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sloatsj's review against another edition
4.0
I bought this on a whim, having never read Hillman. This is the fourth of a series Hillman has published using the elements - air, fire, earth and water.
When I started reading I was put off because I don’t usually like political poetry (and I hadn’t expected political poetry) and the poems didn’t seem to “hold together,” to cohere. They are highly stylized and turn suddenly and unexpectedly, seemingly on tangents. But after some pages I got into the wild energy of them, the freedoms they took, the vocabulary of activism and corporate and work “culture.” In fact the sixth poem ("Gemini Showers & Health Care Reform") threw in some pharmaceutical drug names and it was almost funny, and that was all I needed to open my heart. Many of these are inspired by the Occupy movement, and the passionate defense of nature, and the malleability of language. I liked the daring turns and fragments thrown into the poems, the strange line breaks and forms.
I can’t replicate the indentations and such here, but this is the beginning of -
Equinox Ritual With Ravens & Pines
--so we said to the somewhat: Be born--
& the shadow kept arriving in segments,
cold currents pushed minerals
up from the sea floor, up through
coral & labels of Diet Coke blame shame
bottles down there--
it is so much work to appear!
I admired the poems even if I can’t claim they are my favorite style or subject matter. It wasn’t easy poetry, but I would be interested in reading another book in this series. I think Hillman’s writing is “brave,” not in a “I-told-my-childhood-secrets” way, but in a devil-may-care way or writing what feels right and letting the poem take its own course.
Here’s a link to one of the pieces from the book:
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2013-fall/selections/brenda-hillman-763879/
When I started reading I was put off because I don’t usually like political poetry (and I hadn’t expected political poetry) and the poems didn’t seem to “hold together,” to cohere. They are highly stylized and turn suddenly and unexpectedly, seemingly on tangents. But after some pages I got into the wild energy of them, the freedoms they took, the vocabulary of activism and corporate and work “culture.” In fact the sixth poem ("Gemini Showers & Health Care Reform") threw in some pharmaceutical drug names and it was almost funny, and that was all I needed to open my heart. Many of these are inspired by the Occupy movement, and the passionate defense of nature, and the malleability of language. I liked the daring turns and fragments thrown into the poems, the strange line breaks and forms.
I can’t replicate the indentations and such here, but this is the beginning of -
Equinox Ritual With Ravens & Pines
--so we said to the somewhat: Be born--
& the shadow kept arriving in segments,
cold currents pushed minerals
up from the sea floor, up through
coral & labels of Diet Coke blame shame
bottles down there--
it is so much work to appear!
I admired the poems even if I can’t claim they are my favorite style or subject matter. It wasn’t easy poetry, but I would be interested in reading another book in this series. I think Hillman’s writing is “brave,” not in a “I-told-my-childhood-secrets” way, but in a devil-may-care way or writing what feels right and letting the poem take its own course.
Here’s a link to one of the pieces from the book:
http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2013-fall/selections/brenda-hillman-763879/
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