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The Sentinel
John Ashbery's esteem for A. F. Moritz has been seconded repeatedly by critics and readers. Starting in 1975 with Here and continuing through the years to Moritz's latest, The Sentinel, this poet has carved an important career in poetry. This new collection has already begun garnering praise and the title poem was honored by the prestigious Poetry magazine. These poems, exploring everything from vanishing civilizations to nature's mysteries, display Moritz’s intelligence and insight blended with a supple craft and wordplay that have made his work unique in the field.
112 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2008
49 people want to read
About the author
A.F. Moritz
42 books18 followersA.F. Moritz has published more than twenty collections of poetry as well as important works of literary history and numerous translations of Latin American verse. A leading figure in the literary life of Canada, he has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a major award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Two of his most recent works have reaffirmed his reputation: Night Street Repairs (2004) received the ReLit Award and The Sentinel (2008) won both the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He teaches at the University of Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 31, 2024
Moritz is really pushing language to its limits in this. Or maybe just to my limits. This is a collection I’d go back and read when I had more dedicated time to spend sitting with and combing through each poem. As it was, I felt like it was difficult sometimes to ground myself in the poems, because they are complex not just thematically—in fact many are fairly simple thematically—but a line level.
Still, these are my struggles and not, I don’t think, that of the collection. Moritz is a Real Poet and he is doing Real Poetry. I can recommend “You That I Loved,” “Childish Willow,” “Busman’s Honeymoon,” and “Tragic Vision and Beyond” the most highly.
Still, these are my struggles and not, I don’t think, that of the collection. Moritz is a Real Poet and he is doing Real Poetry. I can recommend “You That I Loved,” “Childish Willow,” “Busman’s Honeymoon,” and “Tragic Vision and Beyond” the most highly.
October 16, 2015
I feel very lucky to have Professor Moritz as one of my professors for a class at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. It was by a somewhat unusual, I guess, turn of events that I ended up having a conversation with him after class last week and in relation to our discussion he pulled “The Sentinel” from his bookshelf and offered to let me borrow it so that I could have a read. I was excited by the prospect and looked forward to it, having grown to enjoy his class quite a bit.
The same happened with these poems. I grew to love and enjoy them, even if some I didn’t connect with or others left me feeling lost somewhere along the way. But there was much to admire about them, bot structurally and thematically. There are some poems especially with pointing out, such as the opening poem ‘The Butterfly’, which was the strongest and most mesmerizing in the entire collection. There was such range over the course of it, something fragile and powerful sitting at the very hard and tapping away quietly, waiting to be released. And it did. The poems really picked up towards the end with their pace and strength of tone. ‘Cassandra’, ‘The Titanic’, ‘Ideal Song of the Communists’ and ‘The First, Second, Third, and Fourth’ were the other poems I particularly enjoyed and felt deserved to be singled out. I was amazed by how strongly stitched together the imagery in these poems was, held together by a powerful and wise voice. Not surprisingly I had Professor Moritz’s voice in my head while I read all of these, which made the experience all the more memorable.
Once I return this copy I shall go out and look for one to buy for myself. I know I will want to revisit these poems in the near and far future, to feel their impact run over me again and puzzle over how such concise and clear words can leave such an impact. This collection deserves to be read and admired, and deserves all the praise it has gotten.
The same happened with these poems. I grew to love and enjoy them, even if some I didn’t connect with or others left me feeling lost somewhere along the way. But there was much to admire about them, bot structurally and thematically. There are some poems especially with pointing out, such as the opening poem ‘The Butterfly’, which was the strongest and most mesmerizing in the entire collection. There was such range over the course of it, something fragile and powerful sitting at the very hard and tapping away quietly, waiting to be released. And it did. The poems really picked up towards the end with their pace and strength of tone. ‘Cassandra’, ‘The Titanic’, ‘Ideal Song of the Communists’ and ‘The First, Second, Third, and Fourth’ were the other poems I particularly enjoyed and felt deserved to be singled out. I was amazed by how strongly stitched together the imagery in these poems was, held together by a powerful and wise voice. Not surprisingly I had Professor Moritz’s voice in my head while I read all of these, which made the experience all the more memorable.
Once I return this copy I shall go out and look for one to buy for myself. I know I will want to revisit these poems in the near and far future, to feel their impact run over me again and puzzle over how such concise and clear words can leave such an impact. This collection deserves to be read and admired, and deserves all the praise it has gotten.
January 23, 2022
Never anymore in a wash of sweetness an awe
does the summer I was seventeen come back
to mind against my will, like a bird crossing
my vision. Summer of moist nights full of girls
and boys ripened, holy drunkenness and violation
of the comic boundaries, defiances that never
failed or brought disaster. Days on the backs
and in the breath of horses, between rivers
and pools that reflect the cicadas' whine,
enervation and strength creeping in smooth waves
over muscular water. All those things accepted,
once, with unnoticing hunger, as an infant
accepts the nipple, never come back to mind
against the will. What comes unsummoned now,
blotting out every other thought and image,
is a part of the past not so deep or far away:
the time of poverty, of struggle to find means
not hateful - the muddy seedtime of early manhood.
