David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 206

My poem "Above Emile Creek" is included in the Fall 2014 ...

My poem "Above Emile Creek" is included in the Fall 2014 edition of FLARE: The Flager Review, available here:

http://issuu.com/bthompson73/docs/flare_fall_2014

on page 42.






















Don't be confused by the misprint in the contents. My name has not changed to "David Dam."

A Clear and True Collection of Verse

Living Wages by Michael Chitwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In "Living Wages," Michael Chitwood displays Robert Frost's love of manual labor and his simplicity of language and everyday imagery coupled with depth of thought and feeling.

Something's being painted or patched.
The rattle of the handy, portable
rack of stairs is a sound like no other.
The shudder of the extension,
as one reach rides its twin
up until it's twice as long as it began.
Good work needs good assistance
and what a clever commotion this is.

There are no weak poems in this collection, no twaddle of seeking the "experimental" which too often means the inconsequential phrased as the incommunicable. Chitwood speaks cleanly and clearly and reaches the heart's muscle fiber.

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Merry Christmas

SolsticeThe clear night drops snow from
the clarity of stars, sighing in
a gather under our footsteps.The brevity of cold light outside
leads us indoors to the warmth
greeting from a fireplace.There oak and maple hiss steam
from snow crannied into bark.
Summer sweet sap crackles.And we are witness to the logs
becoming red glows, our faces
the embers of quiet celebration.

Thank you to all who bought my books

My deepest gratitude to all who bought copies of my books during 2014. As promised, because there was a profit on Memories in Clay, Dreams or Wolves, a donation of $300 was made to the Germanna Community College Educational Foundation.

A Fine Collection from One of the Best Poets of the Last Century

What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems by Ruth Stone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"My unknown, my own skeleton,
you will take me where the cartilage loosens
and the blood dries
and I will let go
my burning suns.

On this fine collection of poems, Ruth Stone shows why she was one of the finest poets of the last century, and why she is too often under-rated today. Stone writes from life but not wallow in herself. She reconnects science with common life experience. And with a common word, she uncommonly phrases for us what we need to have said.

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David Sam's Reviews > The Book of Goodbyes

The Book of Goodbyes by Jillian Weise
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Weise obviously spent time and attention to her vision of what this book should be. It strives to be experimental, a common aesthetic standard today. After Dada, experimental is a hard direction to go and still have something to communicate.

In sum, it may just be me, but this collection did not engage me, surprise me, or in any significant way cause me to reread. In fact, I skimmed many after the first few lines put me off.

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Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr

Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Orr's guide is not really a guide to reading poems as such, although the chapter on Form does a bit of that. Rather, it is mostly a guide to the established Poetry Business and to how most writers who aspire to formal recognition play the game, willingly or not. If you love or like some poems, that us, if some speak to you in ways that matter, you may be interested in the oil and grease and gears and noise behind the machines that make published poetry. Or not.

If you are wondering, in the words of the last chapter, "Why bother?" then I would not start here. There are several other books that offer you a way into reading poetry so that you might discover the ones that matter to you and are good art:

A Poetry Handbook Paperback
by Mary Oliver

How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry
Edward Hirsch

And others.

Orr offers this humble, and somewhat underwhelming reason:

"I can only say that if you do choose to give your attention to poetry, as against all the other things you might turn to instead, that choice can be meaningful. There’s little grandeur in this, maybe, but out of such small, unnecessary devotions is the abundance of our lives sometimes made evident."

This is good for those of us who write poetry to read. It steadies us in our hope and ambition to the small crystals we may once in a while produce. It helps us to keep our egos under control.

But as a reader of poetry, I have heard some poems sing loudly to me in a clear voice that really mattered. Just as certain music has reached me. Certain visual art. Certain movies and plays. There is a reason why we humans keep doing this stuff.

Orr diminishes Rita Dove when she writes that “[p]oetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” He says that can happen in writing that is not called a poem. Yes. Poetry in Dove's sense is the right words that sing out, loudly or quietly. And this can occur in any place where a writer writes. Poems and the are artifacts. Orr does not clearly make or care to make this distinction.

For me, as a sometimes published poet, one way outside the academic and conference and MFA and workshop world of the Poe-biz, this book helps me remember to keep two ambitions separate: 1. The ambition to write an artifact that centers around the distilled and powerful saying of meaningful questions and experiences. 2. The ambition of being published enough and recognized enough so that more readers may give what I write a chance.

The rest is beautiful and pointless noise in the system.

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The Sudden Passing of Claudia Emerson

I was deeply saddened to hear of the sudden and far too early passing of Claudia Emerson, past Poet Laureate of Virginia. Her poetry was accessible and real, compassionate and honest. "The is the season of her dying," she wrote in "Daybook," and you have kept it, I find, underneath the stairs in a box filed with photographs."

Emerson poetry will be the photographs we read to remember her:

Artifact

Early Elegy: Headmistress

She wrote so much about death---but it was always life she celebrated. And so we must celebrate Claudia Emerson's life at her passing.

David Sam's Reviews > Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore

Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore by Linda Leavell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Leavell's account of the life and work of Marianne Moore raised some objections that it was unfair to Moore's mother. The Moore family dynamics were certainly off. But Leavell adds to the case that Moore was one of our most significant American poets.

Moore wrote without regard to labels. She was a Modernist who used a precise syllabic form and rhymes. She was a defender of the underdog, an early white champion of civil rights and of black artists and athletes who also voted Republican and defended LBJ's continuing the Vietnam War, the latter mainly so as not to abandon the South Vietnamese. She wrote "advertising" verse and patriotic poems during WWII. She was raised by lesbians and then denigrated by second wave feminists.

Her poetry must be read and dealt with if you care about American poetry. Her carefully controlled poems were often described as emotionless and overly intellectual. In truth, she was able to contain deep emotion and thought in precise verse, a skill and aesthetic often not practiced or appreciated since the Confessionals came along.

A fascinating biography. No there are no fireworks or is there physical violence. But there is emotional violence and the heroic strength of a small woman with a large vision and poetic craft.

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Amazon customer reviews of "Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves"

My thanks to all who wrote reviews of "Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves" on Amazon.

I excerpt some comments that are deeply gratifying for a poet to read:

"the powerful closing poem I am of Appalachians" - Patrick Bradley

"Tactile experiences join ruminations: You feel the environment in these poems, or see rivers, creatures and sky with new eyes.... There is wonderful sense of place (or places) in these poems and language." - Douglas Glenn Clark 

"Like a multi-textured cloth that you need to touch to understand, appreciate and enjoy. His stories remind me of my childhood, and for that I am greatful for his ability to bring his words to life." - John Brining

"I could picture myself there as I read it." - Janet Lyons

"These poems awaken the senses and are wonderful to read aloud." - Alice Crane

"This honest and powerful book provides a compelling window into the development of the heart and mind of a man..." Mike Zitz

"The poems in this volume cover a variety of topics, but all of them are thoughtful and filled with insights. Sam writes lyrically..." Julia Ruengert