Mary Harwell Sayler

August 10, 2013

NATURAL THEOLOGIES by Denise LowPosted by

Review by Mary Harwell SaylerNatural Theologies by Denise Low

NATURAL THEOLOGIES:
ESSAYS ABOUT LITERATURE OF THE NEW MIDDLE WEST
by Denise Low

The Backwaters Press
3502 North 52nd Street
Omaha, Nebreska 68104-3506
ISBN: 978-1-935218-22-7
2011, pp. 185, $20.00
www.thebackwaterspress.com

Almost any innovative book that combines a discussion of literature with theology will get my attention, but when Denise Low set just such a conversation in a Midwestern locale, my interest soared even more. As a cautious kid growing up and mostly remaining in the South, I found stories of Native Americans, pioneers, frontierspeople, and cowpeople (boys or girls) intriguing because they were bold, and I was not.

As an adult accompanied by a brave spouse, I’ve since hugged the U.S. coastline, drooled over quaint little towns in rural New England, and said hi to Canada and other countries—but I’ve seldom set more than the stopover foot of an airline passenger onto the vast American plains.

Do buffalo still roam? Do people get along? Do the Indians of my childhood prefer to be called Native Americans now?

The latter question received an almost immediate answer when I saw the author’s reference to Native Americans not as Indians but Indigenous people. Good to know as I got to know the diverse voices in this “first critical study of contemporary Mid-Plains literature”—a book that includes much-admired poets and writers but also a wide range of Midwestern voices I had not previously heard.

Denise Low obviously knows each of those voices well. Not only has she taught at various universities and won prestigious awards for her own books, she’s a fifth-generation Kansan, whose roots go as deep as prairie grasslands. More importantly, perhaps, her personal lineage of European and tribal peoples have given her a uniquely blended background for intelligently discussing relevant topics—from the landscape to the Lakota to the contemporary literary achievements of native Midwesterners.

Taking cover under the book’s title, four sections come together in “A Revised Frontier Literature” (with a variety of accomplished poets and writers, including Denise Low), “Settlement. The Cities” (with Langston Hughes, David Ray, Mbembe Milton Smith, Stanley E. Banks), “Hard Land, Strong Character” (William Stafford, Robert Day, Patricia Traxler, and others), and “Natural Theologies,” which looks at “Ted Kooser’s Poetics of Devotion,” the “Poets in the Bible Belt” (Michael Poage, Jo Mcdougall, and Kathryn Kysar), and “Louise Erdrich’s Magic Spells, Prayers, and Parables.”

That fourth section drew me to the book, but touched on more than I’d imagined, such as how “American Indian religions derive belief from specific sacred sites,” or how poems by Ted Kooser “begin located in solid reality, but then surreal leaps occur.” For instance, the poem “Etude” starts with the narrator’s “watching a Great Blue Heron,” who, by the end, “would spear the whole world if he could,/ toss it and swallow it live.” As a poet who devours well-written poetry in big chunks, I totally understood the desire.

Also, in the last section, I learned that Midwestern poets who had a church upbringing seem inclined to “submerge Christian backgrounds in their writings” as they “raise theological questions and pose some answers.” For example, Michael Poage,” an ordained minister whose work I’m now eager to see,  gives voice to Mary the Mother of Jesus not as a “church authority here but rather a quiet person who lives each day among ordinary details.”

In discussing other poetry by Poage, Denise Low says, “Chance meetings occur repeatedly in this poet’s works, and the moments of contact that occur without warning, like bolts of lightning from a sky god, are moments of Christian grace.”

That particular poet-pilgrim “struggles in a global landscape without sure answers,” which helped the previous sections of the book come together for me, too, as I began to see that the “new” Middle West does not present the same scene or situations Hollywood scriptwriters typically depict. As those early myths began to fall away, I saw what the author meant by migration becoming “an inner journey, reenacted through poetry, fiction, music, and film.” Although cross-country travels still take place along historical trails, they most likely occur not by horse and wagon but minivan or RV where “broken lines crisscross open grassland, often alongside contemporary throughways, [and] the past intersects the present.”

For a little Southern girl who spent her weekly allowance on Saturday matinées featuring cowboys and Indians, the book brought an abrupt change of perspective. For example, I learned that the Lakota peoples “came to represent all ‘Indian’ groups, with their eagle feather headdresses, tipis, and horses” seen on the silver screen because of a photograph someone took when at least 300 Lakota of all ages were frozen, literally, in place and figuratively in time as temperatures plunged, instantaneously preserving those killed at Wounded Knee in the last military action against Indigenous people.

The feeling of “being under siege” lingers, and yet the literature of the “New Middle West” seems more apt to adapt, innovate, and follow Low’s insightful view of Poage’s work where “Sorrow can be overcome by wonder.”

