POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM

 Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz, Graywolf Press, 2020, 100 pp

I received this poetry collection as the June selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. I had not known about Natalie Diaz previously. I followed my usual practice of reading a poem each night before bed.

The poet is Native American, born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village on the edge of Needles, CA. In other words, on the reservation, which sits on the banks of the Colorado River. She is a member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. She teaches and holds the Chair in Modern Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. Her book has been shortlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry. This is a woman who gets things done!

The poems cover Native American issues, legends, relationships with land and air and water and animals. They also reveal the depth of Natalie's passion for her partner--sensual, sexy, hot! Survival, oppression, freedom, philosophy, love and humor are her subject matter. ("Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good At Basketball" is an example of some of her humor.)

I humbly admit, in many of the poems I could only guess at the meanings of some of her words and lines. However I was never in doubt about her intensity, her passion. After I came to the end of the poems, I discovered she had written notes for some of the poems. So now I need to go back and read those again.

I also listened to her interview on the Otherppl podcast where I learned much about her life so far. You can listen to Natalie reading some of her poems here.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, EASTMAN WAS HERE AND LULLABY FOR SINNERS

THREE MINI REVIEWS

I have been reading like crazy in a wide range and sometimes a deep range. Here are three books I read in April, each of which took me away from it all in various ways. I apologize for the mashed up formatting. Sometimes Blogger has its limits.

From Russia With Love, Ian Fleming, Jonathan Cape, 1957, 268 pp

I don't know why I keep being surprised that each of these James Bond books gets better than the last. Most authors get better the more they write. It must be because the movies are so stupid, so lacking in what made the books great.

007 collides with SMERSH again (that is the Russian Intelligence branch) when they send a beautiful agent to seduce him and lead him to their assassin. In fact, the first half of the book takes place in the Soviet Union, setting up the lure, Tatiana Romanova, and the assassin, Red Grant, and the caper. All of that reminded me of Red Sparrow.

Even when Bond comes on the scene, he does not do much except meet and bed Tatiana in Turkey, and accompany her on the Orient Express as they travel to London. They pass through many Balkan cities, the very ones I have been reading about in Black Lamb, Grey Falcon.

Then in the last 20 pages the trap is sprung. Of course Bond survives to die another day. 

Eastman Was Here, Alex Gilvarry, Viking, 2017, 356 pp

I grabbed this off my Nervous Breakdown Book Club backlog pile in a fit of COVID19 angst. The cover was intriguing and it had blurbs from Tea Obreht and Gary Shteyngart.

I found plenty to enjoy. Alan Eastman is a cleverly created unreliable narrator, the kind of self-involved male who later showed up in Shteyngart's Lake Success, except that Eastman's story takes place in 1973.

He is a washed up writer with a disintegrating marriage. I had no idea while reading it that the character is loosely based on Norman Mailer. In hindsight, I see it. Self-centered, creates his reputation out of provocative statements and unique takes on contemporary issues, all the while tolerated with amusement by his male contemporaries and even a few women.

I have read quite a bit of Mailer and, aside from his views on women, have usually found him quite intelligent about American absurdities. In contrast, I felt sorry for Alan Eastman despite his infidelity (he maintains a mistress while going ballistic over his wife being unfaithful to him.)

When he goes off to Vietnam with an assignment to cover Saigon as the Americans pull out, he gets his comeuppance from a younger female reporter. I enjoyed that part the most!

Actually I enjoyed Gilvarry's dissection of the late 20th century older male who totally missed the point of mostly everything. The ending where Eastman and his wife try to work out their differences in front of their two young sons just made me sad.

Lullaby For Sinners, Kate Braverman, Harper & Row, 1980, 88 pp

I finished another volume of poetry. Last year I read Palm Latitudes, one of Braverman's novels, after learning that she had been Janet Fitch's writing teacher. I was impressed, so I decided to try her poetry.

Lullaby For Sinners is her second collection. It is stark with dark emotions, both beautiful and horrific images, and though I am no expert on poetry, it seemed to lie on the experimental side of the poetry spectrum.

I felt she was writing about the deep secrets of female emotional and mental trauma. Her poems reminded me of Sylvia Plath and Francesca Lia Block. Probably not for everyone but I liked it.

