David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 205

Read and Savor

In the Next Galaxy by Ruth Stone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The more I read the poetry of Ruth Stone, the more I regret her passing in 2011. She weaves the natural world, current events, the lives of other characters, and science into the web of telling her own life. With unassuming eloquence, she speaks in a diction that is both commonplace and vivid:

"the power of nothing to multiply.
Turning the hand over to become the palm,
for a moment it can shape itself into a cup of water."

In this passage and throughout, Stone seeks a deep acceptance of what is and what has been so that she may live in the now, despite the terrible loss built into our very existence:

"Then the absent tree when the play yard is paved with asphalt,
a blank space where the tree was, a space that the birds pass pver,
where the wind does not pause."

Or in describing her decades as a widow:

"in my thirty years of knowing you
cell by cell in my widow's shawl,
we have lived together longer
in the discontinuous films of my sleep
that we did in our warm parasitical bodies"

In all, she finds "unreasoning hope" in the flights of starlings, in the "language of the meanings within the meanings" contained in the growth of cabbage in her garden, in her dreams and memories. This is an adult book of poetry for those readers who have lived long enough not to be impressed with bathos or the false art of faithless language twisted into pretense. Read it. Savor it.

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Often brilliant, sometimes stuck in a new prison

Put Your Hands in by Chris Hosea
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection was difficult to rate with the simple star method because I found it sometimes brilliant, sometimes interesting enough, and sometimes just too cute or "experimental" for its own good. I chose 4 stars because when it is good, it demonstrates that there are still possibilities in the intentional destruction of grammar and language. a la Ashberry if the writer is skilled. And Hosea is skilled.

Told in many voices, often speaking in the same poem, even the same line, the poems do convey fractured stories and experiences. I found myself underlining lines and parts of lines for their eloquence, though Hosea may hate that word. This volume is for those willing to work at reading by not trying too hard to understand in a traditional prose sense, but simply bathe in the flow of words and let them rumble their meanings.

I did find many poems simply too fractured, pushing past the limits where little can pass between writer and reader, whatever meaning too hidden in the scramble. And there were a few that I just passed off as just an in your face game. Here is a line repeated in "Black Steel":

(thing) (thing) (thing) (thing)

Okay. Not a lot of craft there.

But pass by such exercises in the cool, and you do get gems in the mix:

"she ate night its gaps her dirt pie"

"a ruler to measure poems for a prison frock"

This last line probably is Hosea's negative aesthetic statement. He is fighting a battle long one against the Victorian strictures of verse forms and language. The most radical thing to do today is not to follow the new order established by Stein, Pound, Elliot, Ashberry etc., writers I certainly admire, but to find a new way to make the language of poetry whole again without betraying its soul. Hose finds this too confining and imprisoning.

Ironically, the "shock of the new" is now a new prison.

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A Poignant and Thoughtful Interview with Jane Hirshfield

In a poignant and thoughtful interview, one of my favorite contemporary poets, Jane Hirshfield, says some simply profound things about why we write and read poetry.

http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Interview-with-poet-Jane-Hirshfield-6128947.php

"I think art keeps its newness because it’s at once unforgettable and impossible to remember entirely. Art is too volatile, multiple and evaporative to hold on to. It’s more chemical reaction, one you have to re-create each time, than a substance."

"The secret of understanding poetry is to hear poetry’s words as what they are: the full self’s most intimate speech, half waking, half dream. You listen to a poem as you might listen to someone you love who tells you their truest day."

Extra-Ordinary Words

Ordinary Words by Ruth Stone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a book of extraordinary words, as Ruth Stone tries to understated mortality and then accept that it cannot be understood, only accepted. She looks at the "prison" of ordinary usage and grammar, and asks and explore how language can be made to reveal again, not merely conceal. Stone is an under-appreciated poet of the 20th Century who was still vital and relevant into the 21st. This 1999 collection is highly recommended, whether you read poetry on a regular basis or not. As we read, we are the "open-mouthed":

Vapor, a transient thing, a dervish
seen rising in a whirl of wind,
or brief cloud casting its changing shadow;
though below, the open-mouthed might stand
transfixed by mirage, a visionary oasis."

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My YouTube Videos

My YouTube Videos are posted here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dasam97/videos

A Fascinating Autobiography and More

Run-Through: A Memoir by John Houseman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fascinating story on many levels: Houseman's life as a citizen of many nations and none, his coming to America and success as an immigrant, his fraught but creative relationship with Orson Welles, his work at the nexus of so much mid-20th Century art of the theater, Broadway, radio and finally motion pictures. All written masterfully by a man fluent in 4 languages.

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A Collection best read as aphorisms

The Infant Scholar by Kathy Nilsson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In "The Infant Scholar," Kathy Nilsson writes intentionally fractured verse, perhaps to reflect the chaos of life and the overwhelming flow of digitally provide information. This effect often works, as one line has much white space between itself and others and only an occasional grammatical connection. However, sometimes the technique seems used just for itself, frustrating a reader who wishes to travel with Nilsson through her experiences. It's not as bad as some verse written as if with a random line generator, not by any means. And there are some fine lines and trenchant commentary:

"The pills you take to help you sleep, sleep for you"

Or

"Free from attachment I live as though I were already dead"

In fact, if you read the book as a collection of aphorisms, you may enjoy it more.


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Watch two of my recent poetry readings in full on YouTube page

You can watch two of my recent poetry readings in full on my YouTube page:

https://www.youtube.com/user/dasam97

Coverage of my appearance as one of two featured writers at the John Fox, Jr. Literary Festival

Coverage of my appearance as one of two featured writers at the John Fox, Jr. Literary Festival at Mountain Empire Community College on March 18, 2015:

http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/germanna-s-sam-to-be-featured-at-literary-festival/article_be2a933e-bafe-11e4-a68e-6370951bc1fb.html?mode=jqm

Strictly for lovers of the post-everything minimalist/ironist school of writing.

Or, Gone: Poems by Deborah Flanagan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Or, Gone attempts to play with biography and history, language and humor, science and invention. But I find its attempts at ironic wit and playfulness fall short. These mostly prose poems end up prosaic and even silly. Perhaps that was Flanagan's intent. It did not work for me. The concluding poem "According to Heraclitus" has some merit. This is strictly for lovers of the post-everything minimalist/ironist school of writing.

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