Yes, and oh, what wonders! The winters, the weather, the overpowering landscapes, the open-wide spaces, the city life, the jazz music, the pool halls, the artifacts, the mounds, the floodplains, the buffalo, the coyotes, and the voices represented in these page somehow blend, harmonize, or note the discordances. As the book sweeps across the past, present, peoples, and prairie, the eclectic voices are worth hearing, literature worth reading, and places worth envisioning even if we, like the pioneers and frontierspeople of yesteryear, only get to travel through—almost always on the way to someplace else.

__________

Mary Harwell Sayler, a traditionally published poet, poetry advisor, and almost native Floridian, recently began a diverse group for Christian Poets & Writers on Facebook. Although she’d placed 24 books of fiction and nonfiction, Hiraeth Press published her first full-length poetry book Living in the Nature Poem in 2012. Since then she’s been playing with forms and free verse for an in-the-works book of Bible-based poems. www.marysayler.com

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February 20, 2013

PRUNING BURNING BUSHES by Sarah M. WellsPosted by

Review by Mary Harwell SaylerPruning Burning Bushes by Sarah M. Wells

PRUNING BURNING BUSHES
by Sarah M. Wells

Wipf & Stock
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401
ISBN: 13:978-1-62032-330-4
2012, 75 pp., $12.00
www.wipfandstock.com

The miracle of the Burning Bush, which carried Moses through a series of miracles and a forty-year wilderness experience into a close relationship with God, enticed me to request this book from my own patch of wilderness.

Upon its arrival, I immediately found the lovely lyrics of the opening poem, “Cascade Valley,” cascading me and, undoubtedly, other readers into a collage of sounds, images, and teachable moments fraught with such lines as “…we throw the broken limbs/ into rushing floodwaters/ to see how quickly we could be carried/ away,” but ending on the poignant note: “Reach down, my child,/ bring a pine cone home to show/ how miraculously we are carried.”

I didn’t even reach the second poem before becoming impressed by the quiet voice, imagery, and subtle wisdom, and so I kept on reading. How could I not? Especially since what drew me to this book in the first place was the audacity of the title.

Look at the title and you’ll see how miraculously it carries readers into the book and yet presents at least the hint that God’s work might need pruning. Admittedly, this makes me curious to gain answers to even more curious questions: Will the poet get heavy-handed with God’s mysterious methods? Will she bring me to Moses and the occasional wilderness experience of a dry spiritual moment? Or, will she work through God’s curious ways to arrive at some kind of resolution, and, if so, at what cost—to herself, to poetry?

Temporarily, however, a sequence of alliterative sounds in the poem “Angry” distracted me as the first verse produced stout echoes coming from the long “eeeee” of sees/ seethes/ weeds/ heaves/ heap. By the second verse these quickly gave way to the heavy breathing employed by manual labor in “uuhhh” sounds found in shrubs/ shudder/ shadow, pushed/ pulled. I’m thinking all of this is going somewhere, “And then mulch” tones down the sound and subtle fury of “Angry” with the gardener (presumably The Gardener) “who stands back,/ fists on hips.”

Were it not for the title, those fists could be a mere sign of determination. Indeed, gardening-gloved fists have found their way onto my hips, too, after an afternoon of thwarting thorns and wrestling vines to conquer the chaos of an overgrown bush. I’ve even been known to prune a bush almost to the ground—not in anger or judgment, which, the bush most likely feels, but for the knowledge that a good pruning removes what’s dead, strengthens the whole bush, causes new growth, and rewards one with new blossoms and new fruit.

As signs of audacity waned, the poems began to explore the personae of place. For instance, the poem “Ohio” admits, “I did not see myself deciduous,” which is a fresh way of saying what the Psalmist of Psalm 90:12 implied: “Teach us to number our days, so we may be wise.”

Knowing we’re deciduous reveals God all the more evergreen. But for those who might fear the poet’s quiet quest will mire you with heavy theology I’ll skip over the insightful poem “Consider the Sparrow” and the difficulties of Simon Peter  in “Sifted as Wheat” and invite you to consider the communion found in a pitcher of beer and a game of pool as “Jesus Walks into a Bar.”

Since I’m not fond of beer or even its smell, I have no similar experiences for my poems, which are more apt to have Jesus walking through walls or knocking on the door like a well-dressed salesman. Regardless of the chosen form, genre, or imagery, every Christian communicator who wants to write well will keep looking for fresh ways to introduce readers to the Christ, the Bridegroom, who, as these poems indicate, just might have a “Honky-Tonk Bride” in the church, especially if, “[t]he ladies quilting club is out today.”

Sarah Wells explores such amusing and amazing options through the use of everyday subjects and down-to-earth settings that at some point include almost everyone. But to clarify her provocative title from my perspective, she keeps the pruning shears ready to prune her own thoughts, not God’s work and not her readers. Nevertheless, most of us will find ourselves prodded by this book of well-written poetry into loosening our ground and aerating our souls.

