The first poem in the current issue of Avocet, “Lake Bacalar 5:30 AM” by Lillo Way, has a wonderful opening – “Tangerine warning! Something’s up // or about to be.” It’s an enjoyable poem about the dawn, with other good images, and it draws one into the magazine, as a good opening poem should. One could almost call the poems in this magazine folk poems. They have no whiff of the academy about them. “Should We Meet Again” by Holly Rose Diane Shaw (BBC Poet Laureate) also has a powerful opening: “in our cradle of stars looking down // there will be no markers carved in stones // on grave sites to be worn by the rain…” a beautiful evocation of feeling. Only in writing this blog did I finally understand what an academic poem is, by the way. It’s simply a poem that professors find teachable — that is, that has enough complexity to afford a class discussion. Such a poem would inherently value complexity over simplicity, and subtlety over clarity. Not actually a value judgment in itself, but perhaps leading to short shrift for great but clear poems.
Joan Colby has a good poem here, “Orchard,” with a strong ending. “You grew old. Forgetting // to spray or just not caring. // Apples worm-holed with decay // bled into the grass…” evocative images.
A poem that worked well as a whole for me was Maria Castell Greene’s “On My Neighbor’s Roof.” “Yesterday the first October rain // fell here like a shipment of stuffing for quilts.” Fun beginning, with a interesting character who takes over the poem: “Prince of Drizzle, awfully waterproof, // a crow with wieldy beak.” I enjoy poems like this, that show a strong point of view.
Marilyn Dorf does an extended metaphor, “The Housewifely Squirrel,” squirrel as housewife, as you would expect from the title. Clever.
Bill Griffin gives us a poem of regret, “Yes.” He uses earth-based images, very concrete, to illuminate his regret in a deft way.
One of my favorites in the issue is Abu Nakhla Wetland, by Diana Woodcock, maybe just because she weaves in the scientific names for species in a very straightforward manner to describe her walk in wastewater wetlands. The precision appeals: “Long live the mundane opportunists: Rumex dentatus, Sporobolus arabicus, Juncus rigidus.” I don’t know any of those species, but it’s fun to guess based on the names. Let’s see, dentatus is teeth, so that would be a plant with serrated leaves, I’d say, bolus sounds like bole, so that’s a wide-boled tree that grows in arabic lands, juncus rigidus, well rigid is easy enough and my Latin is failing me, so let’s say it’s rigid junk! ;-> (Then in Wikipedia it explains that’s a spiky kind of rush, whose vegetation does seem to grow up rather rigidly judging by the picture, the rumex is toothed dock, and sporobolus is a low-growing plant that handles salinity well. So much for living on Latin!)
It’s getting late, but let me give a shout out to Peter C. Leverich’s own poem, “Katherine And Me,” “Hundreds of gumballs cover the woodland floor…hobnailed gumballs, hard-clad gumballs…” what a delight he gives us.
And finally, my favorite poem of the issue, “The Year After,” by David Chorlton, a testament to recovery after fire. “the ridges beyond them // leading the eye away // into the flat, blue valley fire // didn’t reach.” Interesting use of enjambment there, too. A gentle poem with a powerful ending.
Peace in poetry,
P M F Johnson
