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davidjordan's review against another edition
4.0
Matthea Harvey is one of those spectacularly gifted writers who can manipulate the English language so dexterously that I find myself more often amazed with her technical prowess than the content of the poems themselves (although that is often fantastic as well). I find myself especially drawn to the poems where the first word of a line finishes the thought of the preceding line, but starts a completely new idea for the line it begins. I'm sure there must be a technical poetic term for this exercise, but I don't know what it is. Example:
"At their hems that seem to map out coastlines left far
Behind the new songs are the old absurd hopes...
Read it. This poet is incredibly talented.
"At their hems that seem to map out coastlines left far
Behind the new songs are the old absurd hopes...
Read it. This poet is incredibly talented.
hagbard_celine's review against another edition
3.0
Didn't do it for me, but I could see that there's something there. Complex and full o' wordplay, I just couldn't get into the flow.
My fault, probably.
My fault, probably.
kfan's review against another edition
The blurb from Jorie Graham on the back was probably a sign that this might not be quite up my alley. I was glad to read it though, but it was a little overwhelming. I think I'm not the student of poetry this books requires you to be. Her work is very dense--run on sentences that bang into each other, or like a mashup of found diary clippings. Interesting intellectually but not emotionally. I did really like "In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden."
milo_rose's review against another edition
4.0
Wordplay-esque/intensely structural poetry (obviously all poetry is structural, but do you know what I mean?) will sometimes read as gratuitous and distancing to me, but the way Harvey brings it into (some of) her writing--whoaaa. The craft/structure/voice(s) here are incredible and new and A+.
In terms of the collection, the poems were a bit hit-or-miss for me, but the ones that got me, GOT ME.
Here's one of my favorite pieces:
“here I am the trapper littering the landscape with corpses
no longer feeling as if the path of my life is being cut into rock
by passion’s aimless meanderings I look back to you as though
through a telescope in this I mean I know what I want now
are the hidden things the intangible and unimaginable all
that you spoke of long ago I thought it was all about the chase
I reveled in hardships practicing sleeping on the dormitory floor
for when I would have the ground as my bed but I never practiced
sleeping with my knees in the hollow of another’s knees or breathing
slowly together instead I learnt the shallow breath of one who must
always remain undetected and in this way I have let my face slip from
your dreams I am here I am combing the grasses for hidden lions
riding after herds of elephants coming home with my own skin torn
my disguises and ploys seen for what they are by simple animals
who turn around and charge when they have been betrayed.”
-from “Frederick Courteney Selous’s Letters to His Love"
In terms of the collection, the poems were a bit hit-or-miss for me, but the ones that got me, GOT ME.
Here's one of my favorite pieces:
“here I am the trapper littering the landscape with corpses
no longer feeling as if the path of my life is being cut into rock
by passion’s aimless meanderings I look back to you as though
through a telescope in this I mean I know what I want now
are the hidden things the intangible and unimaginable all
that you spoke of long ago I thought it was all about the chase
I reveled in hardships practicing sleeping on the dormitory floor
for when I would have the ground as my bed but I never practiced
sleeping with my knees in the hollow of another’s knees or breathing
slowly together instead I learnt the shallow breath of one who must
always remain undetected and in this way I have let my face slip from
your dreams I am here I am combing the grasses for hidden lions
riding after herds of elephants coming home with my own skin torn
my disguises and ploys seen for what they are by simple animals
who turn around and charge when they have been betrayed.”
-from “Frederick Courteney Selous’s Letters to His Love"
xterminal's review
5.0
Matthea Harvey, Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Alice James Books, 2000)
My crush on Matthea Harvey grows with each of her books I read. Pity the Bathtub... is her first collection, and it's incredible. There's so much wow factor here that I'm not sure quite where to begin. There are two basic types of poems here, so we'll start there. The first type takes enjambment to its absurdist conclusion; this type of poem comprises about three-quarters of the book. The only thing to which I can compare them is Claude Simon's unreadable novel Conducting Bodies. In prose, it was an awful experience to try and read; Conducting Bodies is a single two hundred fifty-six page sentence that doesn't make one bloody bit of sense. In poetry, however, and with Harvey adding such niceties as punctuation and imagery, it works fabulously:
“Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet
Are bronze casts of the former queen's feet its sheen
A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through
Where the marble is worn away with industrious
Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say
Because the queen does not want room for splashing...”
(--p. 3, from the title track)
Okay, that Apollinairian bit of grand guignol may have not been the best example of how she introduced punctuation into the form. But just listen to the way those words bounce and rattle, every one of them dripping with context. That's crazy talk, right there.
The second type is more traditional, relying less on form and wordplay than on image and story. They're just as good, a shade less striking for obvious reasons but just as accomplished, and let's remember that this is a debut collection.
“Dear dust-ghost, the instructions don't make
sense unless I sing them. If the bottom-most hem
is six feet from the ground, how do I get into this dress?
Bird ode: dark triangle feet in a wind-field.
Fifth Museum Poem: O swim on through.”
(--p. 57, from “Almost Anything”)
I totally stole “the instructions don't make/sense unless I sing them” as a title for an upcoming XTerminal track. Not sure I can give you a more strident recommendation than that. I have loved, loved, loved every book of Matthea Harvey's I have read so far—and this is the best of the lot. **** ½
My crush on Matthea Harvey grows with each of her books I read. Pity the Bathtub... is her first collection, and it's incredible. There's so much wow factor here that I'm not sure quite where to begin. There are two basic types of poems here, so we'll start there. The first type takes enjambment to its absurdist conclusion; this type of poem comprises about three-quarters of the book. The only thing to which I can compare them is Claude Simon's unreadable novel Conducting Bodies. In prose, it was an awful experience to try and read; Conducting Bodies is a single two hundred fifty-six page sentence that doesn't make one bloody bit of sense. In poetry, however, and with Harvey adding such niceties as punctuation and imagery, it works fabulously:
“Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet
Are bronze casts of the former queen's feet its sheen
A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through
Where the marble is worn away with industrious
Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say
Because the queen does not want room for splashing...”
(--p. 3, from the title track)
Okay, that Apollinairian bit of grand guignol may have not been the best example of how she introduced punctuation into the form. But just listen to the way those words bounce and rattle, every one of them dripping with context. That's crazy talk, right there.
The second type is more traditional, relying less on form and wordplay than on image and story. They're just as good, a shade less striking for obvious reasons but just as accomplished, and let's remember that this is a debut collection.
“Dear dust-ghost, the instructions don't make
sense unless I sing them. If the bottom-most hem
is six feet from the ground, how do I get into this dress?
Bird ode: dark triangle feet in a wind-field.
Fifth Museum Poem: O swim on through.”
(--p. 57, from “Almost Anything”)
I totally stole “the instructions don't make/sense unless I sing them” as a title for an upcoming XTerminal track. Not sure I can give you a more strident recommendation than that. I have loved, loved, loved every book of Matthea Harvey's I have read so far—and this is the best of the lot. **** ½
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