The themes were of a piece with lots of my recent reading: science and nature imagery, ageing, and social justice pleas. But Lewis adds in another majThe themes were of a piece with lots of my recent reading: science and nature imagery, ageing, and social justice pleas. But Lewis adds in another major topic: language itself, by way of etymology and translation. “Another Way of Saying It” gives the origin of all but its incidental words in parentheses. The “Tales from Mesopotamia” are from a commissioned verse play she wrote and connect back to her 2014 collection Taking Mesopotamia, with its sequence inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh. There are also translations from the Arabic and a long section paraphrases the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which recalls the books of Ecclesiastes and Job with its self-help aphorisms. Other poems are inspired by a mastectomy, Julian of Norwich, Japanese phrases, and Arthurian legend. The title phrase comes from the Rubaiyat and refers to the creation of humanity from clay. There’s such variety of subject matter here, but always curiosity and loving attention.
This was my first time reading Irish poet Mary O’Malley. Nature looms large in her tenth collection, as in several of the other books I’ve reviewed heThis was my first time reading Irish poet Mary O’Malley. Nature looms large in her tenth collection, as in several of the other books I’ve reviewed here, with poems about flora and fauna. “Late Swallow” is a highlight (“your loops and dives leave ripples in the air, / a winged Matisse, painting with scissors”) and the title’s reference is to dogfish – what’s in a name, eh? The meticulous detail in her descriptions made me think of still lifes, as did a mention of an odalisque. Other verse is stimulated by Greek myth, travel to Lisbon, and the Gaelic language. Sections are devoted to pandemic experiences (“Another Plague Season”) and to technology. “The Dig” imagines what future archaeologists will make of our media. I noted end and internal rhymes in “April” and the repeated sounds and pattern of stress of “clean as a quiver of knives.” O’Malley has a light touch but leaves a big impression.
New England poet Ricky Ray describes himself as an “eco-mystic” and is the author of several previous works. Maura Dooley chose this as the Aryamati CNew England poet Ricky Ray describes himself as an “eco-mystic” and is the author of several previous works. Maura Dooley chose this as the Aryamati Collection Prize winner in 2023. As in Birds Knit My Ribs Together by Phil Barnett, nature is a source of comfort in a life complicated by chronic illness. In “Pain: 8 on a Scale out of 10,” Ray explains how “Some days, I never make it out of my head, / that coal-eyed melon … The impinged nerves crack their whips / within my animal pelt”. An accidental overdose and depression are matter-of-fact components of the poet’s history. While uxorious, he regrets that he may never become a father. And yet this couplet expresses deep pleasure in life:
(Dis)ability Some days, my body is so beautiful I can’t believe I get to live here.
His elderly rescue dog Addie is his beloved companion, and the delight she takes in physical existence despite advancing cancer is a model to him: “she still has a lot / to teach me about aging, about ignoring it, about how to throw my body— / even when it fails me, even when it hurts like hell—headlong into joy.” Multiple poems remember particular walks with her, such as in a Connecticut forest. He even gets a tutorial from her in how to dig a hole. Later on, he remarks as if to her, “Forgive me, I’m human, / we’re slow to learn, quick to forget— / it could be said we live too long / to appreciate each drop of time in the heart’s well.”
If his primary engagement with the nonhuman world is via a pet, Ray also widens the scope to include environmental plight: “you look up and extinction’s / already guzzling half the bestiary, / You think, / God, what have I done? / And the God in you answers: / harm, now what will you do?” This sense of responsibility meeting resolution echoes throughout the book. Ache is a spur to seek remedies; “I learned that hurt inducts all painfolk as conspirators // in the craft of healing.” The prose poems were a bit long and ranty for me (e.g., “Identity Earth: A Brief Biography of Our Planetary Self” goes on for more than six pages) and overall I found the book a little sentimental and New Age-adjacent. However, the poems about Addie are undeniably touching, and perfect for fans of Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs.
