I'm sure I've written before that I get these "moments" when what I want to read is a little Bukowski. To be honest, it's not just any Bukowski, but that full-throated, whoring, drinking, loud-mouthed, unapologetic sonofabitch classical music aficionado that Bukowski fans... love? Much like the women he writes about love him. Right?
Right.
I suppose.
Such was the case recently. And so I indulged (but using coupons and gift cards). What's so interesting about Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame is that the bastard voice I was reading for doesn't really make an appearance until very late in the second section (though he stays around for most of the third).
It's interesting (though not particularly enjoyable to me) because that first section is made up of selections from -- if I'm doing the math right -- when he first started writing poetry (in his 30s). And it shows. They are poems of the very much "poetically"-aware (and... "fumbling" isn't quite the right word, but in all craft we struggle as we develop, and it often shows in what we offer as our work).
They aren't bad, they're just... young (even though Bukowski wasn't particularly at the time).
But with this realization in hand, it becomes something of an education for the reader to see and hear the poetry morph. Of course, as Bukowski notes in his own introduction to the collection, there's a rather yawning and noteworthy gap in collection (1969-1972), though it is noteworthy perhaps more in retrospect: these years seem to be the ones where Bukowski found that oh so distinctive voice of his. But that's okay, because here we've got the luck that found him (and made him one of the "good" poets) and some "warm asses".
Not as profound as it should be; but not achingly dramatic either... just a commonplace reader.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Hummingbird: Magazine of the Short Poem 20.2 (March 2010)
Usually I gobble these up within days of arriving. It's something I can read quickly, in those little eruptions of time when I feel unmoved and unstressed by... well, anything else. And there is usually pleasure in it. Little pleasures, but at least a smile.
Perhaps it was the long delay between arrival and reading. Perhaps I'm just growing weary: cynicism snuffing out wonder. But I can feel the arch-profundity of the self-consciously compressed lines a bit too acutely throughout this issue.
Sigh.
Perhaps it was the long delay between arrival and reading. Perhaps I'm just growing weary: cynicism snuffing out wonder. But I can feel the arch-profundity of the self-consciously compressed lines a bit too acutely throughout this issue.
Sigh.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At Last
There's a certain campy punch to much of Bukowski that I really enjoy. I don't think it's necessarily intended, but's how I find myself reading it often; and many times it's why I pick up Bukowski.
This was such a time.
And The People Look Like Flowers At Last didn't disappoint.
There was an oddly reflective, surrealistically-tinged opening that worried me at first, but the collection settles in to the consciously rough-hewn edge that I so enjoy when I'm looking for a self-referential, half-winking escape. It means I read slower -- to draw out the time I can indulge -- and I'm sad to go.
Not so sorry to be leaving him; maybe, instead, the silly possibilities Bukowski is such a master at conjuring.
This was such a time.
And The People Look Like Flowers At Last didn't disappoint.
There was an oddly reflective, surrealistically-tinged opening that worried me at first, but the collection settles in to the consciously rough-hewn edge that I so enjoy when I'm looking for a self-referential, half-winking escape. It means I read slower -- to draw out the time I can indulge -- and I'm sad to go.
Not so sorry to be leaving him; maybe, instead, the silly possibilities Bukowski is such a master at conjuring.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Jeffrey Brown, Sulk, Issue 2: Deadly Awesome
I enjoy Jeffrey Brown's work. And these "issues" of Sulk that he produces are fun little distractions. I picked up issue two despite the fact that it's about mixed martial arts, something I have no taste for or interest in.
For me this is nothing more than a light entertainment, a diversion. Or potentially so. It never quite lives up to it's description: "Jeffrey Brown explores the world of mixed martial arts and the nature of violence in this tribute to no-holds-barred cage fighting!" Well, I don't see the exploration of the nature of violence in it (despite one or two telling flashbacks); mostly we read interior monologues of the fighters puzzling through their strategies. In the breathless commentary of the announcers and the drama evoked by the use of large, heavy fonts and "Krak" and "Slam", it certainly does live up to the enthusiasm implicit in the exclamation point, though!
And that just seems a little silly to me. But to each his own; just not mine, this time.
Until the end. The very last frame. Where the victor muses, "I think I may have lost my taste for this." Amen, brother!
One side-note: there's one frame early on in the fight where the older, smaller, weaker, but cagier fighter -- Haruki Rasasaku -- who otherwise throughout the panels is very much his own man, looks an awful lot like Jeffrey Brown. In profile. Hmmm...
For me this is nothing more than a light entertainment, a diversion. Or potentially so. It never quite lives up to it's description: "Jeffrey Brown explores the world of mixed martial arts and the nature of violence in this tribute to no-holds-barred cage fighting!" Well, I don't see the exploration of the nature of violence in it (despite one or two telling flashbacks); mostly we read interior monologues of the fighters puzzling through their strategies. In the breathless commentary of the announcers and the drama evoked by the use of large, heavy fonts and "Krak" and "Slam", it certainly does live up to the enthusiasm implicit in the exclamation point, though!
And that just seems a little silly to me. But to each his own; just not mine, this time.
Until the end. The very last frame. Where the victor muses, "I think I may have lost my taste for this." Amen, brother!
One side-note: there's one frame early on in the fight where the older, smaller, weaker, but cagier fighter -- Haruki Rasasaku -- who otherwise throughout the panels is very much his own man, looks an awful lot like Jeffrey Brown. In profile. Hmmm...
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Robert Berold, All the Days
It took me a while to warm to Robert Berold's All My Days. More than a while, in fact. Well, actually, it took something of a gap between readings.