_________

Mary Harwell Sayler, founder of the Christian Poets & Writers group on Facebook, is a traditionally published poet and writer, who helps other poets and writers through her website, blogs on poetry and In a Christian Writer’s Life. In 2012 Hiraeth Press published her book Living in the Nature Poem, and shortly thereafter, she uploaded her e-books, the Christian Poet’s Guide to Writing Poetry and the Poetry Dictionary For Children and For Fun.

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June 30, 2012

THE POEMS OF JESUS CHRIST translated by Willis BarnstonePosted by

Review by Mary Harwell SaylerThe Poems of Jesus Christ

THE POEMS OF JESUS CHRIST
translated by Willis Barnstone

W. W. Norton & Company
500 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10110
ISBN: 978-0-393-08357-6
2012, 288 pp., $26.95
http://books.wwnorton.com

When I heard that award-winning poet-scholar and translator Willis Barnstone had collected The Poems of Jesus Christ into a new book, I was thrilled and dismayed. Thrilled because I am always glad to see prized poets and writers give credence to Christ. Dismayed because I wanted to collect the poems and sayings of Jesus, and Barnstone beat me to it!

As a former professor of comparative literature, a founding member of the Institute of Biblical and Literary Studies, a linguist skilled in many languages, and an author of almost as many books as the Bible contains, Prof. Barnstone has more credentials than the alphabet has letters. So he’s more than qualified to take on any biblically oriented task he so desires.

I wish I could claim the same! As a lifelong student and lover of the Bible in almost every English translation, the only plan I had for my similar idea was to lift the red-letter words of Christ, and maybe some memorable lines of NT writers, from whatever translation sounded the most poetic to my ear at the time.

When I read such verses aloud, it does not matter to me whether a poem or poetic saying comes from King James, Douay-Rheims, New Revised Standard, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Version, or any of the dozens of translations I’ve read and loved. But, once again, Prof. Barnstone took our idea to a new level.

Before taking on the awesome job of compiling The Poems of Jesus Christ, Willis Barnstone first translated the entire New Testament (NT) into English!

I must admit, I have not translated anything but the Pig Latin my parents once used for code. In 2009, however, W.W. Norton & Company–the highly respected publisher of poetry, literary anthologies, literary criticism, and literary books for college study and beyond–published Wills Barnstone’s translation The Restored New Testament.

If I’d realized this before receiving a copy of the Jesus poems, I probably would have been too intimidated to even consider doing a review. So with fear and trembling, I read Prof. Barnstone’s highly recommended book then read it again.

After the second full reading and the third and fourth randomly-done peeks, I continue to recommend this book highly. And if I ever get to do a book on the same topic, I will highly recommend that too. Why? Perspectives.

As active poets and avid poetry readers, Prof. Barnstone and I both appreciate and acknowledge the unique characteristics of Hebrew poems scattered throughout the Bible and recognizable in parallelism, echoing sounds, and occasional rhythmic beats (usually three to four per line.) I had not thought of the Book of Revelation as “the epic poem of the Bible” until Prof. Barnstone pointed that out, but I knew what he meant when he referred to Saint Paul “as an eloquent philosopher of being who masters complex thought with flawlessly easy rhetoric and poetic flare.” Right on! (Or write on, as Paul has a habit of doing in sentences that go on and on for lengthy paragraphs.)

Jesus, of course, did not write down any of his poems or sayings as far as we know, but others did. So I totally agree with Prof. Barnstone that “[i]n the New Testament, Jesus is the unparalleled poet. His sayings, tales, and parables are plain, complex, and clear as open sky. Hence the universality of each lyric or narrative phrase he speaks. He speaks wisdom verse. The lines are imbued with joyful or sorrowful insight and inlight.”

Completely familiar with the Psalms, Jesus would have read aloud those poems and prayers, which range from high worshipful praise to low laments. He would have heard the melodies as well as the wisdom, truths, and insightful sayings when he got up “as was his custom” (Luke 4:15) to read in his local synagogue whatever Hebrew Scriptures were up next. From the cross, he even quoted Psalm 22, knowing that his followers would realize he was reminding them of how that poem ends–on an upbeat note of faith and assurance in the power of God to redeem.

But then, as a Christian, I believe Jesus had the power of God too. More than a prophet, more than a poet, more than a tradition man of his own times, my book of Jesus’ poems would differ from Barnstone’s in a couple of ways:

Besides listening for the musicality found in most of the English translations, I would omit the poems taken from the Gnostic Gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas. Although that apostle wrote an interesting book of quotes, which, as Barnstone suggests, was the most “likely source for wisdom sayings in the gospels,” I suspect he wrote down those sayings during Jesus’ earthly ministry. However, Prof. Barnstone also goes on to say, “There are two realms in Thomas, the physical and the spiritual. As to personal resurrection, in Thomas’s dualistic belief system, the spirit alone, not the body, is saved,” which explains why he strongly doubted the other apostles’ report that they had seen the Risen Christ until Jesus appeared to him, too, asking him to touch the obvious wounds.

This is speculation, of course, but what if Thomas had kept a daily journal before Jesus’ death and resurrection. What if the other disciples knew this and asked to see it to help them remember some of the quotes. What if they simply omitted the sayings that Thomas had not quite gotten right because of his own lack of belief in an after-life?

As Prof. Barnstone says in his introduction to Thomas, the Gospel of Thomas “may have been composed, most likely in Greek, as early as the middle of the first century, and may have been written in Syria, possibly at Edessa (modern Urga), where a memory of Thomas was revered and where his bones were venerated.” That places the apostle in an area where men are less apt to treat women with the same respect they give one another.

I mention this only because of Prof. Barnstone’s last footnote in the book, which I find especially lamentable as the last thought given to readers. To quote, “The anti-female ending is painful and cannot simply be explained away. It is traditional for the time.” True, but Jesus himself did not speak against women, whereas Thomas just might have done so.

Prof. Barnstone, who has elsewhere called himself “a secular Jew,” reportedly sees Jews, Christians, and Muslims as people of the same book, and The Poems of Jesus Christ as he has presented them can indeed become an avenue of communication and healing among peoples of God. I hope so. I pray so. But, as full disclosure, I must admit that goal differs from mine in that I want my work to focus not on The Restored New Testament but on restoring the faith, love, and unity among Christians as members of the Body of Christ at work in the world today.

____________

Mary Harwell Sayler is a highly ecumenical Christian writer and traditionally published poet who helps other poets and writers through her blogs, critique service, and The Poetry Editor website.

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June 10, 2012

POETRY! POETRY! POETRY! by Peter DavisPosted by

Review by Mary Harwell SaylerPoetry! by Peter Davis

POETRY! POETRY! POETRY!
by Peter Davis

Bloof Books
ISBN 978-0-9826587-0-3
2010, pp. 115, $l6.00
www.bloofbooks.com

If I were to call this book fresh and innovative, you wouldn’t know if I meant brilliant or weird, but that’s okay since both would be true. Although I’ve read hundreds of books of or about poetry, I can honestly say that I have never read anything like this!

Starting with the title, you might expect the book to talk about various forms of poetry or, perhaps, explain the terminology and techniques often used in well-written poems. That’s what I thought anyway, but I was wrong! wrong! wrong! Instead, the book presents poems collected around a central theme, but with another little twist: i.e., every poem in the book is a prose poem. That’s amusing in itself because traditional poets and even free verse writers usually disdain prose poetry as a contradiction in terms, creating an unlikely form that, at best, they deem to be an oxymoron and, at worse, boxy and moronic!

The form chosen for this book provided no obstacle for me though since I just recently came to appreciate prose poems as a super-cool form that’s so fun to play with I’ve now placed a few of my own. But, to use the same boring-looking form for over 100 pages yet sustain reader-interest until “The End” requires more dexterity than stacking blocks. Somehow, however, the poet manages with more than enough skill to keep these little chunks of poems from toppling over and crashing.

To use–consistently–the box paragraphing of prose poems can be tricky enough, but the poet also used a consistent title format. With the exception of two poems, the title for every poem in the book begins with “Poem Addressing…,” which sounds, well, boring. Or maybe such consistent use of blah titles might lead readers to expect the poems to be consistently blah, sloppy, slapdash, slipshod, sentimental, or some other adjective for amateurish. Anyone in their right (or left) mind might think so, but they would be wrong, wrong about that too. At least I was.

For a quick example, look at the two exceptions to the rule for titling to which the poet entitled himself: “Poem That Begs For Reassurance” and “Poem That Belligerently Addresses People Who Believe I’m Self-Obsessed or Something Like That.” Even if you think the poet might be, yeah, self-obsessed, you have to admit to the humor.

The consistent titles also range from mild to wild humor with such headings as “Poem Addressing Some of the Obstacles This Poem Will Face as It Tries to Entertain, Impress, and Succeed in the World of Poetry,” “Poem Addressing Potential Publishers of This Poem. Thanks!” “Poem Addressing People Whom I Might Be Asking to Write a Blurb for the Back Cover of the Book in Which This Poem Appears,” “Poem Addressing People Who Might Hire Me for Their Tenure-Line Teaching Position but Are Unsure about What They’re Reading,” “Poem Addressing Contemporary Poets of Whom I’ve Been Jealous on More Than One Occasion,” “Poem Addressing People Who Have Actually Decided to Write a Review of This,” or “Poem Addressing People Who Would Like Me to Contribute to Their Really Cool Journal.”

Those titles give you an idea of what you’ll find: irony, quirkiness, humor, and even a rather sweet childlike silliness. Some have called the poems “self-referential,” which in the truest meaning of the word may be true, but that does not give a sense of the tone or probable points of emanation, which often bring forth self-deprecating poems. So, for all the bravado and references to the “I” self, the poems emit an aura of shyness and the expressed need to be received, validated, and embraced by readers.

If you write poetry as well as read it, you know that also describes how most of us feel about our poems or ourselves as poets, which, in my opinion, is what this book is really about–i.e., writing poems and being poets. For example, the book opens with a “Poem Addressing the Speculation as to Who You Are and Imagining My Death Reaffirming My Life,” expressing the curiosity (or, perhaps, hopes) most of us have about our potential readers: Who are they? Where are they? Or, are they?

With the typical conversational tone maintained through the book, the first poem begins, “So you like reading I imagine,” then goes on to imagine who this reader is or where or even when. For example: “Or you could have found these words in 2074 on a sheet of paper that is wrapped around your birthday gift. Perhaps you are thinking that the wrapping paper is better than the gift. Perhaps you haven’t yet unwrapped the gift.”

Besides directly engaging the reader in that second word, second person “you,” the first poem in the book ended on a note that was, for me, poignant. This sensitivity and the titles and the humor also kept me reading with anticipation that did not lag. Then, right at the point I began to wonder what else Peter Davis could say about poetry-writing, poets, readers, academia, and publishing, I found his poems addressing economists, conspiracy theorists, and dictators, trying to get them not only to read but market his poetry! That concept alone is rather hilarious–spoofing yet seriously touching on the obsession with marketing that most of us poets actually have.

Meeting or disappointing the expectations of other people in general and readers in particular is another major concern we have as poets, too, and as regular and irregular people in everyday life. Since I want to give you another example of the poems, I’ll close by printing in full the shortest poem in the book along with my recommendation to stay ready for anything as you fully enjoy the work of Peter Davis.

Poem Addressing People with Certain Expectations about Poetry That Are Not Fulfilled in This Poem by Peter Davis

Change

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Mary Harwell Sayler: “Hymn lyrics and A Child’s Garden of Verse began my poetry-loving life as a reader, music listener, and player with words. For many years, however, I worked as a freelance writer in all genres for all age groups, which gave me plenty of positive affirmation and lots of contracts by traditional publishers but no poetry book. Reportedly, editors find it difficult to publish manuscripts they never receive. So, when I finally quit going around and around with indecisions about revisions (for my work, not yours!), I aimed my nature poems straight toward the environmentally-inclined Hiraeth Press, who scheduled Living in the Nature Poem for release this year! For some reason, though, it’s easy for me to see what you need to do to improve your poems, so if you want to know too, check out The Poetry Editor blog and website.”

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April 25, 2010

BEADS FOR THE MESSIAH’S BRIDE by Yakov AzrielPosted by

Review by Mary Harwell SaylerBeads for the Messiah's Bride by Yakov Azriel

BEADS FOR THE MESSIAH’S BRIDE: POEMS ON LEVITICUS
by Yakov Azriel

Time Being Books
10411 Clayton Road
St. Louis, Missouri 63131
ISBN 978-156809-128-0
2009, 118 pp., $15.95
www.timebeing.com

As a lifelong lover of the Bible and an almost lifelong writer of religious poems from a Judeo-Christian perspective, I’ve been especially drawn to the works of contemporary Jewish poet Yakov Azriel. When I first researched his poems on the Internet, I glimpsed a lively mix of devotionals, prayers, humor, and poetic forms in his series of books, each of which relates to one of the five books of the Torah.

Eagerly I received a review copy of Beads for the Messiah’s Bride, the poems on the book of Leviticus, then immediately wished I’d read the full books in sequence. For example, Genesis, the first book of the Bible, contains a synopsis of the basic plot for almost every story on earth, giving ample opportunity for an eclectic mix of comedy and tragedy. Exodus continues the story of God’s people as they leave behind captivity, while Leviticus lays out the rituals and laws to which the Levitical priests had to adhere.

As you might imagine, Leviticus and levity do not necessarily go together. In this more somber section of the Torah, readers learn about their offenses and what they are to do about them as they bring to God, through the Levitical priests, their cereal offerings, peace offerings, wave offerings, thank offerings, sin offerings, trespass offerings, and guilt offerings, the latter of which might be given, say, to offset a rash oath.

However, healing and cleansing also occur in Leviticus, for example, in chapter 14 when a person has been cured of leprosy. On such momentous occasions, the Levitical priest was to dip cedar, scarlet, hyssop, and a living bird into the blood of one slain. “And,” in verse 7, “upon him that is to be cleansed, (the priest) shall sprinkle seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.”

With such celebratory acts, offerings, and rich priestly heritage from which to draw, Beads begins with the sonnet “Sacrifices Made” as the speaker brings “no oxen, cattle, sheep or goats” nor “choice offerings of barley, wheat or oats/ To burn on altar-fire, while Levites sing.” Instead the “I” of the poem declares: “I sacrificed those former-truths that might/ Have been my guiding truths and ruled my youth.”