(3.5) Caroline Bird has become one of my favourite contemporary poets over the past few years. Her verse is joyously cheeky and absurdist. A great way(3.5) Caroline Bird has become one of my favourite contemporary poets over the past few years. Her verse is joyously cheeky and absurdist. A great way to sample it is via her selected poems, Rookie. This seventh collection is muted by age and circumstance – multiple weddings and a baby – but still hilarious in places. Instead of rehab or hospital as in In These Days of Prohibition, the setting is mostly the domestic sphere. Even here, bizarre things happen. The police burst in at 4 a.m. for no particular reason; search algorithms and the baby monitor go haywire. Her brother calls to deliver a paranoid rant (in “Up and at ’Em”), while Nannie Edna’s dying wish is to dangle her great-grandson from her apartment window (in “Last Rites”). The clinic calls to announce that their sperm donor was a serial killer – then ‘oops, wrong vial, never mind!’ A toddler son’s strange and megalomaniac demands direct their days. My two favourites were “Ants,” in which a kitchen infestation signals general chaos, and “The Frozen Aisle,” in which a couple scrambles to finish the grocery shop and get home to bed before a rare horny moment passes. A lesbian pulp fiction cover, mischievous wit and topics of addiction and queer parenting: this is not your average poetry.
These 41 poems, each limited to one stanza and one page, are named for their first lines, like hymns. With their old-fashioned lyricism and precise naThese 41 poems, each limited to one stanza and one page, are named for their first lines, like hymns. With their old-fashioned lyricism and precise nature vocabulary, they are deeply rooted in place and animated by frequent rhetorical questions. Birds and fields, livestock and wildfires: Goodan marks where human interest and the natural world meet, or sometimes clash. He echoes Emily Dickinson (“After great patience, a small bird comes”) and also reminds me of Keith Taylor. The pages are rain-soaked and ghost-haunted, creating a slightly melancholy atmosphere. Unusual phrasing and alliteration stand out: “on the field / A fallow calm falls / Leaving the soil / To its feraling.” He’s a new name for me though this is his seventh collection; I’d happily read more. [After I read the book I looked at the blurb. I got … none of that from my reading, so be aware that it’s very subtle.]
(4.5) Nancy Miller Gomez’s debut collection recalls a Midwest girlhood of fairground rides and lake swimming; tornadoes and cicadas. But her remembere(4.5) Nancy Miller Gomez’s debut collection recalls a Midwest girlhood of fairground rides and lake swimming; tornadoes and cicadas. But her remembered Kansas is no site of rose-tinted nostalgia. “Missing History” notes how women’s stories, such as her grandmother’s, are lost to time. A pet snake goes missing and she imagines it haunting her mother. And in “Tilt-A-Whirl,” her older sister’s harmless flirtation with a ride operator turns sinister:
we went faster, and faster, though by then we had begun to scream Stop!
Please stop! Until our voices grew hoarse beneath the clattering pivots and dips,
the air filling with diesel and cigarettes, and the man at the control stick, waiting for us
to spin toward him again, and each time he cocked his hand as if sighting prey down the barrel of a gun.
“Mothering” likewise eschews the cosy for images of fierce protection. The poet documents the death of her children’s father and abides with a son enduring brain scans and a daughter in recovery from heroin addiction. She wreaks “Vengeance” on a cheating husband and lives through her parents’ deaths. Gomez also takes ideas from the headlines, with poems about the Ukraine invasion, species extinction, and an unsolicited dick pic shared via the cloud in a subway car. There is a prison setting in two poems in a row – she has taught Santa Cruz County Jail poetry workshops.
I particularly appreciated “The Invisible Mother,” inspired by the Victorian practice of photographing children with their mothers hidden in the background; “Heavens to Betsy,” concerning her mother’s love of sayings (my mother, too; a favourite exclamation was “Great Caesar’s ghost!”); and “Domain,” about her fascination with her body, even as it ages:
Crow’s feet and cackle lines. The foundation of my face settling in for the long haul, each year my body becoming more and more familiar.
The alliteration and slant rhymes are to die for, and I love the cover (Owl Collage by Alexandra Gallagher) and the frequent bird metaphors. There’s an edge of sadness and danger that reminds me of Lo by Melissa Crowe. I recognized much of the emotional territory of childhood, as I did with Sarah Manguso’s Very Cold People, even if the particulars are very different from my own upbringing. It’s always exciting to discover a writer who sees the world in the same way as I do, and can write about it in gorgeous verse....more
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