A wonderful life

Eric Nelson: Some Wonder

Wonderful surprise! I was looking through one of my bookshelves for a particular collection when I stumbled across a small book of poetry that I swear I had never seen before and had no recollection of buying. I opened it up and scanned a page or two and instantly saw why I bought it. The book, Some Wonder by Eric Nelson, is, well, wonderful! It’s engaging, amusing, thought-provoking, witty…

These are poems of shrewd and bemused observation. Consider these lines from “Fair Road”:

In the strip mall more stores

Have closed but one
Like Jesus
Is always coming soon.

How can you not love such wry wit? But of course it’s more than just tongue-in-cheek humor. In very few words, Nelson paints a picture of a corner of the world where (although he doesn’t explicitly say so) life is slower, opportunities scarcer. It’s not necessarily the South, but it kind of feels that way. The Southern landscape and mindset are often on display. Poems such as “Inside Georgia,” “Georgia Sunset,” and “The Guitars” mention Georgia directly, while many others couldn’t take place anywhere but the Atlantic south. Egrets, dogwoods, pecans, wisteria, frogs, hog-nosed snakes—all play a part as subject or backdrop to these poems. As do guns: “Gun on the Table,” “The Gun Show,” Women and Guns.” But what’s striking—and distressing—is that guns are not portrayed as a menace but as a routine commodity, like a loaf of bread. Nelson also has an affinity for dogs, though again, not your inner city junkyard dogs, but the companionable hounds that follow you around the yard, strangely intent on inhaling life’s least pleasant smells.

Some Wonder cover

And then there’s chickens. Nelson has a soft spot for farmyard fowl. They feature in “Better Angels,” in which their simple, hardscrabble existence becomes a foil for the speaker’s unobtainable desires. In “I Love Chickens,” he playfully reflects on the virtues of these awkward birds, and in so doing presents a subtle commentary on human nature, needs, and priorities. The poem relies on anaphora, with each phrase completing the sentiment started in the title, “I Love Chickens”:

…Because they are flappable.

Because every night they return to their coop
And every morning they walk the plank into their day.

Because like us they brood, follow a pecking order, desire
A nest egg. Because even their shit is useful.

Nelson smoothly succeeds in what I often try to do: describe a subject in literal terms that can also be understood metaphorically. So yes, chickens literally walk along a plank to leave the coop, but for humans, “walking the plank” conjures images of pirates forcing their captives to topple overboard to their death. And the fact that they do it “every morning” like us suggests that every day when we leave the house and head to work, we are metaphorically trudging toward a kind of death. While we both may “brood,” the verb has vastly different connotations depending on the subject. Then there’s the unapologetic revelry in language. “Flappable?!?!” Well, if someone can be unflappable, it certainly follows that someone can be flappable—and who more so than chickens? Great poetry often points a lens at the absurd but grammatically valid quirks of our language.

There is a sort of deadpan comedy on display throughout the book. “Our Wars,” for example, starts out:

He was a nerd before their were nerds
But one thing you had to say for Mark—
The guy knew how to die.

The sentence is a bit shocking at first, but reading further, it becomes clear that it’s a game—young boys playing soldier, mimicking those overwrought scenes from World War II movies. Of course, we know from other poems that Nelson came of age in the Viet Nam era (and would later take part in the draft lottery), so a description of a kid pretending to get shot can’t help but suggest a real boy—probably still a teen—dying in a real war. 

An elegiac streak also runs through this book, in which that wry humor turns a bit more sardonic. Several poems seem to ruminate on the untimely death of a faculty colleague in the English/writing program where Nelson teaches. In “Visiting Writer,” the poet imagines looking up from his work

To see you standing at the lectern,
Introducing the visiting writer. All that time
None of us knew you were the one visiting.

