Kate Partridge: two poems and a lyric essay, from BETTER issue four
I like paying attention to Kate Partridge. Her poems and non-fiction in Issue #4 make me believe there is a treatise somewhere titled, “The Poetics of Inquiry.” It is a document related in a second cousin kind of way to Lyn Hejinian’s Language of Inquiry, but Partridge’s poems would represent more a transparent view into the poet’s mind where there is constant thinking “Why this?” and “Why this?” Is there a personification of “Why this?” that is actually Kate Partridge walking down the sidewalk? Perhaps. Whatever the case, Kate Partridge, please give me more of the Why this?’s! Because I like listening. I like paying attention to Kate Partridge. Her attention is just right. In the creative non-fiction piece, “Bell,” she indulges the life of Alexander Graham Bell, because thinking about him helps her sort out the definition of the decibel, which is the real point of the essay, and if you’re paying attention to Kate Partridge she’ll give you just enough time with Mr. Bell before she goes back to the main topic. What skill! In the poem, “I Like the Muscles on That One,” she gives in to the fine musculature of the ball players and of her friend’s musculature, too, just enough poetic attention so she can bring the heat and curiosity into the moment. It’s like attention is a tunable instrument, and Partridge has adjusted it just right, because there are so many other things to be inquiring about in this “Muscles” poem. Don’t you want to think about Walt Whitman as an athlete? A female athlete?
And so I suppose it’s her inquiry and her fresh invention that make the poems and lyric non-fiction such a treasure for this issue. Of course, inquiry and invention are natural seat-mates in a poem. They usually are. But here the two have developed into that fine, mature relationship based on mutual needs. That kind of relationship where you can tell they just like each other and their conversation is that pile-up kind where each side is almost finishing the other’s sentences, and still they want to give each the time to finish. These are Kate Partridge’s pieces to me. Eager and interested for that work going on between inquiry and invention, but never impatient to keep one from having its say.
