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msw's review
5.0
Believe What You Can by Marc Harshman is a wide ranging, rich collection of his poetry, organized around several threads: first is nature (he grew up on a farm and lives in northern West Virginia): there are deer and doves like the ones who "with a thudding whinny, they spring, and lift, and fly." (p. 85), as well as a plethora of precise observations that he tosses off in quantity, with ease, and always hitting his target.
Nature poems blend seamlessly into farm life, including a powerful prose poem in which Uncle Elmer tenderly encounters his wife's corpse and then calls on the young narrator to sit with the body until the undertaker comes, while he, Elmer, goes back to making hay. This piece, "Aunt Helen" (p.75), is a story on the surface, but ends with one of Harshman's many interrogations of God.
The answers Harshman derives tend toward a Buddhist emphasis on this present moment, these things around us. One lovely poem called "Monastery" tells how the brothers dug vegetables and listened for God and without any effort God came and sang for them in a wren suit (80). That's a Christianity this world could really use.
But I think the series of poems that surprised me most were the war poems. There are a number of damaged returned soldiers, including one who may be Harshman's father or some other veteran of the allegedly good war-- a veteran whose son is a poet who uses the word "Fuck" in a poem (p. 50). This poem, like several others, creates a character and tells a story, and Harshman's ability to do this without weakening the rigor of the language is a wonder.
Finally, there are a number of poems of nightmare or perhaps horror like "Where No One Else Can Go," in which a little girl with "a fistful of white violets" is left inside "the screaming house." It's pretty searing, and somehow adds to the sense that not only are American veterans traumatized, but so are ordinary middle-Americans. (p. 35)
This collection shows Harshman, the poet laureate of West Virginia, at the height of his powers, reaching out, reaching in, without melodrama, without posing, but with passion and apprehension of the mysteries.
Nature poems blend seamlessly into farm life, including a powerful prose poem in which Uncle Elmer tenderly encounters his wife's corpse and then calls on the young narrator to sit with the body until the undertaker comes, while he, Elmer, goes back to making hay. This piece, "Aunt Helen" (p.75), is a story on the surface, but ends with one of Harshman's many interrogations of God.
The answers Harshman derives tend toward a Buddhist emphasis on this present moment, these things around us. One lovely poem called "Monastery" tells how the brothers dug vegetables and listened for God and without any effort God came and sang for them in a wren suit (80). That's a Christianity this world could really use.
But I think the series of poems that surprised me most were the war poems. There are a number of damaged returned soldiers, including one who may be Harshman's father or some other veteran of the allegedly good war-- a veteran whose son is a poet who uses the word "Fuck" in a poem (p. 50). This poem, like several others, creates a character and tells a story, and Harshman's ability to do this without weakening the rigor of the language is a wonder.
Finally, there are a number of poems of nightmare or perhaps horror like "Where No One Else Can Go," in which a little girl with "a fistful of white violets" is left inside "the screaming house." It's pretty searing, and somehow adds to the sense that not only are American veterans traumatized, but so are ordinary middle-Americans. (p. 35)
This collection shows Harshman, the poet laureate of West Virginia, at the height of his powers, reaching out, reaching in, without melodrama, without posing, but with passion and apprehension of the mysteries.
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