Suddenly, the title takes on a new object and meaning. “In another year” seems to be about the same person. In it, Nelson observes:

In another year the building will be filled
with students who know you
as a scholarship fund

Ouch! That’s absolutely devastating in its matter-of-fact summary. It also uses end breaks to great effect (“load every rift with ore!”). It goes on to say 

Whenever they wanted explanation
You told them instead to observe

That could in fact serve as the motto of this book. It’s only natural to want reasons for the nonsensical aspects of life, but in the end, the world—no matter how predictable it can sometimes seem—is governed by random chance. True understanding is impossible—the best we can do is to observe and appreciate. Building on that, the random nature of the universe, the crazy improbability of any of it being here at all, engenders a profound sense of wonder. That’s emphasized in the title of the book, which in turn comes from the final line in “Twenty-Five O’Clock” (which is a bit more elliptical than most poems in the book—I think it refers to the “extra hour” we get from Daylight Saving each fall). The poem ends: “Some wonder what I mean. Some wonder is what.” 

Interestingly, I found that I kept misstating the title of the book as “Small Wonder,” as in the phrase meaning “it’s obvious, it’s understandable.” It would be an apt title, as the phrase could be interpreted in different ways—and that’s a hallmark of Nelson’s style. In fact, the book ends with a poem called “Small Wonders” (the plural allows only one meaning), which is essentially a series of haiku-like poems that accentuate the mandate to observe the world to derive a set of truths (explanation being impossible). Our hunger for meaning may ultimately go unsatisfied, but we can marvel in the small miracles of life (as a guidepost to the large miracle of Life). My favorite:

Dogs know what to do
With the dead—
Roll in them.

Yes, those dogs always have a lesson to teach, but like Zen masters, they enlighten without saying a word.

Do yourself a favor: track down this book and spend some time reveling in its wise perspective. As the poem “Feeders” suggests: “Where you reflect, you will feed / Your hunger for wonder.” These last eight-or-so years have insidiously replaced our sense of wonder with a sense of cynicism; but I believe, underneath it all, we do still hunger for wonder.

Horseman, pass by!

Helen Vendler: In Memoriam

As a young poet, I secretly dreamed of one day being introduced by Stephen Yenser and reviewed (even panned) by Helen Vendler. I will have to find a new dream.

I don’t recall when I first encountered Vendler’s poetic critique—I would guess it was in grad school, while indulging my passion for Yeats. She was certainly the most astute reader of Yeats that I have ever encountered—and that’s saying something. What I remember most, though, is checking out The Given and the Made from the Oakland library a few years later. In that book, she focused on four poets who would seem to have very little in common—Berryman, Lowell, Graham, and Dove. Though the four sections of the book were distinct, they were tied together by a simple premise: great art lies at the intersection of circumstance and genius. In other words, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade—or rather, a triple-layer lemon-chiffon wedding cake. On some level, I found this theory disquieting: my background was exceptionally unexceptional. How could I make something memorable when I was given nothing memorable to work with? 

As for her subjects, I had of course studied Berryman in school, though I ultimately found his alter-ego Mr. Bones problematic to say the least. I had also encountered Lowell in school, but that barely scratched the surface; I would later immerse myself in his work—most notably, The Mills of the Kavanaughs and Lord Weary’s Castle—and remain to this day a fervent devotee. Graham? Well, not even Vendler could raise her in my esteem, though I appreciated the explication. On the other hand, she sparked my interest in Rita Dove, whose work I’d had little exposure to previously. A later book, Soul Says, cast a wider net, analyzing poets I admired, such as Ammons, Merrill, Dave Smith, and Heaney, along with others I have never quite grown to appreciate. 

But what I’ve always appreciated about Vendler was that she approached every text on its own terms, rather then through the lens of any particular critical theory. Structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, formalism, psychoanalysis, etc.—they all seemed to choose their subjects to fit their intended conclusions. Indeed, many literary critiques were inseparable from the school of thought they espoused. Vendler, on the other hand, is not synonymous with any school. She was simply an attentive (I don’t think she would’ve accepted the term “close”) reader. 

While many lit crit schools were subtly or overtly political, she seemed to have no overarching agenda (other than to promote the greater appreciation of poetry). Perhaps that’s why she could espouse a position that would seem to flout current conventions and themes. Her scathing review of Rita Dove’s Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry was the stuff of legend (as was Dove’s response). She faulted Dove for prioritizing inclusiveness over critical consensus. Nowadays, her stance—essentially dismissing efforts to promote diversity and equity—would seem to align with the “anti-woke” rhetoric of certain far-right politicians. I doubt many university academics would be so bold in print, regardless of how they may feel in private.

Nonetheless, her argument—as always—was hard to disagree with, assuming you did not have a vested interest in doing so. When I look at that anthology today, I can’t help but side with Vendler. Though it contains many poets who are well worth reading, many are simply not in the same league as others. And of course, in devoting pages to those poets, Dove gave short shrift to those heavy-hitters. 

I have a book on my shelf called something like Silver Poets of the 17th Century. It gathers together several poets who are wonderful but not necessarily “Great.” That’s what Dove really needed to create—an anthology of poets who may well be considered important one day, but who still have their best work ahead of them.

In reading Vendler’s obituary, I was amused by a few intersections I did not previously realize. She was born a Hennessy in Boston. I have Hennessy clan in the family, and distant Irish relatives in Boston (not that I’m suggesting any relation—Hennessy folk are as common as clover). I wonder how much that Irish Catholic education—ruler on the knuckles if you misremember your catechism—influenced her approach to poetry, which on the one hand seemed to presume a set of sacred laws or expectations that needed to be upheld, and on the other hand, assumed that laypeople could not understand the holy word directly, but needed a priest to act as mediator. She also taught, however briefly, at my alma mater, Cornell. She also lived out the last of her years not far from me, in Laguna Niguel, a short drive (traffic permitting) from LA. 

Vendler wrote carefully about poetry—because she cared about poetry. I don’t think anyone would deny that the proliferation—the democratization—of poetry is overall a positive development. Poetry is like love—there is never enough. Still, we need someone like Vendler to thrust the Haw Lantern in the face of each poet’s work and either nod approvingly or intone, “No, not you.”

For what we are about to receive

Gregory Emilio: Kitchen Apocrypha

Recently, I had the opportunity to give my first Zoom reading. It was an interesting experience. On the one hand, it was great to be able to look directly at the work I was reading, yet still appear to be looking at the audience. Also, the real-time discussion in the chat was downright rollicking, and something that really wouldn’t be feasible in a regular reading. On the other hand, even with the feedback, the event lacked that interpersonal element (and obviously, no book signings).

One of my fellow readers (and Able Muse author) was Gregory Emilio, whose new book, Kitchen Apocrypha, manages to combine two of my deepest passions: poetry and cooking. You might think that writing a book in which every poem pertains to cooking or eating would be limiting. In fact, food is such a fundamental aspect of our lives (and always has been), that it lends itself to commentary on a whole host of subjects: sex, love, art, war, language, religion, sickness, death, and more.

book cover

Viewing the world through the lens of food delivers some remarkable imagery and turns of phrase. Consider: “the moon proofing like a loaf of bread,” “the night melting like sautéed onions,” “the moon drifting over the earth like a chipped dinner plate.” And Emilio’s palette is broad: oysters, mushrooms, octopus, tamales, risotto, fennel, waffles—every morsel becomes literal food for thought. And poetry.

Of course, there’s plenty of bread and wine. A presumably Catholic upbringing informs many of these poems. Biblical references abound, with Jesus making numerous appearances—sometimes directly, as in “Jesus as a Jaded Lover,” sometime more obliquely, as in “Whenever You Eat This.” One of my favorites in this vein is “First Food,” which recasts Eve from the Garden of Eden as a randy teenager. She describes herself, with Adam,

waiting for the sweet click
of night so we could finally be ourselves,
speak in our native tongue, that limitless
language of groins.

You’ve only to look at the vast diversity of life to understand that sex is a communication (no pun intended) that predates human speech, and even among humans, it’s arguably the one universal language (Maybe that’s why Babel had to fall?). This version of Genesis needs no serpent; Eve simply “walked to a tree called / ‘No’ and plucked a soft-bellied bulb / of fruit, nude as the moon.” I love that imagery—and I love how the lofty “forbidden fruit” is pared down to a single, palpable utterance: “No.” In some examinations, the forbidden fruit represents the knowledge of good and evil; here, it’s exactly what it was for all of us: unchecked carnal hormone-fueled desire. The description of tasting that fruit also hits home:

Like the first
fuck it all came and went so fast, a blur
of luscious flesh roaring over our lips
and down our chins…

As this passage suggests, “hunger” for Emilio is not merely the body signaling depletion, it is a visceral craving to ingest life itself, to be fully alive (by consuming what is dead).

Many poems draw upon Emilio’s career in food service—he was evidently a waiter, and perhaps a cook. It’s that perspective that allows him to look on DaVinci’s “Last Supper” and ponder what no one else has (as far as I know): the serving staff. The painting is largely about what is to come—and for most viewers, that means the betrayal, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For Emilio, it’s the woman who’ll have to clean up the mess after everyone leaves, just as she does every night, regardless of whether Christ comes back with a satchel of eternity. And though the Bible is mum on the subject, I’d bet the disciples were not great tippers. (In fact, you have to wonder who paid for that dinner in the first place.)

I tend to be somewhat withdrawn from the poetry world; still, it’s slightly remarkable that Emilio and I have never met in person—judging by his poetry, we must’ve crossed paths, though not in real time. He has a poem dedicated to Chris Abani; he and I read together when brick-and-mortar bookstores were still a thing. There’s also a poem about B.H. Fairchild at a restaurant in Riverside—I once had lunch with him at a restaurant in Riverside. There are also references to San Luis Obispo, Southern California, not to mention Atlanta (though long after I spent any time there).

There is heartache in this book—allusions to a lover who abandoned the author, references to someone paralyzed in a tragic accident, divorced parents, bombings, anorexia—but overall, the tone is ebullient, rapturous. Food is a broad and universal topic, and Emilio manages to distill it all in a feast that delights every sense, like a perfect port-wine reduction. The book is clever, too, in its assembly. It starts with a poetic amuse bouche entitled “Rapture,” and ends with “Revelation,” which begins: “To begin with rapture and leave you in / a matter of seconds…” The Biblical references are totally on brand—but more importantly, what a wonderful Easter Egg for the reader!

As one of my favorite philosophers wrote, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” You can take any of these approaches with Kitchen Apocrypha, which will leave you feeling both sated and hungry for more.

Chapel Music

Fred Chappell: In Memoriam

News travels fast—until it hits LA traffic. Which would explain why I only just learned about the death of Fred Chappell last month. In all my years, I never met anyone who so fully epitomized the concept of the “Man of Letters.” I probably still have somewhere the letter of recommendation he wrote for me when I left UNC-G, touting my ineffable virtues—he was, after all, a master storyteller. Because to be honest, I was a bit of an ass back then. OK, that’s not entirely fair; I was a complete ass back then. So much so that I squandered my access to such a brilliant mind. Partly due to scheduling conflicts, mostly due to my sense of inadequacy, I held off until my final semester before enrolling in an independent study with him. And being hands-down the least prolific member of my class, I did not produce much work to discuss in our weekly meetings. I should’ve realized that discussing my own work would be the least instructive thing we could do—far better to discuss just about anything he cared to hold forth on. He was exceedingly generous. Following the publication of my first book, I finagled a reading at UNC-G. Naturally, he was there, even though he was on the cusp of retirement (“No more in ’04” was his boisterous motto).

Narcissus and Echo

Shall the water not remember Ember
my hand’s slow gestures, tracing above of
its mirror my half-imaginary airy
portrait? My only belonging longing;
is my beauty, which I take ache
away and then return, as love of
teasing playfully the one being unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure Is your
moves me. I live apart heart
from myself, yet cannot not
live apart. In the water’s tone stone?
that brilliant silence, a flower Hour,
whispers my name with such slight light:
moment, it seems filament of air, fare
the world become cloudswell. well.

The one who kept walking

Austin Smith: Flyover Country

In my last missive, I noted that I picked up several books from The Strand. One of these is Flyover Country, by Austin Smith. I’ve been parsing through it over and again, with growing admiration each time.

The title of the book is a reference to Smith’s upbringing on a farm in the rural upper midwest. Many of the most distinctive poems are situated there, but their allure lies not only in the way he portrays the landscape but in how he conveys a sense of awe at the natural world, along with his touching and complicated (though never quite resolved) relationship with his father. These include poems such as “The Windbreak,” “Hired Hands,” “Water Witching,” and “The Vampire,” (this last an intriguing revisionist history of a childhood episode or memory). Nonetheless, Dorothy leaves Kansas at some point to become rather cosmopolitan, traipsing through Barcelona, Lourdes, Amsterdam, and Asheville.

Though distinctive, the poems in this book seemed remarkably referential, with styles or themes reminding me of other works. For example, the introductory poem, “Lena,” is a sort of epistolary narrative explaining how to reach a particular town—or perhaps, an imagined state or remembered past. It’s hard to read it without thinking of Frost’s “Directive.” Similarly, the title “Country Things” seems a direct nod to Frost’s “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.” Many poems also eschew punctuation, and though they do not fall within the Deep Image or Surrealist mode, they nonetheless display the influence of Merwin. “White Lie” describes the poet’s father spreading hay on Christmas Eve, a ruse to fool the young children into believing that reindeer had stopped in the night; the sense of childlike wonder and the desire to believe (or let others believe) in miracles brought me back to Hardy’s “The Oxen.” Then of course, “Film of the Building of a Coffin Viewed in Reverse” seems to take a cue from Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five.

Migrating if they sensed the seasons were turning
Against them.
When I walked into the forest
of camouflage…
…the words
Pearl Harbor over the jets
Of milk ringing in the pail.

A benediction

Deborah Pope: Take Nothing

While in New York recently, I visited the Strand Bookstore, which is akin to the hajj for bibliophiles—everyone should do it at least once in their life. It’s encouraging to see the venerable seller of new and used books has survived not only the global shift to online shopping but creeping gentrification as well (I remember when Union Square was a very dicey area).

McFee’s nonesuch

Michael McFee: Long Time to be Gone

As an undergrad, I sought out courses taught by visiting instructors whenever I could—they typically did not grade as harshly as the tenured faculty. That was partly my motivation for taking a poetry seminar with Michael McFee. I was not familiar with the name—he had only one book at the time—but he was on a temporary gig, visiting from North Carolina (a pedigree that made him right at home at Cornell, which listed Archie Ammons and Robert Morgan on the poetry roster). It turned out to be one of the most memorable and influential course I ever took.

Since then, I’ve followed his work with consistent admiration. I’m happy to report that he recently released a new collection, A Long Time to Be Gone. If you’ve never read his work before, this is a great place to begin. And if you’re familiar with his work, you’ll find everything you love—magnified.

McFee has a distinctive voice, marked by a sense of compassionate bemusement at the human condition. He as a knack for noticing the gesture or word that reveals something we didn’t know we knew about ourselves. He approaches language like a curious scientist, seeking to take it apart and reverse engineer it. An offhand comment can set him off on a grand philosophic or philologic expedition.

Can we talk?

Ada Limón: Bright Dead Things

We have a new national poet laureate: Ada Limón. I was familiar with the name, but could not recall reading any poems—at least nothing that stuck with me. So I grabbed a copy of Bright Dead Things. It’s not her most recent collection, but it was well received (finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award). And though she apparently does not live in California anymore, she spent her formative years here, and I’m always happy to promote our local talent. 

Crowned newly with a fearsome cutting,
I fold the aqua blanket twice to stay alive.

Headstones in the heart’s holler, sludge
of what’s left after the mountain’s blasted.

Not a kid anymore, there are no pretty victims
or greasy cavernous villains spitting blazes.

Wonder and sorrow

Doug Ramspeck: Black Flowers

Nature, writ large, is a brooding and impassive force in these poems. There’s plenty of mud, muck, and loam, and often it proffers the delicate skull of a small animal, bleached and moony. And the moon itself is a constant feature—it’s a rare poem in this collection that does not mention the moon in some manner. There are birds, too, of course. Herons, which typically assume a godly stature, and crows and grackles, which are vaguely associated with the poet’s mother. 

…at dusk, the grackles in the trees gave way
to bats, as though everything transforms in darkness
to something ancient.

The divine tragicomedy

Jack Wiler: Divina is Divina

…to wake up
and do it all again.
And again.
And again.
Not suddenly. Not prettily, not like anyone should die.
She died in a hospital in the city of New York
and no one knew her name.
The world is filled with tears and the song of birds.
Para siempre.