BOOK REVIEWS. Sort Of.

American Smooth - Rita Dove   

My "reviews" are merely my impressions of the books I've read, and could never be construed as comprehensive analyses in any way.  If that is the sort of thing you need, there are many wonderful Book Blogs out there covering just about every type of book.

That being said . . .

I came across this book while putting together last month's What Does a Poet Laureate Do? post on Rita Dove. I ordered it immediately and it was definitely a good move on my part. (Eating regularly is overrated, I say.)

The 'Smooth' of the book's title is an apt description of the poetry it contains. It is a celebration of music and dance in poetry, and it pulls together many disparate pieces of cultural heritage to create the underlying melody.

I enjoyed the entire book, which I must admit, is rare for me. Some of the pieces stopped me cold and touched me deeply. Others made me smile.

How about a few samples:

A different perspective on a very familiar story.

I have been a stranger in a strange land

Life's spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it.
- Emily Dickinson

It wasn't bliss. What was bliss   

but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours   

in patter, moving through whole days   

touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite   

housekeeping in a charmed world.   

And yet there was always   

more of the same, all that happiness,   

the aimless Being There.   

So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,   

lingered to look through a pond's restive mirror.   

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,   

pretending he could organize   

what was clearly someone else's chaos.   

That's when she found the tree,   

the dark, crabbed branches   

bearing up such speechless bounty,   

she knew without being told   

this was forbidden. It wasn't   

a question of ownership—   

who could lay claim to   

such maddening perfection?   

And there was no voice in her head,   

no whispered intelligence lurking   

in the leaves—just an ache that grew   

until she knew she'd already lost everything   

except desire, the red heft of it   

warming her outstretched palm.

Perhaps real happiness and contentment are in the ordinary, everyday, and introspective, 
rather than the grand and public as society would have us believe.

Cozy Apologia

- For Fred

I could pick anything and think of you—   

This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue   

My pen exudes, drying matte, upon the page.   

I could choose any hero, any cause or age   

And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart,   

Astride a dappled mare, legs braced as far apart   

As standing in silver stirrups will allow—   

There you'll be, with furrowed brow   

And chain mail glinting, to set me free:   

One eye smiling, the other firm upon the enemy.   

This post-postmodern age is all business: compact disks   

And faxes, a do-it-now-and-take-no-risks   

Event. Today a hurricane is nudging up the coast,   

Oddly male: Big Bad Floyd, who brings a host   

Of daydreams: awkward reminiscences   

Of teenage crushes on worthless boys   

Whose only talent was to kiss you senseless.   

They all had sissy names—Marcel, Percy, Dewey;   

Were thin as licorice and as chewy,   

Sweet with a dark and hollow center. Floyd's   

Cussing up a storm. You're bunkered in your   

Aerie, I'm perched in mine   

(Twin desks, computers, hardwood floors):   

We're content, but fall short of the Divine.   

Still, it's embarrassing, this happiness—   

Who's satisfied simply with what's good for us,   

When has the ordinary ever been news?   

And yet, because nothing else will do   

To keep me from melancholy (call it blues),   

I fill this stolen time with you.

Of course, when the ride is over it's time to go home.

Looking Up From the page, I Am Reminded of This Mortal Coil    

Mercurial ribbon licking the cut lip of the Blue Ridge—

       Daybreak

                    or end, I can't tell

as long as I ignore the body's marching orders, as long as            
                                I am alive in air ...     

What good is the brain without traveling shoes?   

We put our thoughts out there on the cosmos express

       and they hurtle on, tired and frightened,       
                   bundled up in their worrisome

                                shawls and gloves--I'm just

guessing here, but I suspect we don't

       travel easily at all, though we keep

       making better wheels—         
                   smaller phones and wider webs,

                   ye olde significant glance

                                across the half-empty goblet

                                of Chardonnay....    

The blaze freshens,

        five or six miniature birds

        strike up the band.

Daybreak, of course; no more strobe and pink gels

       from the heavenly paint shop: just

house lights, play's over, time to gather your things and go home.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Rita Dove.

Two time Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, and the youngest person to be awarded the honor, she also served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006.

Rita Dove 

"The first thing that could be done is to bring poetry into our children's lives at an early age --- without pressure."








Everyone who worries about understanding poetry would benefit from this: 

I had a ninth grade English teacher, Mr. Hicks, who put us in groups and gave us impossible poems to interpret. When I say "impossible," I mean poems which had Greek in them -- a little bit of Greek and -- languages we couldn't even -- we couldn't even read the alphabet. "Just tell me what it means. Tell me what you think it means."

And after a couple of class periods when we decided this is so impossible we might as well just make a wild guess, it turned out our guesses weren't so wild after all. So he taught us to trust what your gut reaction was to something. Even if you didn't understand every word, to work out the context. 

Ms Dove has concentrated on spreading the word about poetry and increasing public awareness of the benefits of literature. She brought together writers to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists, and also championed children’s poetry and jazz with poetry events.

She took Washington kids into the Library of Congress to read their poems and to be recorded for the Archives.

She brought Crow Indian children to Washington where they forced their Congressmen to listen to them tell what poetry meant to them.

She had an evening of poetry and jazz to join those two audiences.

She also, like others who have sought to open up the Literary Canon, stirred up controversy when she edited The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry. She was accused of valuing inclusion over quality.

Dove defended her choices and omissions vigorously and eloquently in The New York Review of Books.

Her most famous work to date is Thomas and Beulah, a collection of poems loosely based on the lives of her maternal grandparents, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

Ms Dove and her husband Fred Viebahn, are avid ballroom dancers, and have participated in a number of showcase performances. She has even published a book of poetry about dancing entitled American Smooth.

Take a moment and enjoy a bit of dancing and poetry.



Hades' Pitch

If I could just touch your ankle, he whispers, there
on the inside, above the bone—leans closer,
breath of lime and pepper—I know I could
make love to you.  She considers
this, secretly thrilled, though she wasn’t quite
sure what he meant.  He was good
with words, words that went straight to the liver.
Was she falling for him out of sheer boredom—
cooped up in this anything-but-humble dive, stone
gargoyles leering and brocade drapes licked with fire?
Her ankle burns where he described it.  She sighs
just as her mother aboveground stumbles, is caught
by the fetlock—bereft in an instant—
while the Great Man drives home his desire.  

from Mother Love. Copyright 1995.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Rita Dove:

• Online resources for Rita Dove.
• Prior posts on Rita Dove here, here, & here.
• Rita Dove's home page.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.