Holy moly, Doug, this is amazing. I'm so grateful for what you say and
especially for the mention of poems like "Clare's Revenge," and its
connection with "The Lament of Deor." We all have orphan poems, I think,
ones we're fond of, but it's fantastic when someone else claims them.
If I hadn't been awake for 48 hours without a break I'd babble some more --
but for now thank you so much, and I hope you won't be surprised to see
yourself quoted somewhere.
Rachel
http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/loden/loden.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Douglas Barbour
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 8:24 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: a sort of review
of Rachel Loden's Dick of the Dead (Ahsahta Press 2009).
Just a few words of praise, really, but she is so wicked & this is
such a fine, & finely tuned, collection of highly entertaining as well
as provocative poetry, I am happy to recommend it to everyone here.
One of the things Rachel Loden does so well here is adapt a range of
'I's about whom we feel both a kind of contempt and a kind of
compassion simultaneously, as with 'Miss October' & the, rather
various, voice who speaks in such poems as 'Sympathy for the Empire'
or 'The Toy Box of My Intentions' or 'Clare's Revenge' (a very sly
take on 'The Lament of Deor'), let alone that of the titular figure.
The poems slip between almost pure satire (take for example 'Cheney
Agonistes,' the very title of which must raise a wince & a grin) &
something akin to elegy, stopping at various point between (I thought
the really sly parodies of 'I Know a Brand' [Creeley's famous poem] &
'Autumn Days' [Rilke] especially wicked, in the very best sense, of
course).
There are many poems here that are not simply satire or critical
parody; Loden is capable of a wide range of emotional representation.
Which is why Dick of the Dead is such a rich bouillabaisse.
As a kind of absolutely clear eyed vision of the contemporary world,
especially in terms of US cultural & political hegemony gone sour,
Dick of the Dead is brilliant, not least because the language of the
poems is both subtle & crystalline, demotic & high when necessary, &
full of true wit.
I read it with delight even as I also felt its own controlled despair
about the way 'our' culture seems to continually present such an
attuned writer with ever more subjects (of critique).
As just one example of how subtle her savage indignation can be, these
final stanzas of 'Sympathy for the Empire' :
it is a bunch of teenage privates in Kuwait
who have to spill out of their Bradleys
through the black smoke of live-fire exercise
--
as sand insinuates itself into night-vision eyes.
The desert is a sea of rocking, luminous green
as Rummy wields his dictaphone, white memos
drifting through the Pentagon like snow.
'wields' 'dictaphone' 'drifting': le mot juste at work.
Doug
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.h
tml
What in the world we see
is what's important.
Richard Caddel
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