Save Our Ship听by Barbara Ungar (Ashland Poetry Press, 2019)听
Reviewed by Carolyn Janecek
Barbara Ungar breaks open the nomenclature of womanhood in her newest collection,听Save Our Ship,听winner of the Richard Snyder Memorial Prize in November 2019 (Ashland Poetry Press). 鈥淭he Diverse Vices of Women, Alphabetized鈥� sets the tone for the book in every conceivable way: it pokes at the conventions of masculine rationalism. It splits open the sphere of womanhood like a crystal ball full of poprocks that prickle your tongue with alliteration, 鈥淔or a woman is [a]鈥uiner of realms / Savage in pride / Truculent tyrant / Vanity of Vanities / Xexes鈥� insanity.鈥� Ungar presents St. Antonius鈥檚 Latin categorization of the vices of women and puts it side-by-side with the English in an imposing, concrete 鈥淰鈥� shape. The poem evokes a long history of gendered rationalism, one that reminded of Genevieve Lloyd鈥檚 analysis of Western philosophy. Rationality versus wilderness. Masculinity versus femininity. A list of unruly, feminine vices categorized in a neat and 鈥渕asculine鈥� way鈥攖o control them. In Ungar鈥檚 collection, this list of vices becomes a point of pride鈥攁 found poem that introduces the many women who stroll and stomp through听Save Our Ship.
Speaking of these women, I听love听Ungar鈥檚 use of persona and the portraits she paints of historical figures, some subtle, others more direct allusions. 鈥�Apr猫s Moi鈥� is twist on Marie Antoinette鈥檚 famous words, turning them into a guillotine against capitalism and the military industrial complex: 鈥淟et them eat the howling of mothers鈥et them eat ashes / Let them eat mold / Let them eat fallout / Let them eat America first.鈥� Throughout the collection, Ungar intersperses moments of levity with quiet poems like 鈥淓mily Dickinson鈥檚 Estate Sale鈥� and the hilarious 鈥淢an Bun Ken,鈥� illustrating the guess-work of excavating history: 鈥淔uture archeologists / may stumble upon his simulacra / & mistake him for a shape-shifting god, // the cyclically dying & reborn / consort of the Great Goddess Barbie.鈥� I cackled, delighted at this departure from the archetype of Barbie as the bane of self-esteem for six-year-olds everywhere.
Even so, there were a couple of poems in the collection that I felt didn鈥檛 reach their full potential. I kept returning to 鈥淪hooting into the Hurricane鈥� because it seemed to stop short of delving into its subject matter. The poem focuses on the Facebook meme of shooting into Hurricane Irma to turn it around. But the poem doesn鈥檛 hit the same satirical tone as the meme itself. When the poem shifts toward fake news and the audience鈥檚 complacency, it feels like a misinterpretation of the meme. The meme鈥檚 role can be read as a quest for agency through humor. What power do we have against a hurricane? What power do we have against increasingly volatile storms that level communities? What can we do if our government refuses foreign aid during the devastation, like during Katrina? The meme of shooting into the eye of the hurricane ironically points to taking power back into the hands of the people. But this poem, instead, settles for dismissing the event as 鈥減utting the duh in Florida.鈥� This isn鈥檛 solely Ungar鈥檚 blind spot though鈥擨 could point to a number of works by great poets where there is a generational gap when it comes to commenting on current events, popular culture, and especially technology and communication. This gap, unfortunately, leads to poems that don鈥檛 fully engage with their subjects because they misunderstand or don鈥檛 fully address the sociocultural context.
But Ungar does have many more poems in the collection which do successfully鈥攕pectacularly even鈥攁ddress current events and the looming threats of the recent century. Another central theme of the collection is climate change, which parallels well with the intertwined narratives of womanhood and power. 鈥淓ndnotes to Coral Reefs鈥� is a ghostly echo of coral reef die-off. We never see it coming鈥攐nly the notes creating a negative image of what once was. Our own bodies become parallel to the coral reefs as our marrow dries out: 鈥�13. Corallite closely resembles human bone / 14. Bleaching and subsequent starvation.鈥� 鈥淣aming the Animals鈥� is another mostly-found poem that chronicles the last sightings of now-extinct species, invoking the names of the dead like a plea for mercy.
Save Our Ship听unfolds from a single point鈥攙olatile womanhood鈥攁nd expands into a multifaceted perspective on loss, our environment, and new beginnings. One subject matter laces through the next, from dying reefs to divorces to a group of women collecting flowers after Zumba class, finding some kind of peace.
North American Stadiums听by Grady Chambers (Milkweed Editions, 2018) and听Catafalque听by Adam Tavel (University of Evansville Press, 2018)
Reviewed by Jenna Le
Every year, a wealth of new poetry collections emblazoned with the names of prestigious prizes arrives on bookstore shelves. These prizes are often named after recently deceased poets, implying that the winning books, to some extent, embody and keep alive the spirits of those literary greats鈥攁 sort of tantalizing posthumous endorsement. Two such award-winning books to come out toward the end of the last decade were Grady Chambers鈥檚听North American Stadiums, recipient of the inaugural Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, and Adam Tavel鈥檚听Catafalque, which carried off the 20th annual Richard Wilbur Award.
Chambers鈥檚 debut book may not quite achieve the uncannily precocious, condensed wisdom found in the lines of Max Ritvo, who fought a rare bone cancer for the last nine years of his life before passing away too soon, at the age of twenty-five, in 2016. Still, Chambers鈥檚 lanky, sprawling free verse shares the youthful exuberance, the Whitmanian optimism, the unembarrassed emotionalism, and the wistful romanticism that characterized Ritvo鈥檚: 鈥淚 was sixteen and my heart hurt / to watch it / it made me want to be older / and more lonesome,鈥� Chambers鈥檚 narrator admits in a passage reminiscing about an atmospheric Hollywood movie scene in 鈥淔ar Rockaway.鈥澨� Chambers鈥檚 poetry, like Ritvo鈥檚, manifests a humor-laced realism with regard to how the human body counterbalances grandeur with awkwardness, magnificence with naked vulnerability: 鈥淚 spread out in the bathtub / like some mythic winter king.鈥� Chambers鈥檚 restless mind, not satisfied with the small scale, radiates the same energy in its loping journeys up and down the shining, acne-ridden body of America, sweating an effusive love for the nation鈥檚 industrial cities. This love is leavened by an awareness of how masculine violence is an inseparable part of America鈥檚 character (鈥淲hen I awoke,鈥t was 2018, just another wartime Sunday鈥�), as well as an uneasy acknowledgement of this country鈥檚 leanings toward nativism (鈥淏ut I was not born here [i.e., Syracuse], / and who am I / to speak of its deaths?鈥�). In his efforts to craft a new mural of America鈥檚 past and present, Chambers seems to draw hope from rare, fragile visions of innocence he glimpses in his travels: e.g., 鈥淜ids by the roadside, I remember鈥攂lue snow cones / in white paper cups.鈥� It will be interesting to watch how the balance of innocence and experience in Chambers鈥檚 own voice shifts as his career progresses and how this will further complicate his vision of America.
The poet Richard Wilbur, who passed away in 2017, is especially celebrated for the finesse with which he handled complex formal structures, and one can easily picture him giving a nod of respect from beyond the grave to听Catafalque, Adam Tavel鈥檚 third poetry collection and the 20th winner of the award that bears his name. Over and over in听Catafalque, Tavel harnesses difficult poetic forms to his purposes, often with a heavy-browed gravity, but occasionally with a flash of humor, too, as in the wonderfully imaginative 鈥淪on Net,鈥� a鈥攜ou guessed it!鈥攕onnet in which the speaker鈥檚 son, surreally, metamorphoses into a fishing net: 鈥渧illagers scooped his diamond holes / and cast them at the sea鈥︹�� Although, as a whole,听Catafalque听feels dominated by poems solemnly rooted in history鈥攑ersonal and family history, as well as military and cultural history鈥擳avel is arguably at his most captivating in his rare forays into surrealism: it is in these moments that the skyward force of imagination perfectly balances the earthward force of poetic structure, the magical equilibrium for which Gregory Orr advocated in his essay 鈥淔our Temperaments and the Forms of Poetry.鈥� Another instance where this occurs is at the end of Tavel鈥檚 鈥淓legy for Elvis, Who Died During My Parents鈥� Honeymoon to Disney World鈥� (this collection is full of great titles!); here, a sublime blend of surrealism and black humor liberates the speaker鈥檚 parents鈥攁nd the speaker himself鈥攆rom their static sconces in history鈥檚 timeline:
听 听 听 听 听 鈥淸My mother鈥檚] tears flood the lift and wreck
听 听 听 听 听 its gears and pulleys.
听 听 听 听 听 Dad jabs the little buttons
听 听 听 听 听 into gold halos.
听 听 听 听 听听Jesus, quit it,听he says,听quit
听 听 听 听 听 we鈥檙e going to drown.
听 听 听 听 听 They do. They鈥檙e still floating there.
听 听 听 听 听 There I鈥檓 waiting to be born.鈥澨�
Although overtly surrealistic moments such as these are uncommon in this book, Tavel at times achieves a similarly magical effect through the way his great intelligence kneads syntax like Play-Doh, bringing out a rarely seen plasticity in the language without sacrificing legibility, as when he describes a Walmart store clerk screwing in a lightbulb as 鈥渢wisting us all ablaze hereafter.鈥� At its best, Tavel鈥檚 poetry, in like fashion, twists its audience 鈥渁ll ablaze hereafter.鈥�
Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World by Kathryn Cowles (Milkweed Editions, 2020)
Reviewed by Raena Shirali
Kathryn Cowles鈥檚听Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World听is an exercise in naming & renaming, a photographic offering, a breathless conversation, a friend showing the reader鈥攖hrough image and through text鈥攈umanity鈥檚 fragmented, partial relationship to our surroundings. Mastery permeates this book, most notably in the form of a voice that balances conversational tenderness with metaphysical explorations of transliteration, transubstantiation, and the function of place in memory. Cowles has crafted here a multimodal journey wherein each poem and photo-poem can be read as 鈥渁 written version of an audio version of a person talking.鈥� Prose blocks and short lines veer at times imagistic, while also acknowledging the limitations of language; brackets and dashes are alternately used to indicate physical action, or to indicate a sound itself. In some ways,听Maps and Transcripts听reads like a revolutionary take鈥攐ne against description, and towards approximation of the actual.
But to approximate the thing, one must first attempt to name it; if Kathryn Cowles鈥檚 pen is a pointer, her repetitions are insistence and awe: in the poem 鈥淢etaphor: Description, Uses Thereof, Side Effects, Interactions, Etc.鈥� she writes:
听 听 听 听 听 "鈥o William Blake, as in, the --------- is a --------- because both are holy, holy,
听 听 听 听 听 听holy鈥oly arm. Holy basil plant. Holy blue roof. Holy photograph. Holy actual
听 听 听 听 听 听world. Equal sign equal sign equal sign. Holy equal sign鈥�"
The equal sign is the metaphor, but it is also the relationship between any given two pages in the book: on some, we find poems (as transcripts); on others, photo-poems (as maps). Here, the viewer鈥檚 (or transcriber鈥檚, or photographer鈥檚) subjective lens is the equal sign itself. Compellingly, though invested in the actual, these poems subvert the very binaries they prescribe (some poems鈥� titles include the word 鈥淢aps,鈥� and text is always overlaid onto images); and this subversion reveals a signature voice not soon to be forgotten. Cowles memorably spells out her approach for her reader: 鈥淚 have tried to write it down. The ordinary world. When I did, and when I didn鈥檛, it was always still there.鈥� Just as the world keeps existing when we鈥檙e not looking at it, Cowles鈥檚 observations keep existing in perpetuity, in document, in transcript and in map: 鈥淎nd I was there. And I breathed the original air.鈥�
听is a Czech-American writer,听MFA student at Colorado State University, and assistant managing editor at听Colorado Review.听Carolyn's poetry has appeared in听Permafrost,听The听Florida Review,听and听Peach Mag,听among others.
听authored听Six Rivers听(NYQ Books, 2011) and听A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora听(Indolent Books, 2018; 1st ed. pub. by Anchor & Plume, 2016), which won Second Place in the 2017 Elgin Awards. Her poetry appears in听AGNI Online, Bellevue Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review,听Massachusetts Review, and听West Branch.
听is the author of听GILT听(YesYes Books, 2017), which won the 2018 Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a 2018 VIDA scholarship, a 2017 Philip Roth Residency at Bucknell University, and a 鈥淒iscovery鈥�/Boston Review听Poetry Prize in 2013. Her poems have also received prizes from听Cosmonauts Avenue听in 2016 and听Gulf Coast听in 2014. Shirali鈥檚 poems & reviews have appeared widely in听American Poetry Review,听Academy of American Poets鈥�听Poem-A Day, The Nation, The Rumpus,听& elsewhere. She recently co-organized We (Too) Are Philly鈥攁 summer poetry festival highlighting voices of color鈥攁nd is co-editor-in-chief of听Muzzle Magazine. Shirali lives in Philadelphia, where she is an assistant professor of English at Holy Family University.