How has your reading been going? Today is Day 52 for me of staying home and I feel blessed to have everything I need (except a haircut) and so much time to bury into books. For others who have to work in dangerous venues or be stuck inside with small children day after day, I can understand how they must wish this would be over soon. 

GWENDOLYN BROOKS SELECTED POEMS

Selected Poems, Gwendolyn Brooks, Harper & Row, 1963, 137 pp

 

I finished this collection of selected poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. I have got the habit now of reading a poem a day, usually before bed. Even more than fiction, a poem takes me out of my own head and into the poet's.

 

Ms Brooks was a phenom when it came to publishing books of poetry: 19 of them. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, the first Black author to do so. "I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it," she wrote. Her truth comes from her life as a Black woman in America. 

She only wrote one novel, Maud Martha, 1953. I liked it so much that for years I was upset she didn't write more novels. I am no longer upset. Her poems are just as good. I hope one day to read all of those 19 books.

So far in my poetry adventure I have read 20th century poets. Now I am ready for the earlier works, the foundations of modern poetry. I have dug out The Standard Book of British and American Verse from my shelves. It begins with Chaucer (1340-1400) and ends with Vita Sackville West (1892-1962). On the advice of Christopher Morley, who wrote the preface, I am reading it back to front, "so that you begin with the contemporary mood and gradually swim towards older words and manners," as he says. It is a huge book, 735 pages. It may take me the rest of my life to read! I feel fine, after Gwendolyn Brooks's rendering of her American experience, about swimming towards earlier beginnings. It is part of what we do as we age.

DARK ELDERBERRY BRANCH

Dark Elderberry Branch, Marina Tsvetaeva, Alice James Books, 2012, 52 pp (translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine)

 

This was the third translated book I read in March. The others were The Years and The Ravishing of Lol Stein. I came upon all three by different routes and none were on the list of my self created challenge to read one translated book a month. It appears I have opened a door in my reading life and a flood is coming through. How exciting.

 

Dark Elderberry Branch is a book of poetry that also includes an afterword about the poet's life by one of the translators. It was the March selection of my Tiny Book Club, suggested by the member who is a poet. We are having a Russian moment, having read Keith Gessen's A Terrible Country prior to this.

The poems in this collection got under my skin, delighted me, and gave me chills. I fell in love with Marina Tsvetaeva as have many others. The book comes with a CD of the poems being read in Russian. Though I do not speak or read Russian, hearing these poems in their original language while reading them in English was completely surreal.

Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) grew up in the last years of Tsarist Russia, lived through the Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the USSR. Those years are also covered in an amazing novel I read about a year and a half ago: The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch. Early in the story the heroine, also named Marina, is about to turn 16 and plans to be a poet. It was in this book that I first read the names of Marina Tsvetaeva and her compatriot Anna Akhmatova. Marina M would to out to the coffeehouses to catch a glimpse of them and hopefully hear their poems. The two wrote poems for each other.

All part of the magic of reading.

ARIEL

Ariel, Sylvia Plath, Faber and Faber Limited, 1965, 81 pp

 

 

I finished reading another poetry collection on the Read One Poem a Day plan. It was the first poetry I have read by Sylvia Plath.

 

I am no expert on poetry. Except for short bits in my school days I have never studied the genre. I have not wanted to learn about the techniques, the rules, the forms; I have not wanted to dissect poetry too much but rather to simply experience the poems.

Reading Ariel gave me pause though. In many of these poems I could only guess at what she was expressing. The imagery is so sharp it almost caused me pain, physical and mental, yet I could not exactly grasp what she was saying in many of them despite reading them again and again.

Knowing this was her last batch prior to taking her own life, successfully after several attempts, may have colored my reactions. I felt she was in deep psychic pain but was also in a deeper love with life and the world.

After finishing the book I read somewhere that her husband, Ted Hughes, edited the poems for publication. Knowing only the speculations and rumors that he was somehow responsible for her death, I was shocked! Was this another F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda story?

One of the best things about reading as much as I do is how I discover my deep pockets of ignorance. What do I actually know about either of these people? Not much. So I went looking. Now I have a list of biographies about Sylvia and collections of the poetry of both.

