The Magician's Feastletters

by Diane Wakoski

Wakoski, Diane

Genres: Poetry

129 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Wakoski is an American poet who is primarily associated with the deep image poets such as Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Kelly, and Clayton Eshleman. Throughout her work she uses legends, myth and fairy tales to create a deeply personal mythology.

She is best known for a series of poems collectively known as "The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems."

Wakoski was given the William Carlos Williams Award for her "Emerald Ice: Selected Poetry 1962-1987."

Reviews

[m. soria · Rating 5 out of 5]

i mean, if you don't know, well now you know, this lady is the queen of all things heartbroken and honest about being human, read her poems, your hair will grow longer, lower, humbly along the ground...

l,
m.

[Freddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable poetry. It's like a book of short stories, vignettes about her life with vivid images and blunt judgments.

[Ryan Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wakoski breaks this book down by seasons and then, from there, smaller pieces resembling diary entries. While she takes us swiftly through moments and dreams, never leaving out the green mango chutney or interjecting about the flowers that always needed watering, the matter-of-factness makes for a bit of sterility in the narrative.

Whereas someone like Richard Hugo took the commonness and simplicities of a white dress or a rainy day and expanded them outward, weaving them together with an entire sect or region of people, Wakoski is more likely to just sort of sit in her memories and let them be what they are, as clear as possible. This makes Hugo's risk one of sentimentality, and certainly his worst poems are excessively soft. Wakoski's risk is one of making me lightly shrug, which happens frequently despite the writing being fine.

And there is a lot of good writing here. Most of it, in fact, is good. It just has the feel of exactly what it is: a competent writer's 37th book in 20 years. Wakoski is smart, she knows what she's doing, and in going through the motions she shows how important the motions are to her. I have the feeling that she's not concerned with how your mileage will vary.

[Liz Shine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of poems divided into sections by season. Reading this collection reminded me of where I need to begin in teaching poetry to my seniors this fall. There were poems in this collection that I had to reread several times to find a way in. There were others that were clear to me immediately. Because many of Wakoski's poems are dream-image, sense-impression, more sense than thought, I was reminded in reading her of how as readers we approach poetry differently. We sense poems, but they do not necessarily make sense. Poetry emerges clearer for me if I try to see and sense first, then feel, and, lastly, think. I suspect that most of the people who've told me they hate poetry (a lot of people!) are attempting to enter poems through thinking first. This is how we read most of what we read. Three poems I just love in this collection are: Morning Thunderstorm, Gardenias, and Leaving Waterloo.