All My Days is a slim book, as most collections are. And I like to read these things, if I can, in one single push. It gives me, it seems, a better sense of the poet, of the rhythm, of the style and voice. If the poetry is done well, I'm caught up, almost trance-like, and carried through. Done poorly, I slog it out and don't have to come back.
I didn't make it all the way through Berold's book in one go. Not because it was badly done. I'm sure something came up: such as morning, and having to get my son fed, dressed, and off to school. But I do remember being somewhat underwhelmed when I closed it up that first time.
And on a post-it note stuck to the front I scrawled, in my tight, small-cap hand: "a penchant for description by listing -- 'setting the scene'" followed by a drawn line and the rather under-enthusiastic, even wary "and then there are the thicker, chunkier, prose pieces..." (yes, ellipsis and all).
I never did warm to the latter, and it's not as if the early poems don't strike a resonant line here and there. Berold's poem, "Beloved", opens with "Love burnt both of us. / Now rain falls in this scorched place. / I lean into your gravity" (26).
But it's later in the collection that things started clicking for me. "Night shift Hangzhou" doesn't quite make it as a whole -- the second stanza works a little too hard at mimicking the scene Berold is trying to describe -- but the first three lines crackle: "Down, down, below zero, and the wind biting, / I am almost falling asleep on my feet. I imagine / summer in South Africa, sizzling with electric fences" (44). The lines break just right on the page and in the reading; the opposites oddly, and effectively, echoing one another. Those three lines are masterfully done.
"Proposal" is cute (but in a playful, not saccharin, sense) and familiar; and "To myself at 20" (55) might very well be one of the better poems I've read, opening:
All My Days has been reviewed elsewhere by Kobus Moolman and Vonani Bila, in both cases glowingly and in enviable depth.
This is the fourth collection of Berold's -- and I'll be reading all four (bought in South Africa last October). In reverse. So a bit of me was expecting... whiz bang? I wanted to love it. Some I do. I should probably re-read the whole. When I go back to look at all four together, I will.
This time in one sitting.
All My Days is a slim book, as most collections are. And I like to read these things, if I can, in one single push. It gives me, it seems, a better sense of the poet, of the rhythm, of the style and voice. If the poetry is done well, I'm caught up, almost trance-like, and carried through. Done poorly, I slog it out and don't have to come back.
I didn't make it all the way through Berold's book in one go. Not because it was badly done. I'm sure something came up: such as morning, and having to get my son fed, dressed, and off to school. But I do remember being somewhat underwhelmed when I closed it up that first time.
And on a post-it note stuck to the front I scrawled, in my tight, small-cap hand: "a penchant for description by listing -- 'setting the scene'" followed by a drawn line and the rather under-enthusiastic, even wary "and then there are the thicker, chunkier, prose pieces..." (yes, ellipsis and all).
I never did warm to the latter, and it's not as if the early poems don't strike a resonant line here and there. Berold's poem, "Beloved", opens with "Love burnt both of us. / Now rain falls in this scorched place. / I lean into your gravity" (26).
But it's later in the collection that things started clicking for me. "Night shift Hangzhou" doesn't quite make it as a whole -- the second stanza works a little too hard at mimicking the scene Berold is trying to describe -- but the first three lines crackle: "Down, down, below zero, and the wind biting, / I am almost falling asleep on my feet. I imagine / summer in South Africa, sizzling with electric fences" (44). The lines break just right on the page and in the reading; the opposites oddly, and effectively, echoing one another. Those three lines are masterfully done.
"Proposal" is cute (but in a playful, not saccharin, sense) and familiar; and "To myself at 20" (55) might very well be one of the better poems I've read, opening:
I think of myself in Ingrid's bedroom,He manages to capture the bravado, fear, and utter cluelessness of youth. And that still sort of stings.
under that poster of Bonnie and Clyde
with dark rings under my eyes,
while her mother wept continuously
and her brother muttered threats.
All My Days has been reviewed elsewhere by Kobus Moolman and Vonani Bila, in both cases glowingly and in enviable depth.
This is the fourth collection of Berold's -- and I'll be reading all four (bought in South Africa last October). In reverse. So a bit of me was expecting... whiz bang? I wanted to love it. Some I do. I should probably re-read the whole. When I go back to look at all four together, I will.
This time in one sitting.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Philip Roth, The Humbling
What a thoroughly, frighteningly unhappy book.
Or is it just me?
Perhaps, with The Humbling, I've read too much Philip Roth. Or not enough of his early works. Something.
Maybe I'm becoming too much of a moralist -- the death-rattle of the critic -- but it all seemed rather sordid. But even worse, as far as the novel (as a form) is concerned: rushed and unmoored.
Which is, of course, a large part of the story of The Humbling but... it doesn't feel artfully done. And while some of the worst of it all touched my lizard brain and excited a boiling discomfort, I suspect that it has little to do with Roth's skill or this little novel's artistry.
And maybe it's just me.
Or is it just me?
Perhaps, with The Humbling, I've read too much Philip Roth. Or not enough of his early works. Something.
Maybe I'm becoming too much of a moralist -- the death-rattle of the critic -- but it all seemed rather sordid. But even worse, as far as the novel (as a form) is concerned: rushed and unmoored.
Which is, of course, a large part of the story of The Humbling but... it doesn't feel artfully done. And while some of the worst of it all touched my lizard brain and excited a boiling discomfort, I suspect that it has little to do with Roth's skill or this little novel's artistry.