What returns are those moments in the diner
night after night with each night's one cup of coffee,
watching an old man, who always at the same hour
came in and smiled, ordered a tea and opened
his drawing pad. What did he fill it with?
And where'd he gone? Those days, that studious worker,
hand moving and eyes eager in the sour light,
that artist always in the same worn-out suit,
are my nostalgia now. That old man comes back,
the friend I saw each day and never spoke to,
because I hoped soon to disappear from there,
as I have disappeared, into the heaven of better days.
* * *
I don't want a memorial of love
that someday another man or woman will see,
opening a book or wandering under a hill,
and say: "Of him, we learn his name, and she...
he left her blanker still -
whether it was through the error of restraint
or through how little art can do or will,
who knows? In any case this, so faint,
blank almost, is their memorial,
that we can only make what may please us of."
I don't want a memorial of love.
* * *
I know that words should shriek in pain and gleam
like a cat's fur, like beautiful black and white
starkly opposed - the night and light, the day and sea -
on the one supple sufficiency of her body.
I know that tears fall into the pit and rise
like the cries of a pink mouth: the beast's, the pet's
instinct of desperation, he confidence,
in the measure and delay, starvation's threat,
of the fragile food supply, in the poor human house.
* * *
We watched the old zoo keeper,
the tigers sleeping,
haul them in their supper.
We saw him slipping
as he lugged the meat, heavy
and red, in the cage
through urine and water...a gravy
of various sewage
he later mopped up, his joints
snapping: we could hear.
Then he's done and a child points:
the tigers stir,
roused by the closing door's click.
He was gone, forgotten,
as we watched them shamble and lick
their slumped, blood-sodden
food. And I was the keeper
of my own breast.
Did my fierceness go any deeper
than my self-serving feast?
Ease, ease, ease
is all I love,
to salve, satisfy, erase
what make me move.
* * *
In your house
on the upper floor
one light is on
in a window open
like a mouth
saying "Oh,"
and it looks, it sounds
just like your breath.
No other light there
speaks to the night,
and below I see
the door in shadow
and its blacker mark,
the keyhole. If I
went up and forced it
and felt it give,
would I find you
somewhere, breathing,
maybe behind
that one bright window -
laid on a bed or
crouched in a closet
or pressed brow first
into the angle
of two white walls?
Or no one there?
No one, for you
had turned into
your house: I was
in you, so never
again could meet you
face to face, never
once more trace
the halls and,
reaching the only
room still lit
with its small bed
and folded-down sheet,
see you there and
see if you are
alive or dead.
* * *
Through the infinite limits of the night in ruins
the mumbler goes with his sounds but they're all one:
voices cut in pieces, pain that oozes
from the dead scars along this flat terrain
that channel dust past gardens and cottages.
Women come out and sniff him suspiciously:
the same old obsessive hatred of their sex,
flattering but lethal. And me too: I smell
his loneliness. How right to shake my head
and break the spell. I'm wondering again
why dandelions burn so terribly yet cool
on the ragged slope with its wild apple tree.
I'm five years old, absorbed, and soon will hate
the march each dawn I see to the plant gate.
But not to be back is right, my wife with me,
at naked five years old, the trackless field,
the dandelion fire and the wild apple shade.
does the summer I was seventeen come back
to mind against my will, like a bird crossing
my vision. Summer of moist nights full of girls
and boys ripened, holy drunkenness and violation
of the comic boundaries, defiances that never
failed or brought disaster. Days on the backs
and in the breath of horses, between rivers
and pools that reflect the cicadas' whine,
enervation and strength creeping in smooth waves
over muscular water. All those things accepted,
once, with unnoticing hunger, as an infant
accepts the nipple, never come back to mind
against the will. What comes unsummoned now,
blotting out every other thought and image,
is a part of the past not so deep or far away:
the time of poverty, of struggle to find means
not hateful - the muddy seedtime of early manhood.
What returns are those moments in the diner
night after night with each night's one cup of coffee,
watching an old man, who always at the same hour
came in and smiled, ordered a tea and opened
his drawing pad. What did he fill it with?
And where'd he gone? Those days, that studious worker,
hand moving and eyes eager in the sour light,
that artist always in the same worn-out suit,
are my nostalgia now. That old man comes back,
the friend I saw each day and never spoke to,
because I hoped soon to disappear from there,
as I have disappeared, into the heaven of better days.
- Better Days, pg. 8-9
* * *
I don't want a memorial of love
that someday another man or woman will see,
opening a book or wandering under a hill,
and say: "Of him, we learn his name, and she...
he left her blanker still -
whether it was through the error of restraint
or through how little art can do or will,
who knows? In any case this, so faint,
blank almost, is their memorial,
that we can only make what may please us of."
