Jerry H. Jenkins
Cornel Adam, Stop, I Told The Sun, The Mandrake
Press, Box 792, Larkspur, CA 94977-0792; ISBN 83-904541-8-1, 74 pp, $8.
Cornel Adam Lengyel, an historian of the Revolutionary War,
writing as Cornel Adam, gives us a collection of poems along two thematic
lines: the cyclicity of being, in which we are made of star-stuff, and our
death nourishes new stars; and the individual's powerlessness in the face
of that reality—a reality to which the poet adjusts through cynicism, isolation,
and resignation. In those themes, the deity that governs the universe is either
indifferent or torments us, and this prospect is seemingly eternal. There
is no search here for a theodicic balance; the poet sets out to describe a
universe in which our encounters are random, brief, and meaningless. It is
this cry to a heedless universe and its uncaring deity that justifies the
book's title, "Stop, I Told the Sun."
"The Meeting" presents the case:
".perishable as a drift of smoke,
yet durable as the galaxies,
our cells are made of everlasting stuff,
Star-born children, death-bound, dreaming a second birth,
we share our instants of eternity in time's womb,
where you the beholder and I the beholden meet"
"Young Yorick's Song" draws Biblical parallels in the lines
"A bastard in a basket of thistles" and "I was left in a garden of thorns",
suggesting the abandoned Moses and the betrayed Christ, and the closing line
"I play in a pit full of bones" is starkly final and desolate.
In "Bread and Wine", an apparent savior appears, but the
savior is also the slayer, suggestive of Hindu mythology and the cycle of
renewal and destruction that is the self and its obliteration.
Adam draws on folkloric and Celtic themes in "Blind to the
World". Ominous birds and wild places predominate and instruct the poet. The
blind poet is "lessoned" by the crow and the raven, agents of darkness, whose
assaults blind him, and he sings a hopeless song in his blindness—a black
time with no view of heaven. Here is a darkness that lingers and consumes,
unlike the comforting dark that balances the light in more hopeful cosmologies
of the self.
"The Lord is My Hunter" is the antithesis of the trust that
pervades the 23rd psalm. This is a modern and cynical view of the deity as
a predator, pitiless in his pursuit of the harried poet.
Echoing the themes sketched out by the earlier poems, "The
Sea Wind's Promise" assures the poet that at death his physical components
will be distributed "equally through democratic time and space", and implies
that there will be a resurrection, not necessarily of the familiar self, but
a diluted form of current reality and consciousness.
Richard Wilbur's "Two Voices in a Meadow" conveys the modesty
of a stone in the field when it declares: "The sill of heaven would founder/did
such as I aspire." Adam's "Apologia Pro Vita Sua" similarly portrays the poet
as having the temperament and isolation of a black hole in an otherwise luminous
universe, secure in his heritage of dark humor and of boredom, and humble
in his aspirations. However, with the black hole's propensity to draw nearby
matter into it, this poem implies a sinister quality to the speaker, like
a trapdoor spider with a sense of humor.
The powerful section featuring Daniel as the voice of the
holocaust victims is well represented by "Daniel Recalls His Forefathers".
The cloud of smoke from which he speaks evokes both God's voice in the whirlwind
and the ashes of humanity: "As a shell in the sand might whisper to the sea,/my
ears hold echoes of their distant cries." A companion poem, "A Shade From
Auschwitz", depicts God as indifferent, issuing homilies and withdrawing from
or ignoring the carnage he permits. His plan, if there is one, is neither
evident nor implied, and the poet is left without hope but perhaps with the
stirrings of hatred. The theme recurs in "Day of Wrath", in which the hopeful
and innocent are driven from their homes into another divinely-sponsored holocaust.
The forms this holocaust take are varied, and range from
the literal recounting of the Nazi exterminations to the obliteration of society
in some pending Hiroshima, as in "We Interrupt Our Program.":
"A surprise indeed!
To be nullified in the blink of an eye.
Our shadows stamped into the pavement,
canceled yet undeliverable
and for ever undeliverable."
Adam continues to explore the theme of futile effort in
the face of certain destruction in "Als Ob", noting our inability to preserve
any vestige of our selves or our culture in:
"To scan a trillion perishable facts
or save a durable fact or two
As if we had time for everything."
Adam's collection contrasts with the infinite patience
of Death in Anthony Hecht's "Death the Inquisitor" in his collection "Flight
Among the Tombs":
"Who has searched more deeply
or reached a more perfect understanding?
I shall press to the core of every secret.
There is no match for my patience."
None of the poems in "Stop, I Told the Sun" exceeds
a page in length. Several are rhymed, often loosely, with fluidity that
permits the poet to explore their themes without the predictability that
perfect rhyme would impose. Individually, the poems are powerful and persuasive,
but after a while they begin to seem familiar, as if the themes had been overstated,
as if the poet were anxious to assure us that his perspective is valid, and
to break down our resistance by repetition. It's hard to say when enough
is enough, but any of the five sections into which the book is organized
might suffice.
The expressions of the themes reflect similarities
with other poets' works instead of breaking new ground. This is not surprising,
give the line of thought inherent in the poems and its popularity with other
poets who have written of disillusionment. I have cited other poets whose
work parallels and complements that of Cornel Adam. Hs work stands somewhat
apart from theirs in the intensity of its personality, and that individuation
is both the denial and the affirmation of the collection. This is a disturbing
collection, well worth reading, but its power would increase with greater
selectivity in the poems that represent the dark accommodation it depicts.
David Castleman, Selected Poems, The Mandrake Press,
Box 792, Larkspur, CA 94977-0792; ISBN 83-904541-2-2, 64 pp, $8.
This chapbook leads us into the speculations and
reflections of one who has considered many of humanity's big questions and
continuing concerns, and not surprisingly offers no resolution for them,
except at the individual level, which is probably the best place for creating
a survivable cocoon.
Many of the titles lead the way through the thematic
plane, and the poems elaborate the landscape but don't open new paths. Although
they aren’t arranged in a definable or discernible sequence, the poems nevertheless
offer a map into the place where monsters live – monsters which we encounter
in meetings either colloquial, banal, humorous or mystical.
Appropriately, the collection begins with a declamation
by Grendel, a good choice for establishing the baseline from which the poems
depart. Grendel is the insistent assertion of the self. "I am i.", and he
makes no bones (well, maybe a few table scraps) about it.
"Who'll Be Awed By The Stars Without Us" telegraphs
the end of the collection's theme, and follows immediately the Grendel opening.
The poet prays for "full ancestral memory"…'until dawn fells us"; the earth
dies, humanity along with it, and the dawn of truth, not the final oblivion
of entropy, undoes us.
Between these end-points, the collection takes us
on an excursion through the poet's consideration of personal as well as
general experience. At one place, the collection detours into predictable
rants against arrogance and inhumanity, as when the author uses a Kurdish
girl as a tool to criticize US involvement in the attack against Iraq, but
it's a one-sided presentation that omits recognition of the atrocities the
Iraqis committed on the civilian population of Kuwait. This retrograde 1960s-style
complaining dilutes the collection’s force. Some of the poems are obscure,
as in "The Sophisticated Savage Annihilates Worlds", a title that promises
more than the poem delivers, and the poem loses itself in its syntax, as
in this passage:
"That bland young puppy yonder,
stealthy farmer Strumpet, the arbiter,
tools a soil for yieldings of sullen weeds
and seasonally ekes green bulbs of Envy"
...etc. etc.
"Bone Wrath" introduces us to the poet's concern
with the suppression of impulse and integrity:
"Our songbird...sings out these holy songs all
night...Silent is the night to those beyond night, silent as the echoing
fates of the birds."
The power of language, the spoken word, and its
connection to us long after its utterance appears in "Dignity Inspires the
Blessed Gift of Blushing".
Among my favorites is this passage from "The Beasts",
in which Cassandra encounters and defeats (or mistreats) a giant spider:
"...And fetching forth that same flat stick
she batted the great bug forty feet...
Days later, echoes of the thud
and a tug in the bones of her wrist
reminded her of the grim deed."
Here, we are reminded of D. H. Lawrence's poem
about his peevish and impulsive hurling of a rock at a snake, and his recognition
that in future days, he will be obliged to live with or expiate his pettiness.