And maybe it's just me.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Gail Dendy, People Crossing
I had the pleasure of meeting Gail Dendy during my trip to South Africa last year. Right at the tail end of the trip, quite literally (and lamentedly, as she was a delight and the conversation over lunch a real pleasure): when we finished eating she put me on a shuttle for the airport.
People Crossing is Dendy's second collection, and is probably a stronger than the usual sophomore effort. There is a great deal of sensuousness (in the scandalous sense of that word) about many of these poems; and while not all of it works, much of it does.
In "Spider-watch" (in which Dendy evokes the rather over-worked image of the black widow spider) we read the incredibly evocative:
But Dendy is far from "merely" a sensuous poet. The denouement of "Assault" is... well, frightfully powerful: you know what's coming, the turn is not particularly artful (nor is it artless), but it's still sickening and lands like a punch.
She is a relatively prolific poet but there is little of her poetry accessible and available here in the United States. I foolishly left South Africa with this volume only. There are a few short biographical pieces (here and here) as well as some brief interviews (here and here). For those with a taste for... well... poetry, I've managed to find the following poems of Dendy's online:
I do look forward to continuing our discussion and, hopefully, getting my hands on another volume or two of her work before the next trip back to the RSA.
People Crossing is Dendy's second collection, and is probably a stronger than the usual sophomore effort. There is a great deal of sensuousness (in the scandalous sense of that word) about many of these poems; and while not all of it works, much of it does.
In "Spider-watch" (in which Dendy evokes the rather over-worked image of the black widow spider) we read the incredibly evocative:
She's endless,And in "Fragment" (in its entirety):
tonight, all give.
[....]
The stitching is complete.
One of them is satisfied.
It has to be passionate,While the most titillating might very well be the closing lines of "Exposed":
leg-wrapped.
I know his clung kiss, sharp
as a bloodburst.
To themOh my!!
I was all
night lover –
a spool
of yearning.
Unravel me
then.
But Dendy is far from "merely" a sensuous poet. The denouement of "Assault" is... well, frightfully powerful: you know what's coming, the turn is not particularly artful (nor is it artless), but it's still sickening and lands like a punch.
She is a relatively prolific poet but there is little of her poetry accessible and available here in the United States. I foolishly left South Africa with this volume only. There are a few short biographical pieces (here and here) as well as some brief interviews (here and here). For those with a taste for... well... poetry, I've managed to find the following poems of Dendy's online:
I do look forward to continuing our discussion and, hopefully, getting my hands on another volume or two of her work before the next trip back to the RSA.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Dino Buzzati, Poem Strip including An Explanation of the Afterlife
I just don't get it I guess...
Dino Buzzati's Poem Strip is... well... a paean to school boy fantasies? A mushy graphic amalgam of the detritus of 1960s psychedelic (soon to be arena) rock music? A whole lot of tit and ass?
It's all of those things. And apparently it's avant garde and "a dark and alluring investigation into mysteries of love, lust, sex, and death" (if the back of the book is to be believed). Kinda missed that whole dark and alluring part. It all seems so very self-indulgent and disconcertingly sterile (and there's no reason why a re-telling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth needs to feel sterile, as anyone who has seen Black Orpheus can attest).
Some of the drawings are quite striking -- you can see a selection here -- but as a whole, it fails.
Dino Buzzati's Poem Strip is... well... a paean to school boy fantasies? A mushy graphic amalgam of the detritus of 1960s psychedelic (soon to be arena) rock music? A whole lot of tit and ass?
It's all of those things. And apparently it's avant garde and "a dark and alluring investigation into mysteries of love, lust, sex, and death" (if the back of the book is to be believed). Kinda missed that whole dark and alluring part. It all seems so very self-indulgent and disconcertingly sterile (and there's no reason why a re-telling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth needs to feel sterile, as anyone who has seen Black Orpheus can attest).
Some of the drawings are quite striking -- you can see a selection here -- but as a whole, it fails.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Dexter Filkins, The Forever War
The war reading continues... unending... forever?
And I'm worn out.
But I can also say that Dexter Filkins' The Forever War is an amazing book. A stunner. A sometimes viscerally shaking book; rattling but never confusing. The numerous laudatory reviews are spot on, and the awards are well-earned.
There is little I can add other than to encourage you to read this book. I'd demand you do so if I could.
Filkins is no expert and he doesn't pretend as much. Nor does he cop an attitude of faux naivete. Instead we follow along with a working journalist trying to understand what the hell is going on: curious, weary, numb, both foolish and foolhardy, sometimes laugh out loud funny. In both Afghanistan (to open the book, the shorter of the two parts) and Iraq (a war that has now largely dropped off our collective radar, with the exception of the occasional "boom!").
We are in the moment; these are snapshots, almost. Sometimes no real narrative structure other than the mere fact of Filkins telling a story, presenting a scene. Just war. Grinding through a landscape and people. No discernible beginning, no ultimate end. Forever.
And I'm worn out.
But I can also say that Dexter Filkins' The Forever War is an amazing book. A stunner. A sometimes viscerally shaking book; rattling but never confusing. The numerous laudatory reviews are spot on, and the awards are well-earned.
There is little I can add other than to encourage you to read this book. I'd demand you do so if I could.
Filkins is no expert and he doesn't pretend as much. Nor does he cop an attitude of faux naivete. Instead we follow along with a working journalist trying to understand what the hell is going on: curious, weary, numb, both foolish and foolhardy, sometimes laugh out loud funny. In both Afghanistan (to open the book, the shorter of the two parts) and Iraq (a war that has now largely dropped off our collective radar, with the exception of the occasional "boom!").