I don't want a memorial of love.
- Memorial, pg. 21
* * *
I know that words should shriek in pain and gleam
like a cat's fur, like beautiful black and white
starkly opposed - the night and light, the day and sea -
on the one supple sufficiency of her body.
I know that tears fall into the pit and rise
like the cries of a pink mouth: the beast's, the pet's
instinct of desperation, he confidence,
in the measure and delay, starvation's threat,
of the fragile food supply, in the poor human house.
- Philosophical Content, pg. 32
* * *
We watched the old zoo keeper,
the tigers sleeping,
haul them in their supper.
We saw him slipping
as he lugged the meat, heavy
and red, in the cage
through urine and water...a gravy
of various sewage
he later mopped up, his joints
snapping: we could hear.
Then he's done and a child points:
the tigers stir,
roused by the closing door's click.
He was gone, forgotten,
as we watched them shamble and lick
their slumped, blood-sodden
food. And I was the keeper
of my own breast.
Did my fierceness go any deeper
than my self-serving feast?
Ease, ease, ease
is all I love,
to salve, satisfy, erase
what make me move.
- Zoo Keeper, pg. 56
* * *
In your house
on the upper floor
one light is on
in a window open
like a mouth
saying "Oh,"
and it looks, it sounds
just like your breath.
No other light there
speaks to the night,
and below I see
the door in shadow
and its blacker mark,
the keyhole. If I
went up and forced it
and felt it give,
would I find you
somewhere, breathing,
maybe behind
that one bright window -
laid on a bed or
crouched in a closet
or pressed brow first
into the angle
of two white walls?
Or no one there?
No one, for you
had turned into
your house: I was
in you, so never
again could meet you
face to face, never
once more trace
the halls and,
reaching the only
room still lit
with its small bed
and folded-down sheet,
see you there and
see if you are
alive or dead.
- The Light, pg. 64-65
* * *
Through the infinite limits of the night in ruins
the mumbler goes with his sounds but they're all one:
voices cut in pieces, pain that oozes
from the dead scars along this flat terrain
that channel dust past gardens and cottages.
Women come out and sniff him suspiciously:
the same old obsessive hatred of their sex,
flattering but lethal. And me too: I smell
his loneliness. How right to shake my head
and break the spell. I'm wondering again
why dandelions burn so terribly yet cool
on the ragged slope with its wild apple tree.
I'm five years old, absorbed, and soon will hate
the march each dawn I see to the plant gate.
But not to be back is right, my wife with me,
at naked five years old, the trackless field,
the dandelion fire and the wild apple shade.
- Dandelion, pg. 78
August 8, 2011
This attentively crafted collection of poetry straddles a fine line between self-awareness and self-absorption, but more than once tips into navel gazing that excludes or repels rather than welcomes the reader. This recent winner of the Canadian portion of the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize is forgiven its ponderous lapses, however, when it redeems itself with the wry humour and crisp observations of poems such as "Busman's Honeymoon". Who can't help but feel included in the universal experience of waiting for, being frustratingly passed by and joining in the communal experience of riding a bus?
"it streaks through storm, now flashing Not In Service
from its radiant forehead, polluted and obscured
by splattered mud, till it can reach its station
and help to ease the overflow of us
waiting in anger. Then we all barge in
and improbably improve the poetry of the bus."
More about A.F. Moritz can be found on the Griffin Poetry Prize Web site at:
http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awa...
"it streaks through storm, now flashing Not In Service
from its radiant forehead, polluted and obscured
by splattered mud, till it can reach its station
and help to ease the overflow of us
waiting in anger. Then we all barge in
and improbably improve the poetry of the bus."
More about A.F. Moritz can be found on the Griffin Poetry Prize Web site at:
http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awa...
July 20, 2008
I had some real problems gaining traction with Moritz's voice. Autumnal in mood, seemingly intimate, and yet Moritz continuously holds you at a distance with his metaphysical abstractions. I often found myself rereading poems (or better, rereading lines within poems) just to establish some sort of line by line thread of thought. Eventually he circles back by poem's end, but it leaves you wondering as to the Why of his twisting language. The destination just isn't all that interesting or profound. On occassion you'll pick up a reference to Dante, or something from the Bible, but by collection's end you're really hungry for something concrete to appear in a poem. If an object does appear, it bobs along in a meditation that belongs entirely to the author, who holds the only roadmap to his chest, leaving this reader feeling at a total remove. In a way he does this with great control -- which is why I feel bad about the 3 stars. Probably a 4 or 5 star poet for some, just not for me.
May 15, 2014
Especially stunning are the poems Titantic and Butterfly...both of which brought tears to my eyes while sitting on a busy streetcar.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews