EXEMPLARS
A Poetry Feature by Grace Cavalieri
This column presents occasional reviews of books of poems and books about poetry
For the inaugural issue, I’ve selected three books recently published: Seeing Stars is by Simon Armitage,
born in West Yorkshire in 1963. He’s a playwright, broadcaster, freelance writer for radio and television.
This is his 9th book. Evie Shockley’s The New Black is her 4th book. She teaches in the English Department
at Rutgers University. Solar Throat Slashed (Soleil cou coupe’) is the first and only bilingual edition of this
work by leader of “the Negritude Poets,” Aime’ Cesaire. Clayton Eshelman translated Solar from French
with Cesaire’s lead editor A. James Arnold.
_________________________
In Seeing Stars, British poet Simon Armitage is a combination of Ricky Gervais, John Berryman.
Willy Wonka and John O’Hara. What we have here is poetry as comedy, art as play. Armitage is a
serious writer with hefty credentials, (see his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2007)
but here he is a stand up poet. Each poem is in the style of what we call prose poetry; well, that is
to say, the line lengths are margin to margin. Prose poetry is a form of writing no can seem to
define or agree on, except to believe it probably originated in French verse. Most of the poems in
Seeing Stars are tiny compressions of theater pieces. They present characters in situations, in
conflict, internal or external, where something happens arching to a psychological conclusion. Of
course each poem is different in content but the author seeks to create dramatic literature, and
dramatic monologues. In all drama there is a good guy and a bad guy. Armitages’s villains are
authority and bureaucracy. This includes anyone who has power - real or perceived - over the
protagonist, but there is no mean spirit at work here, for the artful dodger of words is fast, funny,
and surprising. We feel we are more in the presence of a magician than a poet. Lyrical it is not, but
there is only so much a writer can do in a given space and Armitage has chosen a remarkable task
this time -- giving poetry a good name -- making it every bit as delectable as the comedy channel
and much more thoughtful. This will be appealing to the cyber generation as no other. Satire is
based on idealism vs. reality, Armitage takes on many aspects of modern life gone wrong and in
the style of the metaphysical wits, he says one thing and means another. His dialogue is always
crisp and unnerving. Here is the ending of one long poem titled, “Michael.”
…”So what do you think/ you’ll be when you grow up?” He was barely awake,/ But from
somewhere in his sinking thoughts and with a /drowsy voice he said, “I’m going to be an
executioner.”/ …”Hold on a minute, son, you’re talking about/ taking a person ’s life. Why would
you want to say a /thing like that? “ Without even opening his eyes he said/ “ But I’m sure I could
do it. Pull the hood over someone’s/ head, squeeze the syringe, flick the switch, whatever. /You
know, if they’ve done wrong. Now go to sleep, dad.”
And here is the beginning of a long poem titled “The Cuckoo:”
When James Cameron was a young man, this happened/ to him. After his eighteenth birthday had come
to/ an end and the guests had disappeared wearing colourful /hats and clutching cubes of Battenberg
cake wrapped in/ paper napkins, Jame’s mother sat him down at the/ breakfast bar…”James, I’m /not
your mother,” she told him. “What?” he managed to/ croak. “I work for the government and my
contract /comes to an end today.” “Does Dad know?” asked the/ bewildered James. “He’s not your
father. Don’t be cross /with us, we’re only doing our job.” James felt like a gold/ tooth sent flying
through the air in a fist fight. “What/ about my brother, Peter, and all the family?” "Actors.”/ She said,
very matter-of-factly. “I don’t believe you. Not/ Auntie Madge.” “Especially her. She went to drama
/school. She was always a tad Shakespearean for my taste/ but some people like that approach.”…
It is said that comedy is failed tragedy and tragedy is failed comedy. This is not failed anything. It is
strange but it is poetry. What kind? Don’t try to give this a proper name. It is original and highly
imagined. Poetry does not care what you call it.
_______________________
The New Black by Evie Shockley takes a book-long look at race and presents startling revelations for a
new generation. It is difficult to compress history into words, and even more difficult to make those
words new. To convey existing ideas while breaking old molds is the task Shockley sets out for herself.
She uses every form possible to establish the new woman: word games, persona poems, mesostics,
concrete poetry, haiku, epistolary forms, prose poems, language poetry, typography. In all she has
something powerful to say. The anger and love furled into these poems have their roots in great
historical figures and poets. Respect is paid to Shockley’s traditions,in nontraditional ways.
Here is an example of how this book makes a difference. Language poetry is, in itself, not always
satisfying. Its purpose is to radicalize language and so it’s an important political act. When concrete
words are on the page, the race, age, and gender of the speaker are jettisoned. This is a revolutionary
use of form making us focus on the immediate. The downside is that these kinds of poems without
“person place or things” can be devoid of emotion. In The New Black, language poetry exalts person
place and thing while still using the tricks of the trade so that feeling and sensuality are added to
intuition and intellectuality. Narrative saves the poetry.
Each of the forms used by Shockley bring home important information via esthetics on the page. Form is
the way we hold our art and I cannot think of a new book of poetry that is more inventive and effective
in using form to bring home meaning, like a ship moving perfectly to port. Every poem pays its way with
stunning ideas, otherwise this would be poetry of high jinks.