We are in the moment; these are snapshots, almost. Sometimes no real narrative structure other than the mere fact of Filkins telling a story, presenting a scene. Just war. Grinding through a landscape and people. No discernible beginning, no ultimate end. Forever.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Wilbur Smith, Gold Mine
I feel a little... not dirty, but... I dunno. I simply don't seem to be a reader of action/adventure -- odd for a boy who cut his teeth on science fiction and fantasy growing up. I've been trying my hand at it lately, reading those works centered in Africa (that's my excuse, my justification: literary policing).
Gold Mine is my second Wilbur Smith book. Sigh...
Even after just two -- and this is not surprising (considering both the genre and the fundamentals of basic storytelling) -- I can see the pattern: talented, skilled, and strapping man (my, is he strapping), but somewhat down at the heels, not enjoying the vast privilege of those around him, not fully; put in a seemingly impossible situation, manipulated and given no real choice, but it's make or break; some shrieking harpy of a female attachment; a beautiful other woman to whom he might or could or once was attached; and a lurking, often soft (yet steely) villain.
And all hell breaks loose.
Set in the South African goldmines of the 1960s (and first published in 1970), Gold Mine plays to the stereotypes of the time, albeit not the very worst racist characterizations of the apartheid regime. Give it that. And it's hard to know where the characterizations are "race"-based and where "simply" gender-based. Still, to read of the "bantus" time and again is both annoying and mildly offensive.
There is much in this that is both.
Yes, I will probably read another, at some point, maybe, just to see if the patterns hold. But, oddly, I don't know if I'll really enjoy it. And I have wanted to enjoy these. Really...
Gold Mine is my second Wilbur Smith book. Sigh...
Even after just two -- and this is not surprising (considering both the genre and the fundamentals of basic storytelling) -- I can see the pattern: talented, skilled, and strapping man (my, is he strapping), but somewhat down at the heels, not enjoying the vast privilege of those around him, not fully; put in a seemingly impossible situation, manipulated and given no real choice, but it's make or break; some shrieking harpy of a female attachment; a beautiful other woman to whom he might or could or once was attached; and a lurking, often soft (yet steely) villain.
And all hell breaks loose.
Set in the South African goldmines of the 1960s (and first published in 1970), Gold Mine plays to the stereotypes of the time, albeit not the very worst racist characterizations of the apartheid regime. Give it that. And it's hard to know where the characterizations are "race"-based and where "simply" gender-based. Still, to read of the "bantus" time and again is both annoying and mildly offensive.
There is much in this that is both.
Yes, I will probably read another, at some point, maybe, just to see if the patterns hold. But, oddly, I don't know if I'll really enjoy it. And I have wanted to enjoy these. Really...
Saturday, October 10, 2009
John Waller, The Dancing Plague
I was profoundly disappointed in The Dancing Plague, though to be fair that probably has as much to do with my own sky high expectations for it as with the work itself.
Well...
You see, every once in awhile I get this heady urge to read something of the Middle Ages. Not historical fiction, but history, biography, something to give me a little taste, a little hint of what life might have been like. Across the classes -- high-born and low.
And Waller's book seemed to hold the promise of a delightful romp.
It's not poorly written. And he's gone absolutely batty with the endnotes (which are truly at the end of the book, 32 pages worth of them). Which, I suppose, should have told me something.
My main problem The Dancing Plague is that so little is actually known of the events in question: which is the outbreak of a mass compulsion to dance in the summer of 1518 in Strasbourg.
Now, I'm savvy, I've studied some history, I've done some historical research, I know we need to be wary of making assertions, and supposing too much, of fictionalizing our history, but Waller's style and approach to all of this is to qualify just about everything with "might" and "we can suppose" and similar constructions...
...but then to plunge undaunted into great detail as to the smells and sounds and feelings, even thoughts and movements, of bodies (individuals) and bodies (groups). It is maddeningly distracting at one level to continually read these qualifications, and at another level it simply makes no sense. If we can't suppose, let's not.
But that would have made for a much less salable book. To people like me. Who want to get a sense of the stuff, the smells, the sounds, the feelings, even the thoughts and the movements of the times.
Dance puppet, dance! I read the back of the book and did just that. Fool.
Well...
You see, every once in awhile I get this heady urge to read something of the Middle Ages. Not historical fiction, but history, biography, something to give me a little taste, a little hint of what life might have been like. Across the classes -- high-born and low.
And Waller's book seemed to hold the promise of a delightful romp.
It's not poorly written. And he's gone absolutely batty with the endnotes (which are truly at the end of the book, 32 pages worth of them). Which, I suppose, should have told me something.
My main problem The Dancing Plague is that so little is actually known of the events in question: which is the outbreak of a mass compulsion to dance in the summer of 1518 in Strasbourg.
Now, I'm savvy, I've studied some history, I've done some historical research, I know we need to be wary of making assertions, and supposing too much, of fictionalizing our history, but Waller's style and approach to all of this is to qualify just about everything with "might" and "we can suppose" and similar constructions...
...but then to plunge undaunted into great detail as to the smells and sounds and feelings, even thoughts and movements, of bodies (individuals) and bodies (groups). It is maddeningly distracting at one level to continually read these qualifications, and at another level it simply makes no sense. If we can't suppose, let's not.
But that would have made for a much less salable book. To people like me. Who want to get a sense of the stuff, the smells, the sounds, the feelings, even the thoughts and the movements of the times.
Dance puppet, dance! I read the back of the book and did just that. Fool.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Hummingbird: Magazine of the Short Poem 20.1 (September 2009)
Down to 2 issues a year, unfortunately (but understandably).
Still available for $5/issue from:
Get a subscription, read it, reread what pleases, put it on a shelf somewhere for someone else to discover one day, and wait half a year for your next ten minutes of pleasure.
Still available for $5/issue from:
Phyllis Walsh, EditorWorth it on the whole, if only because it's such an interesting little magazine (and I do mean little) of very short verse. A curiosity, perhaps, but a fun one. A bit earnest this time around (perhaps of late? characterizing the last few issues? earnestness does tire me so). Robert Deluty, who placed one of the stronger poems in the last issue, typifies what tends to curdle my insides:
Hummingbird
Harbour Village
5600 Mockingbird Lane, Apt D103
Greendale, WI 53129
husband and wifeOof. That's on page 39. On page 47, though, he also gives us:
with matching pacemakers:
heart-and-soulmates
mid-colloquim... [sic]The strongest -- cheekiest? -- poem of this issue, to my thinking, is David G. Lanoue's (27):
watching the department chair
balance her check book
she's barefoot and toplessBut really, what is it with all the ellipses?
in the fountain...
and bronze
Get a subscription, read it, reread what pleases, put it on a shelf somewhere for someone else to discover one day, and wait half a year for your next ten minutes of pleasure.
Sammy Oke Akombi, Beware the Drives
Beware the Drives is one of the poetry collections I was able to pick up at this year's African Literature Association conference, held in Burlington, Vermont. Exciting for me as it heralds the emergence of what is to me a new publishing house in Cameroon: Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group (distributed in the US & Europe by the marvelous African Books Collective).
The book is well-edited and produced, and for all those reasons, a delight.
The poetry much less-so.
There are some strong lines, but they stand out for their rarity. Perhaps the strongest of the entire collection are the closing lines of "A Poet's Epitaph": "You too, poet or no poet, sure shall find peace / In doing, pieces, for yourself and mankind" (1).
The opening poem.
I am more than willing to grant Akombi that, "Always there's something to be understood / That hasn't been understood" (from "Poetry" (21)), but on the whole the collection reads more like an old commonplace book than a vibrant new poetry collection; a collection of aphorisms, and rather obvious ones at that, lacking the song and punch of poetry.
It is lines like these that are, to my mind (and ear), simply inexplicable as poetry. There is real potential in "hunger-quake" -- it could soar -- but... "Socio-politico-ideologico-quakes"??
It's a suggestive trope, and the wonderful start to a set piece. And perhaps by this point in the collection I had wearied, but it's not quite working as poetry. Not yet.
The book is well-edited and produced, and for all those reasons, a delight.
The poetry much less-so.
There are some strong lines, but they stand out for their rarity. Perhaps the strongest of the entire collection are the closing lines of "A Poet's Epitaph": "You too, poet or no poet, sure shall find peace / In doing, pieces, for yourself and mankind" (1).
The opening poem.
I am more than willing to grant Akombi that, "Always there's something to be understood / That hasn't been understood" (from "Poetry" (21)), but on the whole the collection reads more like an old commonplace book than a vibrant new poetry collection; a collection of aphorisms, and rather obvious ones at that, lacking the song and punch of poetry.
When children, innocent and clean
As they always have been
Die in storms and quakes --
Earthwuakes, techno-quakes, hunger-quakes
Socio-politico-ideologico-quakes
And then gun and bomb quakes,
One can't help but question,
Is that why they were born?
"Victims" (5)
It is lines like these that are, to my mind (and ear), simply inexplicable as poetry. There is real potential in "hunger-quake" -- it could soar -- but... "Socio-politico-ideologico-quakes"??
To me it's yet unknown
Where to place my napkin at meal
Which hand for the fork,
Which for the knife and which for the spoon,
And here comes the chopstick.
"Globalisation" (37)
It's a suggestive trope, and the wonderful start to a set piece. And perhaps by this point in the collection I had wearied, but it's not quite working as poetry. Not yet.
Simon Armitage, Kid
Armitage seemed like a "hot item" when I picked up this collection, Kid, at one of our local Half Price Books for... a dollar.
Yup. A buck. You'd think they'd wring a little more blood from the stone of the next big thing, wouldn't you?!?
But there it was, and Armitage -- who isn't so new -- seemed to be popping up into my consciousness with some regularity. Readings in Stevens Point (??) sponsored by public radio, recent books popping out on the shelves of Barnes & Noble... Who knows why for sure. But there he was. Again. And for a dollar? I'll bite. And buy.
And was so disappointed. Not sure if I just hadn't built up any momentum with the collection. But I read in widely separated fits and starts (and wasn't moved to engage with anything more). I labored. And I stalled. About halfway through. Prepared myself to push through the last half and read, after two weeks? Three? This...
Nothing quite rises to it, though "Great Sporting Moments: The Treble" comes close, and the opening couplet is a delight: "The rich! I love them. Trust them to suppose / the gift of tennis is deep in their bones" (55).
The BBC has a wonderful poetry site (the fact that they have their Poetry Season is wonder enough) which has quite a nice write-up on Armitage -- and him reading his poem "Gawain" (which those of us on this side of the pond are not allowed to listen to apparently). Too bad; might have drawn me into another collection of his. Might still, but...
Yup. A buck. You'd think they'd wring a little more blood from the stone of the next big thing, wouldn't you?!?
But there it was, and Armitage -- who isn't so new -- seemed to be popping up into my consciousness with some regularity. Readings in Stevens Point (??) sponsored by public radio, recent books popping out on the shelves of Barnes & Noble... Who knows why for sure. But there he was. Again. And for a dollar? I'll bite. And buy.
