of “an invert” relationships a new book

might offer.

By the time I left the poetry reading, with your book

still in a plastic bag begging me to open to the clean pages,

anxious to read about what I perceived as a glamorous time,

(from all the talk about Lowell and Plath and Sexton),  and

the supposed glamor of suicide, depicted in other books. I was

interested in your writing, your participation during those times.

Waiting down under in the subway, for the 77 bus, I opened the book

and read the introduction. Realizing we are from similar circumstances,

how we relate to the immigrant way, the accented language, the need

to be an American success story, brought me closer to understanding

the way the book is written. I read the beginning of the first chapter,

“Family” and then slipped the book back into my bag. When I have

more time I will read more. The book mark is on page twenty.

Dear Kathleen

“If pulled into the sexual orbit of this extremely

attractive person, one would be burnt to cinder.

Lowell, with all his genius and madness, would

make sure to survive. A girl would not.”

Kathleen, your intellectual life was on its way to maturity. The

beginning of the 60's was (and even now) a time of inequality

of circumstances, which lent to your feminine innocence.  Lowell

seemed entitled, (or what I perceive as entitlement) juxtaposed

with your young student's innocence, became a recipe for disastrous

consequences. Your writing presents this focused and broad under-

standing about Lowell, out of context, or in context with the times:

“at that time Millay was out of favor. She

was considered too romantic, too direct and

“out there” - a girl might have a passion for

her poetry. But I was in the land of oblique,

incomprehensible words, words one had to

struggle to understand. I was in Boston, the

Land of Harvard, with sophisticates who

spoke of poets I had never heard of.”

Lowell, being a multilayer character and teacher,  with his approach

to teaching, dogmatic and gentle, lends to an interesting read.

This is so clearly shown in the way you depict his everyday posture and presentation..

Your portrayal of the great poet Lowell is masterful. Your book is written

to be understood. (I thank you for that)

The poets become real and not a romantic rendition of who the reader

might want to think they are. This then gives the reader real under-

standing. Poetry is also the way a poet lives and thinks and all the

different ways a life may  lead to writing poems. Your writing

captures the nuances in the details. Their lives are perceived by your

discerning eye:

“On a particularly lucid day, Lowell passed out copies

of Sylvia's poem “sow.”

 I can still recall his somewhat nasal Southern-Virginian-

New England voice, oddly pitched, as if starting to ask

a question, saying to Sylvia and to the class “This poem

is perfect, almost.” A slight breath-gasp, nasal and out-

ward, as if clearing his sinuses silently, “There really is

not much to say.”  A kindly but bewildered look. Long,

struggling silence. Lowell looks down at the poem, brow

furrowed. The class waits. Sylvia, in a cardigan, does not

move. She listens. No one else moves either. “it appears

finished.” Long silence. Lowell looks agonized, but then

he always does. Anne fidgets. Realizing that her arms

draped with charm bracelets are making noise, she stops.

Sylvia leans forward, dutiful, expressionless, intense,

intelligent.”

Dear Reader:

The descriptions of Lowell as teacher send goose bumps.

I think about my own reactions if I’d of been there. My youth

and inexperience would've caused my shyness to take a seat

in the back of the room. If I’d been an older student I would

scream obscenities and been thrown out of class. Spivack has

an acceptance. She has the vocabulary which enables the

reader to experience what she experienced, an acceptance

in being able to be herself even if it is shyness, she will take

her seat and observe. It is remarkable how the reader will

be able to relate to this book because of Kathleen's observations and note

taking. She is able to bring the events to life. Chapter after

chapter we read from this awesome book:

"How did Lowell manage to train so many poets?

perhaps it was the fact that if one survived those

classes, one felt tough enough to survive the outside

world, even as a writer. these classes were more in the

nature of an ordeal, a fascinating one, to be sure, than

in the nature of entertainment."

This book needs to be in every classroom of higher learning:

"Poems were often submitted to Lowell without

names on them; most of us preferred to remain

anonymous as much as possible. but of course,

being slyly, Lowell would flush out the unfortunate

author. passing out those smeary carbon copies

with a seemingly tentative bend of the head, a

kindly smile, he would somehow get the author

to confess ownership."

The writing pulls me into,  each page until I’m lost in Lowell's

circle. The sentences carry me beyond myself. I feel the intensity

of being in this poetry class:

"While many of Lowell's women-writer friends were

kind, if slightly patronizing, Anne Sexton, irrepressibly

exuberant, was genuinely warm. She had a way of

drawing me right in."

Spivack has the capacity to write about Plath, Sexton and Lowell

and all those people in the circle friends and family come to life ;

the way a good novel has the ability to bring them into our life.

"Her (Sexton) hands shook when she read her poems aloud."

Sexton was a formidable person in writing as in her life, she was

immediate, present, seemingly self assured, perfect in manner,

open to friendships and dedicated to her poetry and poetic friends.

"Don't let the bastards get you" was her refrain about rejection notices

and she had a drawer full of them. This was her refrain to her close

poetic friends, Kathleen, Kumin and Lois Ames. Plath had a magnificent

attitude, supportive to the women poets, writers in a world where women

were still trying to please their male teachers/partners/editors, yet both

Sylvia and Anne were focused on themselves, in an (almost)

pornographic sense, meaning, not minding being public, being

able to do what was wanted and also, taking advantage behind

closed doors or in the open class room:

"But Anne was something of a renegade. She broadcast her

messy personal life, rather than hiding it beneath a veneer

of polite and tightened fury. So Anne, by virtue of her lack

of formal education and by her "excessive" emotionality and

obvious vulnerability was a lightning rod for criticisms. She

inspired controversy."

The focus of the book remains centered on those poets who were in

Lowell's class. Kathleen seems destined to write about Lowell. I

came to this conclusion  by the references Kathleen makes about

how she came from her fellowship at Oberlin and was “chosen”

by Lowell for private study with him, and later attending a class with so many

soon to be famous poets:

“After my initial few months of terror, I relaxed. It seemed,

once I settled in to the armchair across from Lowell, surrounded

by books and words, that I belonged there, had always lived

in that world where poetry had such power. I had been waiting

all my life for these conversations. Now they were upon me,

in that Lowell read and led me to read and inquired into my

thoughts on what I read...”

The reading moves quickly, not too quickly, yet, in an absorbing manner.

I move from one page to another with great interest. I'm beginning to

find it difficult to continue reviewing, when all I want is to sink

into the pages without the distraction of having to stop and write about

what I'm reading. There are so many phrases I want to capture, to quote

that even if I'm not writing this review, I would be slipping the note

paper out and jotting down passages for my own future reference.

Dear Kathleen, you have written and important book. Your writing

has opened a door into the world where many great writers and personalities,

live. Your writing opens as a great novel opens, with a mind to history

as well as imagination and a sense of place that will remain eternal

because, “With Robert Lowell and His Circle” we come to see clearly

through a dark glass.