Staying Blue by Gibbons Ruark
2009; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 83; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wlt.2009.0291
ISSN1945-8134
Autores Tópico(s)Poetry Analysis and Criticism
ResumoI ^ I > I I ^ I I z I ^ I I < I I ^ I I H I I o I I I ? I 1^1 as one inwhich thepoet defines the act ofwriting as not "work / but workmanship" and seals the defini tion by stressing the avidity with which writers must systematically invade and lacerate the self in order to practice their craft: "To evoke thought's form, / measure and trim it. / I thinkof a tailor /who ishis own fabric." Rita Signorelli-Pappas Princeton, New Jersey Gibbons Ruark.Staying Blue. Duluth, Minnesota. Lost Hills. 2008. 30 pages. $11.75. isbn978-0-9798535-3-1 Gibbons Ruark's thirty-page chap book may be thebest book ofpoetry, full-length or otherwise, published this year; it's certainly the best I've read. I have been an earnest reader ofRuark for thirty years, but I have always despaired athow fewpoems we have by this contemporary mas ter, whose earlier poem "Reeds" may be the best poem in English written in true terza rima. Given his stature as a poet, Ruark is depress ingly littleknown tomost readers, even among readers of contempo rary poetry. Perhaps his quiet, care ful,unaffected voice isdrowned out by the loud personalities and politi cally driven poetasters seizing the microphone of our cultural moment to force their message or selves upon us. Ruark takes seriously the ancient and careful art of poetry, and he knows that the way you say some thing is a largepart ofwhat you say. Here is poetry that aspires to Brodsky's definition: "Poetry is what every language hopes to become." Ruark knows Brodsky does not mean "elevation" but instead means a perfect aptness?a tone, stance, diction, rhythm just right for the subject.Take these few lines fromthe opening poem, "Words to Accompa ny a Bunch of Cornflowers": 'Those beads of lapis, even the classical / Blues of dawn, are dimmed by comparison. / When Ihand you this bunch of cornflowers / The only other color in the room / Illumines your eyes as you arrange them. // They are theblue reflectionofwhat ever /Moves in you, serene as cool water tipped / Into crystal..." Here theordinary diction and imageryare quietly gathered like the cornflow ers toproduce an unexpected quiet beauty, a privacy and intimacy that does not announce or trumpet itself. In a villanelle titled "Little Porch at Night," we read "Pull up a porch chair next to this chaise longue, / Tell me theempty darkwill fill with voices /And talk to me before I end my song . . . / That vacant angle where a hammock hung / Adopts thewhole moon in its loneliness. / Pull up a porch chair.Next to this chaise longue. // Summon the fire flies,matches struckand gone, /The Morse code of the starswho've lost theirplaces, /And talk to me before I end my song ..." Again, while writing quietly in a demanding form, Ruark master fullyestablishes a personal intimacy and presents an intricate relation ship among a sense of loss, our shared ephemerality, the difficulty in deciphering themeaning of our lives, loneliness and awareness of impending personal ending, and a clear desire for companionship. He even quietly insists on the French spelling of longuefortheadded mea sure of the "long" chair inwhich the experienced speaker has been sitting,already partially reclined. In a later poem referring to a bronze seated statue, we witness "a black bird dipping itsbill in the teacup's / Worth of rainwater pooled in that brazen lap." Maybe that's it: our endlessly posturing and driven popular culture doesn't have time for such still points, or ears for such quiet poetry. Too bad, but I hope timebrings us all toGibbons Ruark's poetry. Fred Dings ^^^H University of South Carolina ^^Hj Verses and Versions: Three Centu- ^^^M ries of Russian Poetry. BrianBoyd& ^^^J Stanislav Shvabrin, eds. Vladimir Nabo kov, comp. & tr.Orlando, Florida.Har- ^^^J court. 2008. xxxv + 441 pages. $40. isbn 978-0-15-101264-0 A collection ofVladimir Nabokov's translations from Russian to Eng lish had been planned by Nabokov and his publishers since at least the 1960s but never came to fruition ^^^H because of the writer's prolificpubli cation of other work. In Brian Boyd's introduction to Verses and Versions, ^^^H he introduces three purposes for ^^^H the 400-plus-page volume of trans- ^^^H lations, notes, and writings about ^^^H translation,which, he writes, aims ^^^H to be "a treasury of Russian verse, ^^^H a workshop in translation, and . . . ^^^H another showcase in the library of ^^^H Nabokov's literary diversity." Of ^^^H these, the firstand third are most ^^^H successfully achieved. ^^^H Nabokov's selections do intro duce Russian verse thoroughly, ^^^fl despite some glaring omissions ^^^H owing tohis own taste,now proven ^^^H to be more historically inaccurate ^^^H than his pretension would suggest. ^^^H Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, ^^^H and Akmatova (whom he consid- ^^^H ered, with Ezra Pound, "definitely ^^^H B-grade") are among his older Rus- ^^^H sian contemporaries not included. ^^^H The selection of poets included is ^^^H generous and enlightening, includ- ^^^H ing minor poets likeBatyushkov and ^^^H "intermediate" poets likeBarafinski. ^^^H Almost all poets' thumbnail biogra- ^^^H phies include somemention of their ^^^H IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM 74 i World Literature Today ...
Referência(s)