And was so disappointed. Not sure if I just hadn't built up any momentum with the collection. But I read in widely separated fits and starts (and wasn't moved to engage with anything more). I labored. And I stalled. About halfway through. Prepared myself to push through the last half and read, after two weeks? Three? This...
The book, this page, this harebell laid to rest
between these sheets, these leaves, if pressed still bleeds
a watercolour of the way we were.
Those years: the fuss of such and such a day,
that disagreement and its final word,
your inventory of names and dates and times,
my infantries of tall, dark handsome lies.
A decade on, now we astound ourselves;
still two, still twinned but doubled now with love
and for a single night apart, alone,
how sure we are, each of the other half.
This harebell holds its own. Let's give it now
in air, with light, the chance to fade, to fold.
Here, take it from my hand. Now, let it go.
"In Our Tenth Year" (46)
Nothing quite rises to it, though "Great Sporting Moments: The Treble" comes close, and the opening couplet is a delight: "The rich! I love them. Trust them to suppose / the gift of tennis is deep in their bones" (55).
The BBC has a wonderful poetry site (the fact that they have their Poetry Season is wonder enough) which has quite a nice write-up on Armitage -- and him reading his poem "Gawain" (which those of us on this side of the pond are not allowed to listen to apparently). Too bad; might have drawn me into another collection of his. Might still, but...
Alec Russell, Bring Me My Machine Gun
Subtitled, "The Battle for the Soul of South Africa from Mandela to Zuma", Russell's Bring Me My Machine Gun is an excellent account of, largely, the South Africa political landscape since the demise of state-sanctioned apartheid and the election of Mandela.
The subtitle is a bit more portentous than the actual work itself. More than anything Russell is detailing the political machinations of the African National Congress (ANC), and what that party-internal gamesmanship has meant for South Africa since 1990.
It's not a pretty picture.
But politics, anywhere, is messy. And as Russell points out -- time and again -- the ANC (and most importantly, some of its key officials; though not as often as would be hoped, its low-level, in-the-trenches workers, those who both have their pulse on the communities and could make an effective, if localized, difference in the lives of South African) has been able to manage what was, in truth, an almost unmanageable legacy.
It's an enlightening book, for sure, and frankly one of the more unsettling ones I've read lately, in a very understated way. Russell's style and approach is -- fitting, considering his background as, among other things, the Johannesburg bureau chief of the Financial Times -- reportorial... Is that right? He often frames his presentation of events and personalities as "On the one hand... but on the other..." An appropriate nod to the complexity of circumstances, for sure, but also slightly maddening.
Which is, perhaps, the point...
The subtitle is a bit more portentous than the actual work itself. More than anything Russell is detailing the political machinations of the African National Congress (ANC), and what that party-internal gamesmanship has meant for South Africa since 1990.
It's not a pretty picture.
But politics, anywhere, is messy. And as Russell points out -- time and again -- the ANC (and most importantly, some of its key officials; though not as often as would be hoped, its low-level, in-the-trenches workers, those who both have their pulse on the communities and could make an effective, if localized, difference in the lives of South African) has been able to manage what was, in truth, an almost unmanageable legacy.
It's an enlightening book, for sure, and frankly one of the more unsettling ones I've read lately, in a very understated way. Russell's style and approach is -- fitting, considering his background as, among other things, the Johannesburg bureau chief of the Financial Times -- reportorial... Is that right? He often frames his presentation of events and personalities as "On the one hand... but on the other..." An appropriate nod to the complexity of circumstances, for sure, but also slightly maddening.
Which is, perhaps, the point...
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog From Hell
Perhaps I should have found something a little more... celebratory (perhaps?) coming off my time in Stalingrad. Still, there was a striking -- if fleeting (and slightly perverse) -- nod to the Eastern Front:
Love is a Dog From Hell gives us a much more... carnal Bukowski than I... remember? expected? Cock and balls, cunt and masturbation, watching schoolgirls, blowjobs, and wanking off as he sits in his car. It's most unrelenting in the first section -- "one more creature / dizzy with love" -- but is pulled throughout.
It reads too like a Bukowski discovering his fame -- not in wonder, or with youthful exuberance, nor with weariness or delight. His fame (and notoriety) is the subject of much of his poetry, but here there is a sense of discovery, as if it's something new worth exploring.
It doesn't feel as if he's wearied of it yet.
What we get is mostly Bukowski. Not Hank or Chinaski -- though a few of these creep in late in the collection (as does a Salomski in "Twins") -- which in itself is rather striking. And there is the stark push pull that characterizes so much of his work (and which, probably, makes it and him such a draw -- lending a thoughtful credibility [or is it patina?] -- aside from the cheap thrill of hanging out at the track, in the dive bar, and with drunks and whores even at such a remove):
I think we all hope for something of the latter, and realize the former is much more likely our fate.
this time has finished me.
I feel like the German troops
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into
worn boots.
my plight is just as terrible.
maybe more so.
victory was so close
victory was there.
as she stood before my mirror [...]
"the retreat" (198)
Love is a Dog From Hell gives us a much more... carnal Bukowski than I... remember? expected? Cock and balls, cunt and masturbation, watching schoolgirls, blowjobs, and wanking off as he sits in his car. It's most unrelenting in the first section -- "one more creature / dizzy with love" -- but is pulled throughout.
It reads too like a Bukowski discovering his fame -- not in wonder, or with youthful exuberance, nor with weariness or delight. His fame (and notoriety) is the subject of much of his poetry, but here there is a sense of discovery, as if it's something new worth exploring.
It doesn't feel as if he's wearied of it yet.
