For Love of Common Words: Poems

by Steve Scafidi

The scariest sentence in the English language is brief, threatening, and hopeful. It is deceptive, simple, and as common as anything is possible. This second collection by Steve Scafidi is haunted by the possible and "the bells of the verb to be" that "ring-a-ding-ding calling us / to the holy dark of this first / warm night of Spring." When anything is possible, Scafidi finds, horror is as likely as delight. In poems both meditative and defiant he mourns the eventual loss of all that we love and finds consolation, wherever possible, in the rhythm of common words and "the sacred guesswork" of the imagination. Here is the dangerous world we all have in common. Here is a brief and hopeful book.Steve Scafidi is the author of the poetry collection Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer, winner of the Larry Levis Reading Prize. His poem "The Egg Suckers" received the 2005 James Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah literary magazine. He is a cabinetmaker and lives with his family in Summit Point, West Virginia."Steve Scafidi's poem 'The Egg Suckers' made me laugh, fidget, and ponder my own path through this omnivorous world. It reminds us that things are constantly happening beneath our very feet, that a secret history is being forged that we'll never read about in the newspapers. Like Theodore Roethke, Scafidi describes a nature that is at least as nasty as it is nice and then lets us know that -- oops! -- we're on the menu, too. Re-reading 'The Egg Suckers,' I laughed again. And then I made breakfast." -- David Kirby

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Steve Scafidi is the author of four poetry collections, including Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer and To the Bramble and the Briar. He lives in Summit Point, West Virginia.

Reviews

[stephanie roberts]

The most beautiful book of poetry i've read this year—I wanted to read it through, without analysis, carried on its riverlike momentum, but I found that i couldn't; almost every line drew me into a dialogue of mental commiseration with Steve Scafidi's tender anger.

Within a quiet forest of heartbreaking vulnerability, the voice of his work is a hypnotic mix of intellectual perplexity and impotent rage which catches under the skin like splinters.

Who knew we could need one more mouth
	to feed and to listen to and to love?

(Calling to Her)

I cannot say that I feel the same degree of frustrated despair or resignation about the dependability of investing one's energies in the benefits of afterlife, but I am comforted by his questions and resignations and the value he's placed on the sanctity of life, with a compassion known only to those hurt by disappointment with their understanding of god. For Love of Common Words heralds a reverence for the beauty of a common now under the azure penumbra of hope that seems to accompany the believing agnostic and is not as evident as the latitude granted to the existence of the unspeakable and unendurable by those who have hedged investing all their strength of soul now for a safety net of hereafter.

Lord, I give you back your image and the myth
	of your benevolence and the illusion
		You exist. 

(On the Death of Karla Faye Tucker)

I am glad about the rage. Love it. It grounds me; for what rational good-hearted person sees the world without rage birthing itself? it seems only those more stupid than innocent and more malignant than delusional remain untouched by it.

Scafidi's work is shamanistic—his is a cerebral vision rooted firmly in earth and body that is wholly relevant to our times and in my opinion underrepresented in contemporary poetry. Often the sonic syntactic freight train of images he hurtles down the page has the vibe of the metaphysical—thinking into thinking about the consequences of an awareness of life and mortality that seems to contradict sober consideration.

I send to my dead and to my secret loves
lost in dream and miles, oh the moist, holy
stolen kiss of a sudden inspiration one feels in
the wind or just inches from the beloved
face of an old friend that is mostly the breath
of word, and the kiss of X's in long letters,

(After Homer's Catalog of Ships)

I am absolutely mesmerized by the steroidal strength of his syntax. His expertly run on sentences and poetic turns are rollercoaster rides. Jesus was said to have worn a seamless coat and likewise Scafidi's work feels tightly woven with thought pouring as the blood of spiritual intuition set on fire.

and she is not—then let this blue light hang down
 	low like the soul
		of a world failed.

(Life Story of the Possible)

Fucking fantastic poetry permeated by the haunting smoke of the divine.

[Mariam]

I had to read this book for my "Writing Poetry for Publication" class. Before reading this book, I took a look at the back and read the tiny information about the author, Steve Scafidi. When I read that he is a cabinetmaker, the first thought that came to my mind was "Really? He wrote a whole book of poems?" After reading the first few lines of the poem "Life Story of the Possible," I knew this book was going to be a good one. He has demonstrated a variety of writing styles in his poems, sort of "dashy" like Emily Dickinson, but unlike her, his dashes seem to make sense in accordance to where they are placed. Some poems were chatty like Wallace Stevens', where he incorporates child-like words. Those show the fun, playful side of Scafidi very well. It is an easy-read for non-native speakers of English.

[Jennifer]

These poems are Whitmanian, vast in their scope, wild with brag and tenderness, whether they're celebrating the immensity of love and sensuality, invoking the inevitability of death, or recalling again and again how existence is luminous, shimmery, persistent.

[Austin]

absolutely wonderful. a brief, compelling, fun, serious, and attentive argument for staying alive.

[Donnelle]

the poetry continues . . . and it flows all over the pages . . .

[Gina]

My macabre serial killer-obsessed friends might appreciate Scafidi's poem for Karla Faye Tucker.