The poems in some magazines seem to reward deep study more consistently than others. That’s sure true for the December 9 issue of The New Republic, starting with the poem James Longenbach gives us, where he discusses his first experience with a horse. The poem, appropriately, is called “Horse.” “Though I come from a long line of people intimate / With…horses, / Today, for the first time, I touched a horse.” He quickly goes deeper: “I’m speaking here of things that come to feel essential…You’ve never done it, then you’ve done it before…You can’t imagine your body without it.” He shifts to an experience with a drink, giving us a tiny rest from his main slant, then goes back to the horse. “the horse seemed all the while / Perfectly happy…” The last couple of lines deliver a summation/epiphany that powers the poem home, really a zen moment, letting us know this poem can be read as the larger self meeting the Other, the connection between people, oh, we can read things into this poem all night. Very satisfying.
C. Dale Young gives us “False Start” and tells us it’s “After Jasper Johns.” It starts “There is red, there is / red there is red and some / yellow.” The enjambment gives us the circularity of a Jasper Johns’ painting, the uncertainty, the surprise move in a new direction. He shifts from a simple discussion of paint and color to a metaphor of a relationship: “the brush…knows the canvas the way I have / learned to know your chest / among between” The narrator seemingly tries to control his lover, then still working within the metaphor of the colors, seems to admit rage, violence, and even cowardice. Beautifully handled.
In “Catwork,” Tim Nolan must come to grips with his cat being imperfect: “The old cat keep peeing / around the house…” It’s a sign the cat is growing old, his imperfections deepening: “…manages to place / himself always in my path…Right where my bare foot falls / on him — and he cries…” There’s a gentle sadness and pathos to this work, a turning of the idea that we are all improving through our lives on its head.
Finally, Henri Cole (the magazine’s editor) translates a poem by Claire Malroux from the French: “Not A Hair Of Your Head Shall Be Harmed.” This also starts as a meditation on getting older: “These hairs that the wind used to caress on my nape / fall from my brush now.” But the poem darts from metaphor to metaphor, discussing the travels of the hair, and makes reference to the Holocaust, even: “man himself / has fabricated lampshades and soap / out of his own body.” Which brings us to the depths of pain, in understanding that it was not out of his own body, but the bodies of his victims that such items were wrought. Then, more, that “man” encompasses both perpetrator and victim, revealing how we have both aspects in us. Then we’re given reassurance that such will never happen to us, reiterating the title. But we don’t believe the narrator, trust is lost. Finally, the poem’s ending backs away from this raw view to a delicate finish. All done in a few deft lines. Wow.
Peace in poetry,
P M F Johnson
My eBook of poems, Against The Night, a sweet, rueful look at love in a long marriage, is available on Amazon, and at other fine e-retailers.
Related blog posts:
The New Yorker – July 31 17
The New Yorker – Aug 21 17
New Republic – Oct 2014
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