What we get is mostly Bukowski. Not Hank or Chinaski -- though a few of these creep in late in the collection (as does a Salomski in "Twins") -- which in itself is rather striking. And there is the stark push pull that characterizes so much of his work (and which, probably, makes it and him such a draw -- lending a thoughtful credibility [or is it patina?] -- aside from the cheap thrill of hanging out at the track, in the dive bar, and with drunks and whores even at such a remove):
sometimes you make a mistake, taking
the wrong poem
more often I make the mistake, writing
it.
"for Al—" (90)
people need me. I fill
them. if they can't see me
for a while they get desperate, they get
sick.
"Chopin Bukowski" (101)
I think we all hope for something of the latter, and realize the former is much more likely our fate.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943
Jesus...
I was drawn to Beevor's history of the World War II siege of Stalingrad by the glowing reviews I'd read of his forthcoming history of the D-Day invasions.
Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 is an amazing, jaw-dropping, and horrific history of one of the turning points of the war in Europe. The chronicle of brutality -- of the Nazi push into the Soviet Union, the Soviet push back west, the siege itself, the encirclement of German armies -- is both shocking and all too familiar.
The only word to describe the conflict, over-used though it might be, is meat-grinder. Soldiers and civilians both were simply chewed up (at many points during the siege, quite literally, by vermin and their own bodies and sometimes by their fellows) in the battles, by the hunt for "traitors" and "revanchists", by the awful conditions, by lack of food and gear. Beevor chronicles the fate of individual soldiers (and thus the great mass of soldiers) and officers well and in detail, while also detailing both the political and strategic machinations that shaped the battles and the concomitant horrors.
Occasionally the sheer scope of unit names and numbers that Beevor casts about becomes a bit overwhelming, but the narrative he's built is so strong and compelling that any confusion is temporary (and perhaps in some very small, abstract way conjures a hint of the battlefield itself).
On the whole, though, words fail me. This is an important book. We need to be reminded, viscerally, of the horrors we commit against one another. And Beevor has given us, perhaps, one of the fullest portraits of such horrors of the none too distant past. The truly disturbing thing for me is the realization that thrust into just such a meat-grinder I would turn the crank as vigorously as the next. Not for Motherland, or Fatherland, or any ideology or affection for a leader, but rather, like most of the meat fed through the machine, in a desperate effort to survive.
I was drawn to Beevor's history of the World War II siege of Stalingrad by the glowing reviews I'd read of his forthcoming history of the D-Day invasions.
Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 is an amazing, jaw-dropping, and horrific history of one of the turning points of the war in Europe. The chronicle of brutality -- of the Nazi push into the Soviet Union, the Soviet push back west, the siege itself, the encirclement of German armies -- is both shocking and all too familiar.
The only word to describe the conflict, over-used though it might be, is meat-grinder. Soldiers and civilians both were simply chewed up (at many points during the siege, quite literally, by vermin and their own bodies and sometimes by their fellows) in the battles, by the hunt for "traitors" and "revanchists", by the awful conditions, by lack of food and gear. Beevor chronicles the fate of individual soldiers (and thus the great mass of soldiers) and officers well and in detail, while also detailing both the political and strategic machinations that shaped the battles and the concomitant horrors.
Occasionally the sheer scope of unit names and numbers that Beevor casts about becomes a bit overwhelming, but the narrative he's built is so strong and compelling that any confusion is temporary (and perhaps in some very small, abstract way conjures a hint of the battlefield itself).
On the whole, though, words fail me. This is an important book. We need to be reminded, viscerally, of the horrors we commit against one another. And Beevor has given us, perhaps, one of the fullest portraits of such horrors of the none too distant past. The truly disturbing thing for me is the realization that thrust into just such a meat-grinder I would turn the crank as vigorously as the next. Not for Motherland, or Fatherland, or any ideology or affection for a leader, but rather, like most of the meat fed through the machine, in a desperate effort to survive.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Edward Miguel, Africa's Turn?
This is the second Boston Review book read. In a row. Miguel's Africa's Turn? summarizes fairly standard thinking on the "African" economic situation (mirrored in a recent New York Times article, "Just When Africa's Luck Was Changing"). Thankfully, Miguel and the various contributors -- and the book itself is made up of an extended introduction by Miguel followed by 9 brief essays by contributors and wrapped up by Miguel -- recognize that you can't really talk about "Africa" as if it was a singularity.
As least we've come this far.
Here is, perhaps, the most representative passage from the book (at the close of Miguel's introductory essay):
Well, no shit.
What will probably happen is that some countries will exceed expectations -- their own and those of outsiders. Others will surprise most and collapse. But the vast majority will push on, taking incremental steps forward and suffering the occasional setback.
And the vast majority of folks will celebrate and suffer and love and work and fight and do their thing as they've done.
This wasn't, by any stretch, a bad book. But I do wonder now why I bothered...
As least we've come this far.
Here is, perhaps, the most representative passage from the book (at the close of Miguel's introductory essay):
It is still too early to know if Africa's time is now. In the meantime, international efforts to reduce Western farm subsidies, use foreign aid as insurance against conflict risk in the most vulnerable countries, end the wars in Darfur and Congo, and promote agricultural adaptation to climate change are concrete steps that may help solidify Africa's nascent transformation. (46)The take away? "Africa" may be poised to take off. Or it may not. It depends.
Well, no shit.
What will probably happen is that some countries will exceed expectations -- their own and those of outsiders. Others will surprise most and collapse. But the vast majority will push on, taking incremental steps forward and suffering the occasional setback.
And the vast majority of folks will celebrate and suffer and love and work and fight and do their thing as they've done.
