Early Hour

by Michael McGriff

"It's [McGriff's] language that keeps you reading along, transfixed."― New York Times Book Review "A lyricist at heart, McGriff is a masterful maker of metaphor." ― Third Coast "McGriff's vivid grit remains hard to gainsay."― Publishers Weekly A book-length sequence inspired by the Nazi-persecuted German Expressionist painter Karl Hofer's work, McGriff's third collection meditates on eros, cosmology, independence, provenance, "occupied territories," and deviance. Detailed yet indeterminately American landscapes flood with surrealist dream imagery and subtle violence, while the voice of these poems intertwines between the intimately personal and the honestly imagined―all while remaining plainspoken, angular, direct. From Cosmology The river moves
beneath the sheet ice.
The wind is a grand hall
of records.
In the recipe box
above the refrigerator,
the deathbed photos
of four generations―
somewhere, their hands
have turned to prime numbers... Michael McGriff is the author of three books of poetry and an acclaimed collection of short stories, Our Secret Life in the Movies . His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, Bookforum, The Believer, Tin House, American Poetry Review , and on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday and PBS NewsHour . He is currently teaching at the University of Idaho.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published August 8, 2017

About the author

A native of Oregon, poet Michael McGriff is the author of collections Choke and Dismantling The Hills (which won the 2007 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize), and his work has appeared in the publications Slate, Field, The Believer, and Poetry. He has also translated a number of works by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, including The Sorrow Gondola. Receiving his MFA in creative writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, he is currently a lecturer at Stanford University.

Reviews

[Stephen Byrne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small but exceptional book of poetry.

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Early Hour," Michael McGriff weaves his wife into the world of nature around her, using imagery that in itself would not be erotic to describe the emotional and physical love he has for her. These are not simple poems, though the language is accessible and real. Death lingers at the center as well as at the edges, but the knowledge of mortality makes his love grater and not bitter.

So many poets today strain to juxtapose images in an attempt at some kind of surrealism--and most often fail. McGriff's imagery seems right even as it causes you to gasp at what has been gathered together in a sentence or a phrase:

the outline of your face
is sky-written in the black loam
of thunderheads.

Another example:

because the river's teeth
still gnash
against [the horse's] flank
and its eyes
stil have the luster
of black china
glowing black-bright
in the glass hutch of memory

The imagery is both from nature and domestic life, putting himself, his wife, their relationship and their daily living deep into the natural world--as it should be.

A fine a small collection to be savored.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slim, powerful collection of poems is full of the images of dreamlife but with far crisper edges. Simple, short one-syllable Saxon words slice and slash in mesmerizing fashion, so that the collection has the narrative momentum of a tight short story, though its subjects are disparate. Jarring, disjointing, and somehow familiar. Here's a favorite bit from a sexy poem called "I Am an Ox in the Year of the Horse":
... all the roots in you
suck the water from me
and I enter a depth in you
that pulls your name from my throat
and you are working me
and I'm telling you I am your pilgrim
your animal your thief your pyre
your anvil and echo
and I want to be bound and burned here ...

[Jeffrey Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was something slow, determined, and at times hypnotic about the flow of the poems in this collection that I really enjoyed. As I read the slow moving lines I often felt like it was my voice, my longing, my sorrow. I won’t say that this was a depressing read but something about it drew out feelings bordering on that sadness that can resonate within us without us being conscious of the reason for it. There’s a depth there that I can’t explain well, but it’s what drew me into this collection.

[amanda abel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this isn’t my favorite of his collections, McGriff is one of my favorite living poets, and the fact that this collection is rooted in ekphrasis is laudable. Perhaps that’s the reason these aren’t quite as successful for me as a collection, not so much as Dismantling the Hills or Home Burial. Nonetheless, there is beauty here,

[Zane Hesting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good grief, this was good.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Serena]

an exercise in presence