You may not know it since I don’t do a whole bunch of poetry reviews here, but I read poetry pretty regularly. My friend Cath in the Netherlands and I have a postal poetry exchange in which we choose a poem or two to send to the other every month or so. This year we decided to concentrate our poetry reading on poets we have never read before who are currently writing and who focus on nature in their poetry. I began the year with Wendell Berry and was a bit disappointed. His A Timbered Choir didn’t take flight for me. In the introduction to the book he claimed to be an amateur poet and, while there were a number of poems in the collection I did enjoy, he really isn’t the best of poets.
My next choice of poet, Joseph Massey, did not disappoint me. I don’t recall exactly how I came upon his work. I think I read about him in the Los Angeles Review of Books. He has a number of collections and since I had never read anything by him before it was difficult to choose. But when I came across a description of To Keep Time as being inspired by the landscape of Humboldt County, California, that is the one I decided to read.
What’s so special about Humboldt County? Well, when I graduated high school and decided to major in biology (I wanted to be a veterinarian) I decided to attend Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. You change a lot when you are eighteen and far away from home for the first time. Before my freshman year was out I had changed my major to English and decided I was going to teach. It meant going to a different university in Los Angeles my sophomore and following years. Nonetheless, my year at Humboldt was amazing and unforgettable.
HSU sits on a hill looking over the Pacific ocean. Stretching out behind the school are acres and acres of redwood forest. It is hands down one of the most beautiful places I have ever lived in my life. I would live there again if I could. So, poetry inspired by this landscape of ocean, redwoods, mountains, rain, fog and damp, yes please!
Massey’s poems have a haiku sensibility to them. Some are short and some are multi-parted. They are contemplative and surprising. It is the unexpectedness that I found so utterly marvelous; an image, a turn of phrase. I loved most when he would mix senses, for instance in “Microclimates”:
I squint
to hear the ocean
pierce an aperture
in skynot wide enough
for words—even a word—
to escape.
Also from “Microclimates”:
Bewilder-
ment persists
in this persistent
pressure gradient.
What I want to say
I can’t see to sayI can’t see to say it.
I also love the alliteration and the way he takes a word like “persists” and then changes it to “persistent.” Is there a word for that technique? I have come across it before in other poets and it is something that always gives me a little thrill.
Here is “Anchoritic”:
Listening to wind
dislodge objects
in the dark around
my room, I want
to think thinking
is enough to locate
a world, but it isn’t.
It isn’t this one.
It isn’t this world,
weather.
The word “anchoritic” is an adjective derived from the noun “anchorite.” An anchorite is a religious recluse, someone who has left the secular world to focus on their spiritual life. The poem itself is not particularly religious, but the title opens all sorts of suggestions and avenues of thought both secular and spiritual. It also suggests “anchor” as in anchored in place, but also a physical stability in the wind that is dislodging objects that contrasts beautifully with the thinking that is clearly unanchored. As you can see, the poems might be short but Massey packs in quite a lot!
I very much enjoyed To Keep Time and plan to read more of Massey’s work in the future. It is a happy occasion to discover a “new” poet.
I like those excerpts you chose, and I love your poetry pen pal setup! A pity Berry didn’t speak to you; I read Entries a couple years ago (the review is somewhere on the blog) and loved it
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Carolyn, I had high hopes for Berry since I very much enjoy his prose, but sometimes these things don’t work out. Massey was fantastic though and made up for everything. My poetry pen pal is great and she has introduced me to several poets who have since become favorites. 🙂
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Keep poetry reviews coming, Stefanie! I don’t read it enough, but I love it, and need to remember to make time in my reading for it.
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Laila, I will do my best to keep the poetry coming. I am currently reading a wonderful collection by Linda Hogan so hopefully in a few weeks I will have something to say about it 🙂
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I think I’ve read Massey before, but I’d love to see it through new eyes – thanks for the reminder!