This wasn't, by any stretch, a bad book. But I do wonder now why I bothered...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die
Not really one for the mystery/thriller genre -- not from any determined prejudice (hey, my mom's a big mystery reader), but... just never lit me up (similar to never having been taken by horror films is the way I look at it) -- but this one caught my eye and has an African connection, so...
A Beautiful Place to Die reads like it's begging to be filmed. Which isn't surprising considering the author, Malla Nunn, is a filmmaker. Set in early 1950s South Africa (Nunn was born in Swaziland; now lives in Australia -- boy, how often am I going to be typing that about "South African" works in the coming years) the book is a hothouse of "vice" (a misegynistic nightmare for the early Apartheid state), corruption, deception, sex, violence.
You know, standard stuff.
Great fun? Not hardly. For my taste there's far too much violence enacted by cardboard cut-out characters. Nunn does not, to her credit, evoke standard stereotypes (except in having her characters rely on stereotypes -- which seems right, though maybe that in itself is working from rather stereotypical assumptions of early apartheid era South Africa?). But... It's not right to say there's a predictability to the narrative arc (she does mix things up), although... There's a certain uniformity to the mixing?
Perhaps.
The ending is much too neat considering the bloody mess it's born out of, with the post-apartheid lessons learned explicitly tagged in the penultimate paragraph of the book. The closing paragraph is reserved for setting the emotional stage for the sequel.
But an interesting book -- though better at the start, before Emmanuel Cooper is locked in the hothouse of Jacob's Rest. Damning with faint praise?
Perhaps.
Back to the wars of central Africa...
A Beautiful Place to Die reads like it's begging to be filmed. Which isn't surprising considering the author, Malla Nunn, is a filmmaker. Set in early 1950s South Africa (Nunn was born in Swaziland; now lives in Australia -- boy, how often am I going to be typing that about "South African" works in the coming years) the book is a hothouse of "vice" (a misegynistic nightmare for the early Apartheid state), corruption, deception, sex, violence.
You know, standard stuff.
Great fun? Not hardly. For my taste there's far too much violence enacted by cardboard cut-out characters. Nunn does not, to her credit, evoke standard stereotypes (except in having her characters rely on stereotypes -- which seems right, though maybe that in itself is working from rather stereotypical assumptions of early apartheid era South Africa?). But... It's not right to say there's a predictability to the narrative arc (she does mix things up), although... There's a certain uniformity to the mixing?
Perhaps.
The ending is much too neat considering the bloody mess it's born out of, with the post-apartheid lessons learned explicitly tagged in the penultimate paragraph of the book. The closing paragraph is reserved for setting the emotional stage for the sequel.
But an interesting book -- though better at the start, before Emmanuel Cooper is locked in the hothouse of Jacob's Rest. Damning with faint praise?
Perhaps.
Back to the wars of central Africa...
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Kofi Anyidoho, PraiseSong for TheLand
It pains me to write this, but I was unimpressed by Anyidoho's PraiseSong for TheLand.
Perhaps it is the reading from the page that is lacking. But they feel... unoriginal. There's little spark, few memorable lines or images that haven't been presented more forcefully, movingly, elsewhere (and in some instances, by Anyidoho himself).
To get an idea of the true power -- the potential -- of Anyidoho's poetry, fast forward to the 57th minute of University of Iowa's International Writing Program's "Africa Night" reading (12 September 2002).
Too many of the poems in PraiseSong turn on imagery that is all too familiar, worn: not comfortable so much as predictable. And Anyidoho's seeming fetishization of capitalization (Winds, Witness, Thunder, Solitude, Orphan Child, and on and on) distracts in print -- perhaps more than it should (and perhaps that's more my fault than that of the poet) -- but not (obviously) in the readings on the accompanying cd. And here is the collections most noteworthy and spectacular (and redeeming) aspect: the inclusion of a compact disc of Anyidoho reading (and singing, with others) the collection.
It is this -- the readings, Anyidoho's voice and performance of the verse -- that make this a collection worth having. And worth returning to. I'm not sure how, on a second and third listen, I'll feel about the imagery and evocation of common themes and background. Perhaps just weary rather than seduced. But there is a passion in the audio, heard, and felt, that is absent in print -- and a passion I am willing to return to, and perhaps be redeemed by, if there is redemption to be had.
Perhaps it is the reading from the page that is lacking. But they feel... unoriginal. There's little spark, few memorable lines or images that haven't been presented more forcefully, movingly, elsewhere (and in some instances, by Anyidoho himself).
To get an idea of the true power -- the potential -- of Anyidoho's poetry, fast forward to the 57th minute of University of Iowa's International Writing Program's "Africa Night" reading (12 September 2002).
Too many of the poems in PraiseSong turn on imagery that is all too familiar, worn: not comfortable so much as predictable. And Anyidoho's seeming fetishization of capitalization (Winds, Witness, Thunder, Solitude, Orphan Child, and on and on) distracts in print -- perhaps more than it should (and perhaps that's more my fault than that of the poet) -- but not (obviously) in the readings on the accompanying cd. And here is the collections most noteworthy and spectacular (and redeeming) aspect: the inclusion of a compact disc of Anyidoho reading (and singing, with others) the collection.
It is this -- the readings, Anyidoho's voice and performance of the verse -- that make this a collection worth having. And worth returning to. I'm not sure how, on a second and third listen, I'll feel about the imagery and evocation of common themes and background. Perhaps just weary rather than seduced. But there is a passion in the audio, heard, and felt, that is absent in print -- and a passion I am willing to return to, and perhaps be redeemed by, if there is redemption to be had.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)