"The Dwarf" presents the universe as a closed,
self-regenerating system, invoking the Big Bang and the collapse of the
universe back into itself, establishing a cyclicity that justifies the recurrence
of the poet’s themes and their irresolution.
This brief commentary may not do justice to the
scope of the collection, but I hope it will give interested readers a perspective
into the complexity and variety of the themes that David Castleman addresses.
This is no garden-variety collection, and it takes considerable patience to
approach and engage. The reward is worth the effort; we leave the collection
realizing that the world is wide and varied, and no one sees it identically
with others. In that regard, it is a notation and a warning that we are ultimately
alone.
A. E. Stallings, Archaic Smile, The University of
Evansville Press,1800 Lincoln Avenue Evansville IN 47722; ISBN 0-930982-52-5;
$15
The poems in A.E. Stallings' "Archaic Smile" are
easy to read, but not simple. Their clarity is part of, but also belies, their
elegance. The book is organized into four major thematic sections: "Underworld",
"A Bestiary", "Tour of the Labyrinth", and "For the Losers of Things".
"Underworld" and "Tour of the Labyrinth" present
poems with mythological themes. "Underworld" suggests an afterlife not far
from the familiar, in which darkness, vagueness, tedium, futility and frustration
are shown to us, and in their unspectacular way are as frightening as more
spectacular visions of hell. Alicia Stallings' close attention to detail in
"Hades Welcomes His Bride" and "Persephone Writes a Letter to Her Mother"
reveal her imagination and her extraordinary powers of invention and delight
cited by Dana Gioia in his comment on the back cover.
"A Bestiary" assembles several poems in which
birds, a loggerhead turtle, monkeys, roaches, and other species appear,
revealing us to ourselves and in the end, turning us back toward a realization
that the underworld is never so very far away. Among the poems in this section
is "Watching the Vulture at the Road Kill". It's among my all-time favorite
poems for the startling precision of its description of the vulture's aerodynamic
characteristics. It's the kind of poem that makes you want to jump out of
your chair and say "Yes!" This poem is so good that I won't quote any part
of it—you'll have to read it yourself. I would have paid book price for that
one poem.
In "A Tour of the Labyrinth", Stallings brings
mythical and legendary characters to life as if they were contemporary.
"Apollo Takes Charge of His Muses" exemplifies this collection well. The
Muses might easily be a staff listening to their newest boss's uninformed
enthusiasms, knowing (or perhaps planning) that wishing for a thing doesn't
make it so. "Consolation for Tamar" displays an unusual sensitivity and diplomacy
on the occasion of the accidental breaking of an antique pot – a sensitivity
that encompasses not only the speaker and Tamar, who breaks the pot, but animates,
enfolds and respects the broken artifact as well. The poem that gives this
section its name, "Tour of the Labyrinth", treats the Minotaur with similar
consideration, and I found myself in sympathy with the creature through the
archaeologists' speculations about the poignant quality of its final days.
"Daphne" and "Tithonus" are remarkable poems, and should be read without
my revealing their content, but I should say that the graceful metrical excursion
in the third stanza of "Tithonus" makes it worthwhile reading.
The poems that comprise the final collection,
"For the Losers of Things" are more varied than the ones of the first three
sections, and appear to be more autobiographical, or reflective. I wasn't
taken with these poems in their entirety as I was with the others, but I'd
read the book repeatedly for the melancholy "The Machines Mourn the Passing
of People". And certainly the burden and duty of solipsism represented in
"Why Reason Can't Overcome an Irrational Fear" will appeal to anyone who
has engaged in superstitious and ritual behavior.
Within the limits of its undertaking, "Archaic
Smile" obeys Umberto Eco's reminder that it is the duty of every civilized
person to be ready, if necessary, to recreate the encyclopedia. Having read
this excellent collection, I'm glad I bought the book. Alicia Stallings gives
us a reason to like poetry, and a reason to write as well as we can. That
may be enough, because if we can't all write as well or as convincingly as
she does, we can try to follow her example. And for the sheer pleasure of
reading poetry, you should always have this book close to hand.