As the sacrifice becomes an offering of poetry, the next sonnet, “The Burnt-Offering,” asks God to take the “mumbled, crippled prayers,” because “You comprehend/ The inner sense of all the sounds You hear;/ Send down a ladder made of angels’ rope/ From Jacob’s dream, and let my words ascend.” The next sonnet, “The Meal-Offering,” asks God to bring bread for the meal, while in “The Peace-Offering,” the speaker says, “I have heard that contrite prayer/ Constructs a sturdy bridge, a meeting-place/ Where God and man may meet, for You declare/ How near You are, my distant Lord, how near.”

Like the Bible itself, these poems relate to matters of faith and one’s relationship with the Most High God. My own relationship, however, seems about as opposite as a Christian woman in the South can get from a Jewish man born in New York, but is it? In the church, for example, devotees may join holy orders or give up their names at baptism, and at 21, Gerald Rosenkrantz did something similar when he changed his name to Yakov Azriel and moved to Israel to be closer to God and His Word.

As happens with many of us though, distance from “my distant Lord” occasionally occurs as expressed “Within The Temple Courtyard.” In this double-sonnet, the speaker admits, “Sometimes I want my money back, the price/ I’ve had to pay, my God, is just too high;/ The Sabbath suit You ordered me to buy/ Is thread-bare, and its fabric full of lice.”

Levity bursts forth unexpectedly, too, in “Last Year, on Yom Kippur” where “I dug a grave/ For the old ‘me’,” whom the speaker stabbed, hanged, shot, and poisoned but still witnessed “a resilience of his own,/ Rising up every time.”

Old habits, old selves, and old stories of the Bible rise up in this book, often from a fresh perspective. For instance, “Orpah and Ruth: Two Roads Diverged,” does not tell the familiar Naomi-Ruth tale but, rather, a free verse view of Naomi’s other daughter-in-law who stayed behind in Moab. Similarly, “The Prayer of the Lame Temple-Priest” shows how Levitical laws might affect someone who was born into the priestly Tribe of Levi and devoted to God yet not allowed to serve. In “Ruth Gleaning in Boaz’s Fields,” the field-hands just do not see the divine hand in this ongoing love story.

People today often say, “I love it when a plan comes together,” but this book gives a glimpse of how the plan of the Most High God begins to come together. Yet, even the Bible includes weighty words, and so does this book, especially in the rhyme-pounding poem “The Exile” where, for over two printed pages, singularly rhyming words hammer with an insistence that, for this reader, became overbearing. The rhymes also marred the sense and syntax, which might have been held in check by, say, a villanelle that would allow for repetition while whittling down words to what most needed to be said. On the other hand, the free verse poem “The Canaanite Slave” seemed to me to be the brief synopsis of what could be expanded into a very interesting historical novel.

The poem “Beads” has the bead of a novel idea too, which could make for interesting fiction. From that poem also comes the title for this book and, perhaps, the life theme of the poet as hinted in the words of the speaker: “So what can I present or show/ To justify my life?/ May songs I write be brought as beads – / Beads for the Messiah’s wife.” Likewise, the sonnet “Credo” ends the whole book with a profound statement of faith: “And I believe that God alone is King./ And I believe the Torah nests His word/ With echoes of His voice. And I believe/ In hours of grace we hear the Torah sing.” For those of us who add an “Amen!” this book (and most likely the entire five-book series) comes highly recommended and most highly favored.

____________

Mary Harwell Sayler is a freelance writer, poet, poetry editor, and student of the Bible in almost every translation. Since 1983, she’s hoped to help other poets and writers through her poetry home study course, critiques, blogs, and websites, www.poetryofcourse.com and www.thepoetryeditor.com.

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February 25, 2010

DUST AND BREAD by Stephen HavenPosted by

Review by Mary SaylerDust and Bread by Stephen Haven

DUST AND BREAD
by Stephen Haven

Turning Point
P.O. Box 541106
Cincinnati, Ohio 45254-1106
ISBN 978-1932339024
2008, 100 pp., $17.00
www.turningpointbooks.com

Conventional wisdom in reading and writing contemporary poetry consistently encourages us to enter into the experience of a poem, so that’s what I aimed to do in reading Dust and Bread, the latest book of poetry by Stephen Haven, which drew me on several levels. For one thing, his familiarity with life in China appealed to me greatly since the closest I’ve come is once naming a beige Chow puppy “Beijing.” Also, he’s an Ohio man, whereas I’m a lifelong Southerner who’s resistant to being belled. More importantly, he teaches a MFA program, while I’m a self-taught student who began studying and writing poems as a child.

Duly drawn by an exotic culture and the poet’s impressive credentials, I came to this book, wanting to be taught, wanting to learn, and, especially, wanting to experience the poems. Neither the often-exquisite lines nor my reading disappointed me, but—oh, I’d better get it over with—my experience of Dust and Bread occasionally made me feel, well, annoyed. To be specific, those annoying elements included the title, an out-of-context line, and a couple of words to which I objected.

To start with the title: Reading through lenses well-grounded in Holy Scripture, I could not help but see the biblical connotations rising from the Dust and Bread. In the pre-Christian era, for instance, repentant people sometimes showed remorse by covering themselves in dust and ashes, while, by contrast, the Lord’s Prayer or Our Father in the New Testament requests daily forgiveness and daily bread. So, right away, I began to wonder who would forgive whom and for what and why.

In addition to Eucharist or communion where church members receive bread as the representation, reminder, or actual presence of the body of Christ, inherent with forgiveness, the biblical expression of “ashes to ashes and dust to dust” refers to brevity of life. On a secular or physical level, dust occurs daily and just is. Similarly bread represents the daily sustenance needed to live, calling to mind our bodies’ need of bread and water to survive. So what do these contrasts between life and death, between the secular and the religious, between well-crafted, often gorgeous lines, and a mundane title have to do with this book? Frankly, my dear, I’m not sure.

Until you experience these poems yourself, however, everything I say may seem abstract, so let’s look at one of my favorite pieces, “Willow.” This book-opening poem begins, “All China a green-gold row of them./ When you walk through – / delicate, skirted, light-limbed/ and yellow, swishing their loveliness/ in the wind – they brush the whole of you.” I’ve now read those lines many times and each time truly experienced the grace of that moment and musicality of that scene where “one single tree” becomes “the parasol of thousands.” Although the next line adds “of years of poetry,” I preferred the initially-evoked image of people, who could be from any willow-friendly place or culture, experiencing the passage of time under that exquisite parasol.

That apt word and many other fitting descriptions aid the beauty of this book, even when it’s not a pretty sight. For instance, “Skunked” offers a clear picture and dry wit in the second verse: “But how strange to carry, on your body,/ a small piece of the highway,/ white-split blacktop/ signaling the world to pass.” How quietly clever and just right! Similarly, there’s the just right observation of the unborn child in “Ultrasound” as “Your mother sings, not exactly to you” and how the soon-to-be-parents “looked in to see, five months early,/ you, floating in your beginning./ The peninsular pieces of yourself.” Anyone who has had the joy of viewing a similar picture via ultrasound knows the rightness of that description and even the look somewhat like “The dry black husks of watermelon seeds” scattered on a “slab floor.” No matter how poetic and descriptive though, those seeds seemed to be disembodied from the historical diversion of the “one boiled goose egg” in the previous verse and the moon refusing to show itself in the verse after, thus evoking my second experience of annoyance.

It’s as though the popularly poetic intent of high compression had squeezed the words into something mystifying, rather than mysterious, which mainly annoyed me because I truly wanted to know more. For instance, I really wanted to hear “another echo too,/ some silence stuffed/ down your mother’s throat.” Since the poem is dedicated “To my daughter, five months before her birth” in China, one might presume the silence to regard the coming of a girl-child, who, reportedly, would not be welcomed in that country at that time, but the collage of past, present, and future images collides, making it difficult to separate what from what.

One of the more accessible poems, “Waxing,” raises questions, too, when “seeds are for swallowing” and “when no one leaf formally finishes itself,” but I found this poem enticing, unified, and not at all annoying. Indeed, the brevity, beauty, and believability of the poem drew me to read the lovely lines aloud several times, each time experiencing the pleasure of interesting thoughts and credible imagery, for instance in the ending where “The moon exists from all sides at once:/ Blind eye, sinkhole, searchlight.”

Similarly, I read “Blue Flame” again and again, each time being let into the poem by the clarity of the opening scene until jolted into my third experience of annoyance. The line, “I know we live under the light touch/ of heaven’s scam” lost me with the word “scam.” Yes, I admit that, as a person of faith, I found the word wobbling toward the offensive, but that wasn’t my problem. As do people in general, poets have the right to believe whatever they want. They do not, however, have the right to charm me into entering an early morning scene between a father and son as they leisurely begin their day only to throw a scam on the table with the oatmeal. The abrupt change of mood and tone gave me a whiplash and broke the sweet mood, which the poem then resumes in the next verse as “The day comes soft shoeing,/ all doe-eyed, the womb’s wonder/ of the sky.”

My complaint about that poem continues in the final annoyance experienced in the word “conjugates,” when, again, the mood, tone, and, now, imagery reel from the adverse effect of a clever, showy word choice over a quieter one that would cooperate nicely with the line. i.e., “Somewhere,/ half a day and half the world away,/ the red flag of morning snaps/ at half-mast above our own/ holy fire as it conjugates itself/ across a cross-less altar.” But, having expressed my negative reaction, which I cannot take back without altering the actual experience, I’ll now turn to the response that comes from looking up an odd word or, seemingly, out-of-context word a poet selects. In this case, conjugation as “a class of verbs with similar inflectional forms” comes last in Webster’s, even though its connotations may continue to rank first for readers in general. Regardless, the word used is, in fact, conjugate not conjugation, and in this, the poet selected a word meaning to couple, yoke, or join, which immediately makes a connection between the world in America and the one left behind in China and between a Christian and a non-Christian environment too. Again, though, my objection is not based on religion and the rights thereof, but on the strain to treat perpendicular lines as parallel, especially if those lines intersect in the child in the room.

