David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 185
November 28, 2016
The One Problem
Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand. -Alberto Moravia
November 27, 2016
A Book of the Dark Soil
Work and Days by Tess Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
So often when I read a book that won an award or came from a celebrated new poet, I am disappointed–often amused to try to imagine the criteria for selection. Not so with regard to Tess Taylor and her collection “Work & Days.” There are many fine lines and some fine poems in this gathering of verse inspired by hands-on farming and the reading of Virgil, Hesiod and Clare. The imagery of scent and sound and sight demonstrate Taylor’s knowledge of gleaning from the soil:
Cold Trolls
the hills even as
frozen lakes grow cloud
***
Unearthing rocks is like dislodging anger
***
Las night I woke
to wild unfrozen prattle.
Rain on the roof–a foreign liquid tongue.
She weaves her biography including a miscarriage into the soil of her reading of old poetry and the daily news and the hard working of the land.
The baby I planted this year
was only tissue….
[I}ts sac
was empty, soil black.
I bow into the absence.
***
broadcasts poppy harvests and bombings,
limbs shattering in another country–
Taylor’s work is vital, in language that is not forced although sometimes choppy. Her emotions are not forced but as real as the mud and green and dying into winter. For here, planing words or seeds is the same faith and duty:
We bow to the work:
same & not same–our scattered arts–
removing, removing the stones from our soil.
November 25, 2016
Dark for Darkness’ Sake
Kill The Dogs by Heather Bell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
A collection of angry poetry, bitter to the point of hate. While I have no problem with darkness in poetry (after all there is much darkness in life) this is poetry the way Tarantino does movies. If you like his movies you may like these poems.
November 24, 2016
Paying Attention
Garden Time by W.S. Merwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Give this collection a few pages before you discover the understated eloquence of age and loss and love in the face of it all. While this is not his finest collection, Merwin offers us his truth with language that is accessible to those who do not regularly read poetry. Yet many of the poems have depth of thought and feeling and a koan kind of craft that belies what seems prosaic at first reading. I highly recommend it whether you are in the last third of life or just beginning your too short journey. Poetry like Merwin’s helps us all to pay close attention both to the questions and to the only answers in the now.
November 21, 2016
Ron Koertge’s poem “Lily”
Ron Koertge’s short poem “Lily” is fine writing. It edges right up to bathos without falling into it and speaks its mourning and hope with depth of feeling and simplicity of language.
November 20, 2016
The Write Place at the Write Time has published two of my poems:
The Write Place at the Write Time has published two of my poems:
November 17, 2016
Empathy
Until we invent telepathy, books are our best choice for understanding the rest of humanity. -Christopher Paolini
November 10, 2016
Aji Magazine will publish 2 more of my poems in Spring 2017.
Aji Magazine will publish 2 more of my poems in Spring 2017. That makes 54 poems accepted by 30 journals in 2016 plus the one chapbook of 20 poems that won an award at GFT Press for publication next year.
November 5, 2016
Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry will feature my poetry in its inaugural issue.
Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry will feature my poetry in its inaugural issue.