Leo Yankevich, The Unfinished Crusade: New and Selected
Poems , The Mandrake Press, Box 792 Larkspur, CA 94977-0792; ISBN 83-904541-9X,
102 pp, $10.
Imagine a world whose enduring features are rust,
moldy bread, the chill wind from an industrial-gray sky, crows, leafless
trees, littered streets, loneliness, urgency and guilt. Such a world offers
little to write about, and yet it offers an arena in which longing, despair,
poverty, hope and the hints of transformation are the reader's constant companion.
Leo Yankevich sketches such a world in "The Unfinished
Crusade". Whether it's real, stylized or imaginary, its presence pervades
the poems in this collection. Perhaps this is the world of Poland in the dying
phase and the aftermath of communism, or the shattered cityscapes of post-World
War II Eastern Europe, or only the imaginary bleakness of a character whose
life has taken a constant downward turn into a squalid stasis. In any case,
this book is a journal of squalor and its unrelenting presence. Yet, in this
bleak rustscape, there is life—persistent life, that of the constantly cawing
rooks, the drunk, the leprous woman whose eventual transformation seems to
justify her misery, the rats in the cupboard, and the downcast who pass like
wraiths outside the flat or in the anonymous city in which the poems play
out.
These poems stylize Yankevich's world, but present
it again and again with the repetitiveness of haiku, each with its subtle
individuality, offering new insights into the inhabitants of this sad and
persistent society.
"The Dog" describes the transformation of a dead
dog into a temple through whose bones the wind kneels to pray. "Silesian
Landscape" sketches the bleakness of the ruined terrain in January. In it,
ravens cough up their blasphemies on a gray day without snow. This image recurs
throughout the collection. Yankevich's ubiquitous rooks are as persistent
as Poe's raven—and more sinister.
"The Prayer" recognizes the succession of life
into oblivion as seen through the boy's resignation to his father's aging
and death, prefiguring his own. This parallels Seamus Heaney's similar poem
about his father, stooping to dig in the potato fields. The agricultural tradition
reappears sporadically through the poems of "The Unfinished Crusade".
"To Touch the April Rain" connects us with the
lives of those who created the products and artifacts we touch. Eventually,
it all comes to nothing—no one cares. The invocation of the spring rain reminds
us of Sara Teasdale's gentle, sad but equally cynical "There Will Come Soft
Rains":
"And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly"
"Break of Dawn" reveals the poet's recognition
of the certainty of death, the fragility of life, and the felt obligation
to make the most of it. It is a rubaiyyat without cheer, an urgent and persistent
obligation, without certain reward, to realize the verity of being:
".No,
on and on you must go;
this life do what you can;
eternity has no end."
The brevity of life emerges in this poem that
contemplates power and guilt at its exercise in "The Moth":
"I hold it as if to somehow show
that all depends on the force's whim
that if I choose not to let it go
and crush it, I perpetrate no sin.
Yet, when I open my hands, guilt stings:
the powdery white flakes were once wings."
The villanelle "The Recluse" sketches the
loneliness of the poet in the midst of life. "Is it dream or reality he
fears?"
In a related and brief excursion into holocaust, "Sarajevo Sonnet" remarks
the continuation of life in the stark deprivation after society collapses—the
marriage of a young couple next to a skeleton in uniform. The young couple
are revealed to be two tiny black beetles.
The collection continues, each poem building
on and reinforcing the others in a framework as inexorable and unyielding
as the twisted girders of a decaying, once-great medieval city, such as,
say, Baltimore or Philadelphia. But now and then a brief and uncertain light
illuminates the slag and deformation:
"I'd appeal my sentence, seek solace from seers,
but the child in me knows: beyond destinies
light is everywhere, and redeems us all."
(The Bridge)
Yankevich's book is a memorable and unsettling
sketch of the conditions it explores. This review may not adequately express
the force of its poems, and readers should take the book as the best guide.
As we face continued uncertainty in the global economy and the unease that
the future may not be bright, Leo Yankevich's "The Unfinished Crusade" is
a sober description of an alternative and all-too plausible future. Its chronicle
of how one person manages the question of the value of life is a reminder
and a moral, like the rooks, drunkards and scarecrows that populate his
world.
I recommend this book highly.