I see that I have yet another project. Oh my. In my research I got the sense of a strong creative bond between the two poets. I am the most interested in that and look forward to learning much more. Anyone who could write the poems in Ariel had to have been imbued with the level of creativity I admire in many artists.

SELECTED POEMS, W B YEATS

Selected Poems, W B Yeats, Penguin Books, 1991, 224 pp

I have not been a poetry reader much before. I was required to read some in school of course, but except for one or two poets, it never clicked with me. A few years ago a young woman I admire told me Mary Oliver was a beloved poet of hers, so I bought a copy of A Thousand Mornings. Reading a poem a day turned out to work well for me.

After finishing that collection I went to my paltry poetry shelf and found this collection of poems by W B Yeats, probably the best known Irish poet. I had bought it years ago during a trip to Ireland, in Sligo, after visiting Ben Bulben. The Penguin Classics edition I have was published in London in 1991. It contains over 200 poems spanning Yeats's publishing history from 1888-1939.

I found poems I did not understand in the least, though the notes in the back of the book were helpful in those cases. I found poems that just sang to me. It seems that the poet poured into his poetry all his wide range of learning, his romantic life, his political views, and his love of Ireland.

It was fascinating to see the man change, age and grow in wisdom. W B Yeats has influenced many writers. His 1920 poem "The Second Coming" provided the title for Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the title for Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, and was set to music by Joni Mitchell on her Night Ride Home album. "Under Ben Bulben," 1938, gave Larry McMurtry the title for his first novel, Horseman, Pass By.

I enjoyed my time with Yeats. Because I did not always read a poem everyday, I have had him with me for over two years. I would like to read a biography of this man who also wrote plays and essays and who influenced Ireland so intensely.

I also want to thank two bloggers I follow: Dorothy from Houston, TX, The Nature of Things and Edith from Austria, Edith's Miscellany. Both post a poem every week and have encouraged me to continue my pursuit.

Please help me out by leaving a comment on your favorite poets.

A THOUSAND MORNINGS

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A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver, The Penguin Press, 2012, 77 pp

 

 

A BIT OF MUSING ABOUT POETRY

 

 

 I read an entire book of poetry! I have not read poetry since I was in 8th grade and fell in love with Edna St Vincent Millay: "Renascence" and "My Candle Burns At Both Ends" and so many more. I have read a little Millay over the years, especially after reading a biography for Young Adults in 1997, Edna St Vincent Millay, America's Best Loved Poet by Toby Shafter and Nancy Milford's very adult and very wonderful Savage Beauty in 2002.

For the past few years I have read the Tao Te Ching over and over, a chapter a day, and it helped me through many rough patches. But as 2016 dawned, I was feeling much more stable in my personal life and cast around for something else to pursue during what had come to be a daily devotional reading.

I was introduced by Carmen of Carmen's Books and Movie Reviews blog to another blog, The Nature of Things, by Dorothy from Texas. She does a poetry feature every Sunday and I began reading her posted poems. I found I could suddenly enjoy poetry again. Why not read a poem a day?

My daughter-in-law's sister had raved to me about Mary Oliver when she stayed with me a couple summers ago, so I started with A Thousand Mornings, found at my local library. 

Her poems in this volume are mostly short observances of the natural world around her as it relates to her state of mind. There was not one poem I didn't like and many brought me either balm or a good kick in the pants, both needed because of the weird places my mind goes sometimes.

I will read her again. Since finishing this slim volume, I have turned to the Penguin Classics edition of W B Yeats Selected Poems, because spring always makes me want to go to Ireland. I'll be on this one for a while since the book contains over 200 poems. It's all good.

(A Thousand Mornings is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

BOOKS READ IN MARCH

March sure was Reading Month for me. I read the highest number of books in one month for this year so far. I even cleaned the house once and worked out at least 3 days a week. I hope I can keep up this energy level for the rest of the year!

Stats: 13 books read, 10 fiction, 1 nonfiction, 1 drama, 1 poetry collection, 5 by women, 2 from My Big Fat Reading Project list, and 3 translated.

Favorites: The Sympathizer, Voices From Chernobyl, and Contenders.

Least favorite: Near to the Wild Heart.

Most of my reviews of these books have not made it to the blog yet, but stay tuned. I may have to post more often to get caught up!

The books are:

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What did you read in March? Which ones did you like, which ones not so much?