Black Dog Songs

by Lisa Jarnot

Poetry. Simply one of the most admired and imitated poets of her generation, Lisa Jarnot's third volume of poetry does what only Jarnot can do. Decidedly lyrical, always reliant on repetition and rhythm, what emergies in this book is a catalog of loves and laments: "Just the eldergrass and him, the fog, unpoliced and safe inside the train, the thoughts of rain, Apollo, and the sun..." As Stan Brackage has said of Jarnot, " H]er words are never severed from the means that engendered them; and the consequent meanings are never detached from the meditative drama of each whole poem."

Genres: Poetry, School

59 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

Reviews

[Victoria Foote-Blackman]

I'm not comfortable giving a star rating of any kind--bad or good--to Lisa Jarnot's poetry. This small book is frustrating to read. Jarnot loves wordplay, and play and play, and the looping back to earlier images, ad infinitum. Sometimes the effect is effective. In the poem "Story" this repetition of sound and images reaches an almost biblical mood. "Mysteries" too reaches a kind of incandescence in which the jostling about of variations on the same words and images reaches a kind of gratifying crescendo. The two pastoral poems invite the reader's ear to join the mind's eye, and nature is effulgent and mysterious. But all too often the kind of repetition of sounds and rhymes Jarnot indulges in may be totally authentic but feels ultimately like a one-trick pony. One wishes Jarnot would leave the ofttimes quagmire of her mind to be slightly more generous with her readers. That said, children might enjoy some of the singsong cadences and rhymes found herein. So, in sum,
not this reader's cup of tea.

[Evan Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are recipes for success! Among these pages are pastorals for the post-9/11 conumdrummer and sestinas for the jihadis in caves. Good lines to write on the bathroom walls in posh hotels, or in dank gay bars (Phoenix on 13th and A). I suggest starting a tab, downing a few cosmos, and opening to a poem at random. BDS is like the I-Ching for the less nervous among us, the whiskey-toting aspirants and blossoming infidelias. Fine line breaks and better musicality than a Strauss piece, or a Batan death march, Jarnot channels Bobby Orr and corrals the largest of NYC cabs. Did she just say that?, you might eventually ask. Dig a hole in the sky and the black dog barks. Fill it with leaves, load some of these poems on your back. Keep your Polish rudder in your hand, harbormaster, and a copy of BDS in the other. All that's left is us and them. At long last, Jarnot is letting the cat out of the bag -- and finding it a good home.

[MKMKMK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this and Ring of Fire made me wake up to contemporary poetry. Prior to these I had no idea there was poetry being written right now that was doing anything worth paying attention to. Glad I was wrong. Sort of embarrassed to say it was so recent that I discovered these nice absurd explorations.

[Faith Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy WOW this was really not good. Or I could just be reallyyyyyy dense but like to me 98% of the poems felt like if you were to hit the middle autofill key a bunch of times..

More power to anyone who gets something out of this but I just couldn’t like at all. There were like 2 or 3 poems right on the edge of being something meaningful for me but they never quite landed.

Special shoutout however for Seal Ode. Bc of course some random book that I grabbed out of a Leave One Take One lending library box stand thingy would have a whole poem about the word seal🤭

[Ron Mohring · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not engage with this. I tried three separate times to read it but just wanted to throw it against the wall.

"Having hearts of mammal murmurs/ streams and valleys no hamburgers/ only green things in the hay/ only quiet day through day// To the possums in the creek bed/ spears of pines and underleaf fed/ in the sunlight in the rain/ underpass of what to say . . ."

No. Just, no.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not an avid poetry reader, it’s likely my fault that I just couldn’t follow her work.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a blast reading this on the train during my very recent NYC visit. I always find Jarnot's work to be technically staggering, nearly perfect. Then the specific poems fall (subjectively) into two categories: the ones that seem merely playful (which tend to leave me cold, like a lot of goofy third- or fourth-generation "New York School" writing, a category I'm not sure Jarnot falls into) and those that have some sense of urgency, which I think are fantastic. That urgency isn't always political or serious in tone--it can come through in playful poems or in poems that convey a sense of the overwhelming profusion of nature--and here I find it in some form in most of the poems. I particularly love the way things like chickens and cows recur with such frequency, becoming pictorial, sonic, metaphorical... shifting roles across quite different poems. The sense of life these poems embody is valuable.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will always admire the "Preface" to "My Terrorist Notebook." And the "They" section makes me think of what the Duino Elegies push me to--an ecstatic announcement of life and loving that life completely. But I get annoyed by the Bush and Rumsfeld poems in here. Not because I like those two people (well, they are coming over for tea later today, but not fancy tea), but because I don't really understand how I'm supposed to be fighting with sound poems.

[Tim Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were 5 good emperors.

To gather thoughts in herds.

To butle is a verb meaning "to deport yourself like a butler".

[cristiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

indian hot wings is awesome...

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains "My Terrorist Notebook" and the Love poems which I love. A note on the cover: a most fantastic design by Jeff Clark (not the surfer of Mavericks fame) at Quemadura.net.

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jarnot rocks.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm putting my mouth where my black dog is.