{"id":1084,"date":"2025-06-04T06:44:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T06:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/?p=1084"},"modified":"2025-06-05T20:06:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T20:06:06","slug":"eat-this-itll-make-you-feel-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/?p=1084","title":{"rendered":"Eat This\u2014It\u2019ll Make You Feel Better"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joshua Martin<\/strong>: Earth of Inedible Things<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, the AWP conference came to town. I didn\u2019t attend the conference itself, but I did get the chance to connect with old friends from far away and to sit in on some poetry readings\u2014including a reading of Georgia-based (or Georgia-associated) writers emceed by Greg Emilio. It was a fine gathering overall, but one poet in particular caught my attention: Joshua Martin. He used a phrase, \u201ca lego-hard truth,\u201d in a poem about parenting, and it immediately struck me. Why? Because this is exactly what I strive for in a metaphor: It\u2019s deceptively simple, and immediately recognizable\u2014something everyone knows without knowing they know it. It\u2019s \u201corganic,\u201d meaning it arises from the situation and locale and does not seem out of place. It is accurate and concise, conveying in just a few words a concept that would otherwise require lengthy explication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Based on that, I dove into Martin\u2019s debut collection, Earth of Inedible Things<\/em>, which came out a few years back. The book title comes from the last line of the poem \u201cCrabapples,\u201d in which the titular apples become a metaphor, or rather an outlet, for the unnameable feelings that the young speaker feels regarding the impending death of a grandfather. So, it is partly a tribute to the grandfather, who plays a prominent role in the book. But I wonder whether there\u2019s more at work. \u201cInedible things\u201d is not a common phrase, and evokes alternatives such as \u201cincredible things,\u201d which would appropriately sum up the sense of wonder that is often at play in this book, and \u201cindelible things,\u201d which would describe certain memories that have stained and defined his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let me take a step back. In reading this book, I couldn\u2019t help but think about Helen Vendler\u2019s  fruitful approach of viewing poets through the lens of \u201cthe given and the made,\u201d identifying their particular circumstances or life events and examining how those given circumstances form the defining trope of their poetry. Martin\u2019s \u201cgivens\u201d are at least twofold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is the tragic death of his mother, evidently in a car accident, when the poet was still quite young. The mother herself rarely appears directly\u2014perhaps he was too young to remember her very much\u2014but her absence exerts a palpable influence on the poet\u2019s dad, who was left trying to piece together his shattered world, raising his sons as an unexpectedly single parent in a time and place where childrearing is largely considered women\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That death is a shadowy menace, liable to leap out when least expected. I was initially struck by how many poems end very far from where they began\u2014till I realized they all end up at the same place. For example, in \u201cHamlet on the Shuttle,\u201d the poet begins explaining Shakespeare to a bus driver but ends up remembering his father, contemplating existence after the death of his wife. A poem that begins with Hannibal\u2019s devastating victory at Cannae similarly ends with his father dealing with his mother\u2019s death. The same is true for \u201cHamster Country,\u201d which starts with the father comforting his kids about the loss of a pet and ends with the death of the poet\u2019s mother. Even a meditation on eggs ends with the ever-present tragedy: \u201cmy father \/ those mornings after the wreck \/ that broke the yolk of his life, \/ his wife a discarded shell.\u201d Obsession is the ursprung of art (how many ballerina\u2019s did Degas depict?), and great works often come from a simple inability to move on. This is no exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin\u2019s second \u201cgiven\u201d is his upbringing in the rural West Virginia\u2014especially a town called Nitro. I thought the name must surely be fictional, but I looked it up, and it is a real place, named after the ingredient in gun powder, which the town was founded to manufacture during WWI. To put that in perspective\u2014imagine growing up in a town called Roundup or South Paraquat. Nitro, in Martin\u2019s eyes, is like a high school football star, who went on to sell used cars and ended his days in a nursing home. His treatment of Nitro as a personage, rather than a mere place, springs straight from Richard Hugo (and BTW, The Triggering Town should be required reading for all aspiring poets).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The language he uses to describe the region is at times aloof, judgmental, sympathetic, and nostalgic. For example, \u201cFor the Razing of Nitro\u2019s Last Old Buildings\u201d describes \u201cNitro, WV, home \/ of black soot and opiates, where the old buildings spoke \/ an adverb-less language.\u201d Another notes the \u201cvats of dioxins \/ at the Dow Chemical Plant in Nitro, West Virginia.\u201d In \u201cFamily Vacation,\u201d his grandparents yearn \u201cfor the promise of a sun they didn\u2019t feel \/ in Nitro, West Virginia.\u201d In \u201cGreetings Unanswered,\u201d the poet recalls \u201cthat hospice in Nitro \/ where my grandfather died after a lifetime \/ of chemical plants.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given Martin\u2019s rural and Southern upbringing, it\u2019s not surprising to find biblical references sprinkled throughout the book, though a pair of poems focused on the story of Isaac assume a deeper resonance, given his complicated relationship to his father: \u201cHow long did Abraham look \/ at his son\u2019s flesh, smooth as a still river, before \/ deciding on an entry point?\u201d Interestingly, these poems are apparently ekphrastic, inspired by works of Ruben and Rembrandt\u2014which are probably not household names in Nitro.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stylistically, these poems can be described as post-neo-formalist\u2014meaning they are not unruly free verse or performative poetry, but do not adhere to any established forms, though the lineation often gives the appearance of traditional form.He also shows an affinity\u2014as much as a poet can muster\u2014for those who do not work with words. I thought I could hear echoes of Philip Levine in certain poems, but in \u201cWorking Language\u201d (such a wonderfully contradictory title!), the homage was clear: \u201cI\u2019ve read enough Levine \/ to understand the loneliness of a sprocket.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting back to that \u201clego-hard truth,\u201d metaphor and simile are Martin\u2019s principal strength as a poet. Some poems are rife with the word \u201clike,\u201d and yet it never stands out\u2014because those similes are intuitively descriptive and engaging. I could choose any poem and find countless examples. Here\u2019s one from \u201cTaking His Keys Away,\u201d about his grandfather: \u201cthe pedal pressed \/ like a coffin into the graveyard of the floorboard.\u201d Again\u2014unique, organic, succinctly descriptive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also\u2014I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a word for this\u2014descriptions that can\u2019t be taken literally but can only be taken literally. Prime example: \u201cI\u2019m a kid again \/ standing in a field I know is losing its myth.\u201d The only way to understand that\u2014which we immediately do\u2014is by being that kid in the field. Language like this appears on every page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin was handed tragedy and bleakness, and handed back beauty. He\u2019s certainly not unique in that regard, but his particular \u201cgiven\u201d and \u201cmade\u201d result in poetry that is mindful and heartful all at once. I can\u2019t wait to see what he\u2019ll give us next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua Martin: Earth of Inedible Things Earlier this year, the AWP conference came to town. I didn\u2019t attend the conference itself, but I did get the chance to connect with old friends from far away and to sit in on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gabrielspera.com\/the-first-circle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}