Review: While We’ve Still Got Feet by David Budbill

Posted 28 February, 2010 in Book Reviews, Poetry

David Budbill isn’t a hermit or a recluse or a misanthrope, although he chose four decades ago to move to a mountain and write poems and play the flute. The thing is, unlike the image that immediately conjures, Budbill still seems gregarious and connected and invested in friends and family. Oh, and he moved to the mountain with his wife.

While We’ve Still Got Feet (Copper Canyon Press, 2005) is a joyous collection of poems informed by the work of Chinese and Japanese recluse-poets and by Budbill’s own distilled observations. The poems are clear and often arresting, filled with wry humor and a refreshing matter-of-factness.

Budbill, who also publishes the overtly political and progressive e-newsletter The Judevine Mountain Emailite, sprinkles the occasional political commentary into his poetry. Of course, looked at from another perspective, his entire existence is a political act and a commentary on the system of consumption and greed that has grown up here on the same soil that provides the foundation for Budbill’s mountain home. Here is one example of Budbill’s combination of humor and insight:

***

It’s Now or Never

Eat, drink, and be merry, for
tomorrow you will surely die.

Get together with your friends.
Enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.

I’m pretty sure this is all we get.
I can’t be absolutely certain, but

of all the people I have known who
have passed over to the other side

not one has sent back any news.

***

At its heart, Budbill’s poetry is a clear expression of his vision of life, a vision to which he has remained true despite what I can only imagine are temptations to move back where things are “easier.” Budill is no recluse, no hermit — but he is a striking example of having the courage of one’s convictions, and the kindness to share those convictions with others.

Highly recommended.

Review: Map of the Folded World by John Gallaher

Posted 27 February, 2010 in Book Reviews, Poetry

In the realm of wrong answers, someone
always has the radio on.

– from “I Will Sing the Monster to Sleep, & He Will Need Me”

I’ve been watching the middle seasons of Stargate SG-1 again. If you’ve never seen the show, the premise is that there are Stargates that allow instant travel between planets. You step into one on your world and step out into some completely other landscape.

To get around the problem of having to invent new languages for every race of alien encountered, the producers cut the knot this way: They explained that a particular race of evil aliens had captured many humans from earth and sprinkled them throughout the galaxy to use as slaves. So most of the folks you encounter are human. And most of them speak English, albeit with some interesting variations in dialect. And no, that last bit doesn’t make any sense, but it sure is easier than having to learn Klingon.

Which brings me to John Gallaher’s Map of the Folded World (University of Akron Press, 2009). Gallaher has managed to create a language all his own using English words. Reading his poems, I felt like I’d arrived on some other world where the linguistic building blocks were familiar, but the physics of assembling them was completely different, surprising, otherworldly.

Map of the Folded World gathers momentum as it goes, and traveling through it I was quickly swept up into Gallaher’s deft use of language, not really needing to know what something meant so much as to hear how Gallaher had opened up the possibilities of the words by putting them next to one another in surprising ways:

I don’t feel it’s helpful to quote sections of his poems (although I started the interview with my favorite line from the book) because his poems are so dependent on being whole. To remove any piece for study under the microscope would be to miss the point. Gallaher is sculpting, constructing, imagining, transporting the words. Similarly, although I’m sure these poems would be captivating individually, Map of the Folded World is a book. It is held together by the strength of Gallaher’s imagination and by the cascading wash of the language. By the time I reached the end, I felt almost as though I could speak the language; as though I could understand what some of the natives were saying, and maybe even try to carry on a rudimentary conversation of my own.

I love clear, narrative poetry. For me, this is not that. What it is, instead, is something equally valuable and maybe more rare — a transformative experience that comes about through nothing but the careful placement of word blocks on a landscape of Gallaher’s own devising.

Highly recommended.

POEM: Tsurumigawa

Posted 27 February, 2010 in Audio Poems, Japan, My poems, Poetry, Travel

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Tsurumigawa

ironically, we lived along the See Crane River
it sliced through the rice fields
that were just steps from the busy road

Tokyo and Yokohama and Kawasaki
are joined like an urban Cerberus
between them, hidden bits of unexpected farmland

bent old women in worn rubber boots
knotted bandanas around their heads
slop through the wet paddies

reaching crumpled fingers into waving rice
and plucking out the o-kome
the flesh of their people

in Ichigao, our town,
the women could have walked
a mile along the river

and treated themselves
to McDonald’s french fries
or the Colonel’s secret recipe

of herbs and spices
a bloodless invasion
leaving no cloud in its wake

I don’t think we ever actually
saw a crane on the river
that bore the bird’s name

like Oak Glen or Forest Heights
the name is simply a reminder
of what’s been taken away

gold flecks in green tea
gold plastic across the street
from the train station

and the Colonel standing there
arms outstretched, smiling
beckoning the cranes to fly to him

Three observations: Thumbs up, Fats & Kassav’

Posted 26 February, 2010 in Music, Random Musings

Good morning! Here are three things I’ve been thinking about this morning:

1. Has the “thumbs up” gesture completely replaced the “OK” gesture?
OR

2. Fats Domino turns 82 today. Huzzah!

3. The album Kassav’ au Zenith is, to my ear, one of the greatest live records ever made. If this album doesn’t dispel your blues, nothing will. But don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself:

POEM: Enclosures

Posted 26 February, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

Enclosures

huddled under the umbrella
nestled in the sleeping bag
crouched beneath the spreading elm
encased behind the windshield

while the rain pounds
the hailstones plummet
the wind circles ’round
looking for a crack in the siding

it’s not an aversion to the elements
it’s the thrill of being protected
the joy at not being forced
into anything you don’t desire

POEM: Gerry & Lenny

Posted 25 February, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry

Listen to the poem by pressing the play button above.

Gerry & Lenny

have the same vocal tic
an explosion of air from the nose
with the tongue in the back of the throat

each time it sounds like laughter,
a commentary on their own speech
then back or not back to the matter at hand

“I’m waiting for a Jew to turn Catholic!
Can you imagine a Jew submitting
to the goddamned pope? Jesus Christ!”

Like Lenny, Gerry stops in the middle –
in mitn drinen, they would say –
to tell stories and to follow tangents

Like Gerry, Lenny draws water from
a desert oasis and pours that water
into molds of his own design

“The Catholic Church has given the pope
permission to become a nun.
Just on Fridays, though.”

Gerry was born in Pittsburgh:
grew up with bituminous in his mouth,
ate the ash-gray snow

Lenny was born in Mineola:
within weeks, Sally was back on stage
and Lenny drifted from house to house

Gerry has been a poet laureate
and has won awards and prizes
and taught at prestigious universities

Lenny died on the bathroom floor,
syringe near his arm,
camera lens in his face

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