Despite the “scam,” I will not keep holding this poem over the “Blue Flame” since a dictionary reminder of true meaning and a little more information in the remaining lines doused my annoyance. For instance, the poems gets on with life and the day as “everything slips/ to its opposite. Cold burns.” Yes! And I can attest to this today on an unusually frigid morning in Florida as the temperature rises in the 20’s.

Also, as I write, a New Year has just begun with resolutions to slow down, write more poems, and experience each day more fully. “Blue Flame” touches on this, too, as “The morning’s hot celestial wax/ drips into the seal of our/ rushed footprints.” Like most of the poems in this book, that one makes me want to know what else the poet has to say and how well readers will conjugate the experience. If the veil lifts from the lines and the dust begins to settle, I suspect the poetry of Stephen Haven will be received as bread and experienced with the warmth of a blue flame at home and in Pulitzer circles.

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Mary Harwell Sayler, a freelance writer and poet, began judging poems entered in the annual writing competition sponsored by www.writers-editors.com in 1999, but she’s worked with other poets and writers much longer than that, first through her home study course and now critiques and the website she recently revised, www.poetryofcourse.com.

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February 10, 2010

SHARP STARS by Sharon BryanPosted by

Review by Mary Harwell SaylerSharp Stars by Sharon Bryan

SHARP STARS
by Sharon Bryan

BOA Editions
250 North Goodman Street
Suite 306
Rochester, New York 14607
ISBN 978-1-934414-28-6
2009, 102 pp., $16.00
www.boaeditions.org

Sharp wit, infinite energy, delightful word plays, and luminous insights shine in Sharp Stars by Sharon Bryan. Not surprisingly, the book opens with a big bang in the “Big Band Theory” where “It all began with music,/ with that much desire to be/ in motion” and the “pulsing you feel before you hear it.” In this creative account of creation, “The darkness couldn’t keep still,” and so “it began to sway.”

Music, humor, and biblical references dance into the next poem, “Saying Things,” where “Adam was born/ blind” but “he could hear/ burbles, drips, trickles” and a voice in his head saying, “Open your mouth,/ let the words fly out.” And it was so. The good-humored poem leans slightly toward slapstick when the newly devised woman of the house sets an apple pie on the window sill. Yet the fun evolves a solemn side, too, as Adam struggles with not knowing, naming, and lying in the dark where his earliest memories of sightlessness return, bringing readers serious insight into the comfort we often feel in the presence of nostalgia.

Another poem, “Bicycle,” also offers serious brilliance in using music “where we all start,/ with a hum rising up/ through our bodies.” The lines continue, considering aphasic patients “who hear but don’t/ understand what’s said” and asking us to “see what happens if/ we set the words to music./” Then a simple melody like “Bicycle Built For Two” apparently can provide a means of communicating those everyday instructions needed for some semblance of normalcy.

With musical connotations and starlit moments, the poems often express the thoughts and feelings most readers have in common. This not only provides that prized connection between poems and readers but reminds us of the importance of humor in dealing with those annoying moments we all eventually experience. For instance, in “Barking Dog,” the poet/ speaker resolves, “After an hour of trying to write/ over the high-pitched yap coming/ from a neighbor’s yard, I decide/ to let the dog into the poem.” That decision pales, however, when “he goes on making the noise/ I came in here – into the poem –/ to get away from, the mindless/ whine of everything that has no/ words or music for its pain.”

Ouch! Those of us who write poetry know the push-pull of that pain until we find words to express the emotional episodes or exhausting events or physical pain we encounter. Sometimes we have the grace to work things out with prayer and humor, and, if we’re like Sharon Bryan, the clarity and insight to know “sorrow rises as if you/ were the well.” That poem, “Welling,” also returns us to the hum of music and the silvery stars as does “Sawdust” where “the air is full/ of small sharp stars/ pinwheeling through every living thing/ that gets in their way.” This might sound ominous were it not for the overall content and uplifting context of the book.

I kept looking, however, for something more to the title than the phrase in “Sawdust,” and “At Last” added an image where, without stars, we’d be “in our black box, no reason/ to stay, no place to go,” which brought my aha moment. Suddenly the black box and the musical references and the sharp stars collided into one of those old-fashioned music boxes I used to take apart. Inside, a thin cylinder or a shiny sheet of metal could be found, pierced with holes that made the music and, yes, looked like stars. Whether Sharon Bryan intended that connection, I don’t know, but regardless, I connected well with her fourth book of poetry and will be wishing on a star for her fifth.

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Mary Harwell Sayler is a freelance writer and poet who began doing poetry reviews as a means of supporting her habit of buying books and books of poetry. When she’s not writing, she critiques poems and other manuscripts through her professional critiquing service or tweaks articles on her ecumenical website www.www.poetryofcourse.com. She also judges the poetry entered each year in the writing contests sponsored by www.writers-editors.com.

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