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Eliot's Violin: Poems
PRAISE FOR *ELIOT’S VIOLIN*: “Kevin Rabas continues to poetically explore what it means to have wonder in the world with his collection. He explores childhood, children growing up, growing old, and the power we each have in whatever station in life we find ourselves. Kevin's poems about his son show how magic can be found in a bowstring or a 'blue and white fire / in one cupped palm.' Also poems about Kevin's own childhood and formative years convey the magic and tragedy of what being human means, surrounded by 'the shadows of bullies right outside.' Just as his poem "Kansas City" explains, ‘That kid. He does us good.’" ~ Dennis Etzel Jr. ** Despite what is listed below, this title is published by Oil Hill Press (El Dorado, KS), John Jenkinson, editor. **
48 pages, Paperback
Published March 15, 2015
About the author
Kevin Rabas
20 books9 followersKevin Rabas co-directs the creative writing program at Emporia State University and is co-editor of Flint Hills Review. He has two books of poetry, Bird’s Horn and Other Poems (Coal City Review Press) and Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano (Woodley Press), a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award Winner. He is a winner of the Langston Hughes award for poetry.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 8, 2018
NOTE: this review first appeared in Coal City Review.
Kevin Rabas’s new chapbook Eliot’s Violin magnifies the search for self-definition previously seen in the Emporia poet’s full-length collection Sonny Kenner’s Red Guitar, exploring how the author’s personal struggles, triumphs, and understanding of the world reflect in those experienced by his son. Importantly, in this collection Rabas shows that from the outset, Eliot seems to possess a degree of resilience and influence over the world’s puppet strings—a mastery that, while certainly earned, comes perhaps more naturally than expected. These familial strengths show in “Eliot bows the violin,” this volume’s namesake introductory poem: “Eliot bows the violin, the stick / across the instrument, a howl / of rosin, horse hair, and metal string. / What he says is the wind” (1). That violin bow is a magic wand in Eliot’s hands, teaching the natural and man-made worlds alike to listen just as he bows to them in a kind of reciprocal reverence. Indeed, Rabas’s poems depict a preternatural influence couched in his son’s conversations with the world. In “My son talks with everything,” the narrator shows how
When [Eliot] goes outside
and touches the tomato plant, it flowers,
white. When he looks up at the starlings,
they talk to him, and he talks back, a chatter,
their language . . .
Everything calls, and he says, “Yes.
Yes. Yes. Let’s talk” (8).
Far as yet from the experiences the author undergoes in these poems, like hauling drums through rain or hailing cabs that “swarm / . . . in mad flying / packs, like locusts when a branch / is shaken” (“The night taxis” 19), this younger artist aims nonetheless for the same catharsis sought by his father throughout the latter’s chapbook. These poems are sharp quarter- and eighth-note strikes, depicting both the author’s and his son’s battles to outstrip outside expectations and adversaries alike. In “Dojo,” Eliot combats those adversaries very directly; learns to “punch, kick; / strike, fight / . . . the shadows / of bullies, right outside” (13). Those bullies become a looming metaphor for all the son must overcome, and the poem “Sparring Instructor Says” fleshes this motif out into a mantra, laying down rules for effective exchanges with a jagged world:
You know what to do
about bullies? You zero
in on that nose and go
all out, torpedo, it’s gonna
stop. Either, it’s on,
or it stops (14).
Eliot’s Violin, though, sights largely on when that world shunts those torpedoes back; when “it’s on.” Rabas himself doggedly absorbs these pages’ impacts with the snappy resilience of a djembe skin tuned to pitch, as in “Drum Cart,” where life’s bigger scenes call for such radical re-tuning. The poem’s drummer-narrator show’s he’s got sand, even when a grain or two flies up into the eyes: he’ll “never complain / because these dudes know I’m from KC, where you can just / drive up to the curb in your car with a full kit and step in. / . . . Bassman sees me / wringing out my arms, smirks: ‘Welcome to New York’” (27).
Rabas synthesizes these tread-water moments into a hard line of resolve; teaches others to keep up rather than to drop the beat he sets. In “The Violin Lesson,” his son keeps that beat determinedly:
Eliot, 10, squeaks his way
through “Twinkle, Twinkle,”
rips hard on those first,
staccato notes; the long note’s easy:
one slow bow pull . . .
. . . I was once good (28).
The poet translates this grit, shared with his son, into lessons on hanging tough, applied when a younger band mate rests during a performance: “He takes breaks. He listens, watches. / I’m not used to taking breathers. I play through. You rest, you / lose. You breathe when the show’s over. You drink when you’re / done” (“Sidewalk Drum” 25). This attitude keeps the narrator of Eliot’s Violin on his feet against the tight, ends-in knot of challenge handed him by an aloof world, and against that softer pressure of audience awaiting a tired-armed encore.
This narrator divines his own learning experiences when standing on those feet proves difficult or unsavory, as in “At the New Year’s Eve Party”:
I slept alone on the couch,
and when I rose early, the dawn
still purple with night, I put on
my penny loafers and found
one puke-filled to the toe (20).
Here, the speaker witnesses both seldom-seen beauty and a literal obstacle to standing firm, and presumably overcomes the latter to revel in the former. This experiential balancing act informs all the poems in this collection, and becomes progressively more efficient.
As Topeka poet Dennis Etzel Jr. affirms, “Kevin Rabas continues to poetically explore what it means to have wonder in the world with his collection Eliot’s Violin” (from the back cover). More potent than this personal quest, however, is the joint venture between father and son in these pages. Together, these two artists will surely find their own answers to that question of wonder.