In the poem “Dependencies” (speaking to Thomas Jefferson) the poet ends with:
…in some world an even\newer one i might have liked you/ and you might have liked/(not fancied)
me/we might have shared a bottle/a conversation some poems/ in this world i prefer
your/depending on them to be/ better
than you.
There is also a parallel poem accompanying the 15 verses of “Dependencies” that happens to be from
the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
One of my favorite parts in the book is the section “the fare-well letters.” The titles of the poems are:
dear ace bandage, dear cuddly dharma, dear existential fallacy, dear gift horse, dear ink jet, dear
kerosene lamp, dear mid-afternoon nap, dear opaque policy, dear quaalude residue, dear safety test,
dear untimely violet, dear white xmas, dear yesterday’s zero.
And here are the first two stanzas of a poem where each of the couplets ends with the potent words
’while black:’ “improper(ty) behavior”
racial profiling: the idea that there’s no legitimate reason for driving while black
take sean bell: he got 50 bullets pumped into his care for driving while black//
homeownership is also improper behavior, in cambridge and beyond.
ask henry louis gates—arrested in his own home for thriving while black.
Shockley often makes good use of repetition of words and anaphoric lines (repeating first words) to gain
power. Shockley’s tender poems infer loving ourselves as women, and if black, loving that with passion.
These owe much to predecessors like Lucille Clifton to whose loving memory this book is dedicated.
Poetry is one long conversation with the past. We remember Clifton’s poem to Rodney Smith, her
satires on Aunt Jemima. We think of Gwendolyn Brooks and her women, Maud Martha, her street in
Brownsville. This is the knowledge Shockley carries forth. It is all here, carrying history on her shoulders:
the piercing intelligence of a Claudia Rankine, the innovation of Harryette Mullen, the humanity of
Clifton. This book is an homage to cultural memory in the newest way possible.
________________________
Aime’ Cesaire was a leading figure in the literary movement of the “Negritude Poets” in the first half of
the 21st century. These French speaking intellectuals made an indelible mark on the cultural history of
black poetry and world poetry. Cesaire, one of the most prominent was from the island of Martinique,
and worked in Paris for years in the French Chamber of Deputies representing Martinique. He was a
surrealist who is allied with poets such as Antonin Artaud and Andre’ Breton. Translator Clayton
Eshelman and editor A. James Arnold team up to restore Cesaire’s original work for the public,
unexpurgated, reclaiming the poems that had been edited over the years for political reasons. The
introduction by Arnold is an essential explication of the work and as this is the only existing bilingual
version of “Solar Throat Slashed, “ it would be rewarding to approach the French originals at whatever
level the reader is able.
This is a poet who struggled to find his voice amidst his struggle as a communist to make changes in the
colonial and post colonial world. The axis of his writing is sorrow. This is not political writing for politics
speaks of partisanship. This is transformational writing that equates the soul with the destiny of tyranny
and oppression. Cesaire becomes the lightning rod for human tragedy and his revolutionary poetics are
the outward form of an inward scream
The definition of surreal is bizarre and dreamlike. Cesaire’s poetry is of mythic proportions, passionate,
spiritual, and sexual. How did Eshelman approach this ? Poetry is impossible to translate exactly; yet
equivalents -- if not exact matches for language, cadence, tone -- must be found. Cesaire’s language is
extraordinary. Words are strung together in startling combinations, divergent metaphors, sometimes
causing an explosion of sounds.
Here is the last stanza of the poem “To the Serpent.”
Serpent
Charming biter of womens’ breasts and through whom death steals into the/maturity in the depths of a
fruit sole lord alone whose multiple image/places on the altar of the strangler fig an offering of
chevelure that is an/octopodal threat that is a sagacious hand that does not pardon cowards
That is a lot to enter for any reader yet there are other normative works that are compelling for their
fervor and obvious grieving. Here is the poem “Among Other Massacres:” With all their strength the sun
and the moon collide/ the stars fall like overripe warning lights/ like a litter of gray mice/ and the final
lines are: “ they have put mud over my eyes/ and I see I see terribly I see/ of all the mountains of all the
islands/ nothing is left save the few rotted tooth stumps/ of the impenitent saliva of the sea.
Although Cesaire often gets his motion in a poem with repetition of first words and first lines, and gains
momentum to a point of elation, I like his poems best that do not use poetics to persuade. “Blues.”
Aguacero/ beautiful musician/unclothed at the foot of a tree/amidst the lost harmonies/close to our
defeated memories/ amidst our hands of defeat/ and peoples of a strength strange/ we let our eyes
hang/ and native/loosing the leading-rein of a sorrow/we wept.
The poem “To Africa” is worth the price of the book.
Cesaire asks and demands much of the reader. This book is a contribution to literature; and its
translation makes it available for the first time to English audiences.The Negritude movement must not
be consigned to the French speaking only. Surreal poetry asks that we suspend known rudiments of
metaphor and take the wild ride. The verse is beautifully crafted, the content is historically valuable.
Eshelman and Arnold are doing holy work here.
_____________________________________
Grace Cavalieri is a poet and a playwright. Her latest book of poems is Sounds Like Something I Would
Say (Casa Menendez, 2010.) Her new play “Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory” premiers in NYC August 2011.
She celebrates 34 years on-air with her series “The Poet and the Poem” from the Library of Congress
distributed for public radio.