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bikurgurl, you bet! Massey turned out to be a great find. If you remember what Massey book you have read, let me know and I will read it 🙂
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Will do 🙂
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{it will be put on my reading list}
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ok…this seems like a good place for the previously discussed babysteps in poetry…I will try and find some works of Joseph Massey. He seems to have very interesting sensibilities and views!
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cirtnecce, yes, you will be a poetry lover before you know it! 🙂 Massey is good because there is the surface poem and there is lots going on under the surface. You can stay on the top or dive deep. I can’t say what his other collections are like but this one was really good!
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What a smart idea to exchange poetry with a friend so you get a regular injection of something different
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BookerTalk, it was all my friend’s idea and I am so glad she thought of it. She has introduced me to a number of poets who have since become favorites and she keeps me motivated to read poetry regularly 🙂
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Oh, lovely. Do you know about The Friday Poem? Google it–it’s a subscription newsletter and the lady who runs it just sends out one poem a week, on a Friday. So great.
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Elle, I don’t know about The Friday Poem, I will go look that up now! Thanks!
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Your choice of Massey arrived in my mail and my emailbox today 🙂 . As you already guessed: I like him. Very much. Wiil talk about it a bit more tomorrow.
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Cath, I am glad he arrived! And I am glad you liked him 🙂
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I too love Massey’s poetry. Your review was fun to read, very real and heartfelt and it caused me to read again the poems you wrote about. That’s always a sign that a review has done something good!
You’re right that Massey’s “Anchoritic” while a religious term is not a particularly religious poem. Yet I feel that it and maybe more so the poems that immediately precede it in To Keep Time do seem to reflect an experience or engagement with the world that is similar to life as lived by let’s say a Carthusian monk. There are references to “a private speech,” lots of being indoors (and no other people), and one poem is even titled “The Cell.” This adds to the poetry’s great intensity, which I love.
Anyway, if you like To Keep Time, I suggest you check out Areas of Fog and At the Point, two earlier-published Massey full-length collections that were also written while he lived in Humboldt County.
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Steve, thanks! And thanks for your wonderful comment.
Loved your observations about “Anchoritic.” You sent me back to the book to look at the surrounding poems. I have a (bad?) tendency to read each poem in isolation so thank you for pointing out how this one fit together with a number of others.
And thank you for the other suggestions! I will definitely find copies of them!
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I think you might really like the poetry of Tom Hennen. I just read his book “Darkness Sticks to Everything” and now I think I’ll have to get my own copy. Perhaps you are already familiar with his work; he’s a Minnesotan.
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mary, I have never heard of Hennen! Everyone here is Robert Bly, Robert Bly! There is also a performance artist/poet who is also really popular right now. Oddly, my library has only two of his books. One of the them is Darkness Sticks to Everything. I will have to borrow it!. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Another Minnesota poet you may or may not be familiar with is the late Bill Holm. One of his poetry collections is called ” The Box Elder Bug Variations.” He also wrote some great essays; my favorite volume is “The Music of Failure.”
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Glad to know that you read poetry regularly, Stefanie. This is an interesting post, and thank you for sharing those beautiful excerpts. 🙂
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Deepika, glad you enjoyed it. I love poetry. It is such a different reading experience than prose.
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That’s so cool that you and Cath exchange poems. Love that. By the way, I finally picked up a book of Sonia Sanchez’s poetry after you mentioned her. I’m excited to discover her.
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Iliana, the poem exchange was Cath’s idea and I am so glad she suggested it. I have added a few new favorites to my list of poets because of her. So exciting about the Sanchez! I hope you like her!
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Yes, I know you read quite a bit of poetry and wish you’d post more here! I don’t know Massey do enjoyed your introduction. I reckon there’s sure to be a word for persist TO persistent. I once came across an astonishing list of literary devices – as I’m sure you have – for all sorts of practices/techniques that I had no idea there were terms for.
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