Kevin Rabas’s new chapbook Eliot’s Violin magnifies the search for self-definition previously seen in the Emporia poet’s full-length collection Sonny Kenner’s Red Guitar, exploring how the author’s personal struggles, triumphs, and understanding of the world reflect in those experienced by his son. Importantly, in this collection Rabas shows that from the outset, Eliot seems to possess a degree of resilience and influence over the world’s puppet strings—a mastery that, while certainly earned, comes perhaps more naturally than expected. These familial strengths show in “Eliot bows the violin,” this volume’s namesake introductory poem: “Eliot bows the violin, the stick / across the instrument, a howl / of rosin, horse hair, and metal string. / What he says is the wind” (1). That violin bow is a magic wand in Eliot’s hands, teaching the natural and man-made worlds alike to listen just as he bows to them in a kind of reciprocal reverence. Indeed, Rabas’s poems depict a preternatural influence couched in his son’s conversations with the world. In “My son talks with everything,” the narrator shows how
When [Eliot] goes outside
and touches the tomato plant, it flowers,
white. When he looks up at the starlings,
they talk to him, and he talks back, a chatter,
their language . . .
Everything calls, and he says, “Yes.
Yes. Yes. Let’s talk” (8).
Far as yet from the experiences the author undergoes in these poems, like hauling drums through rain or hailing cabs that “swarm / . . . in mad flying / packs, like locusts when a branch / is shaken” (“The night taxis” 19), this younger artist aims nonetheless for the same catharsis sought by his father throughout the latter’s chapbook. These poems are sharp quarter- and eighth-note strikes, depicting both the author’s and his son’s battles to outstrip outside expectations and adversaries alike. In “Dojo,” Eliot combats those adversaries very directly; learns to “punch, kick; / strike, fight / . . . the shadows / of bullies, right outside” (13). Those bullies become a looming metaphor for all the son must overcome, and the poem “Sparring Instructor Says” fleshes this motif out into a mantra, laying down rules for effective exchanges with a jagged world:
You know what to do
about bullies? You zero
in on that nose and go
all out, torpedo, it’s gonna
stop. Either, it’s on,
or it stops (14).
Eliot’s Violin, though, sights largely on when that world shunts those torpedoes back; when “it’s on.” Rabas himself doggedly absorbs these pages’ impacts with the snappy resilience of a djembe skin tuned to pitch, as in “Drum Cart,” where life’s bigger scenes call for such radical re-tuning. The poem’s drummer-narrator show’s he’s got sand, even when a grain or two flies up into the eyes: he’ll “never complain / because these dudes know I’m from KC, where you can just / drive up to the curb in your car with a full kit and step in. / . . . Bassman sees me / wringing out my arms, smirks: ‘Welcome to New York’” (27).
Rabas synthesizes these tread-water moments into a hard line of resolve; teaches others to keep up rather than to drop the beat he sets. In “The Violin Lesson,” his son keeps that beat determinedly:
Eliot, 10, squeaks his way
through “Twinkle, Twinkle,”
rips hard on those first,
staccato notes; the long note’s easy:
one slow bow pull . . .
. . . I was once good (28).
The poet translates this grit, shared with his son, into lessons on hanging tough, applied when a younger band mate rests during a performance: “He takes breaks. He listens, watches. / I’m not used to taking breathers. I play through. You rest, you / lose. You breathe when the show’s over. You drink when you’re / done” (“Sidewalk Drum” 25). This attitude keeps the narrator of Eliot’s Violin on his feet against the tight, ends-in knot of challenge handed him by an aloof world, and against that softer pressure of audience awaiting a tired-armed encore.
This narrator divines his own learning experiences when standing on those feet proves difficult or unsavory, as in “At the New Year’s Eve Party”:
I slept alone on the couch,
and when I rose early, the dawn
still purple with night, I put on
my penny loafers and found
one puke-filled to the toe (20).
Here, the speaker witnesses both seldom-seen beauty and a literal obstacle to standing firm, and presumably overcomes the latter to revel in the former. This experiential balancing act informs all the poems in this collection, and becomes progressively more efficient.
As Topeka poet Dennis Etzel Jr. affirms, “Kevin Rabas continues to poetically explore what it means to have wonder in the world with his collection Eliot’s Violin” (from the back cover). More potent than this personal quest, however, is the joint venture between father and son in these pages. Together, these two artists will surely find their own answers to that question of wonder.
January 12, 2016
Note: I'm reading a (short) stack of collections by four contemporary Kansas poets. This is #2 of 4.
I don’t read a lot of poetry and I definitely don't have any training in form (or lack thereof) so I came at these with an attitude of “I don’t know what’s considered ‘good’ but I know what I like.”
I was not really a fan of this one. How the writing can seem both run-on and choppy I can't quite say, but it does. Maybe it's when a sentence is long but is broken over lines at seemingly random spots. Regardless, the poems here aren't bad at all; they're just not for me.
I don’t read a lot of poetry and I definitely don't have any training in form (or lack thereof) so I came at these with an attitude of “I don’t know what’s considered ‘good’ but I know what I like.”
I was not really a fan of this one. How the writing can seem both run-on and choppy I can't quite say, but it does. Maybe it's when a sentence is long but is broken over lines at seemingly random spots. Regardless, the poems here aren't bad at all; they're just not for me.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews