My Goodreads review of Copacetic by Yusef Komunyakaa

 This is my proper into to this poet and more of a check on my to due list as much as anything. Hopefully I get in the mood to read more of his work some day.

Copacetic by Yusef Komunyakaa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Tangled in the bell ropes
of each new day,
scribbling on the bottom line
of someone else’s dream,
loitering
in public courtyards
telling statues where to fall.” - from “Soliloquy: Man Talking to a Mirror”

Yusef Komunyakaa is a poet who I knew by reputation before I ever read him. I finally read his work when I read him as part of the anthology Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry and was impressed by what I read. Trying to find something to read by him was difficult, but I chose this book as it was just long-enough to serve as an introduction to him and was early-enough in his career before his more notable works on music and war (he was a Vietnam War veteran). The book was written as a homage to his Jazz heroes, and reflections on his early life in Louisiana and as a soldier abroad (though he never makes a direct reference to his time at war here).

I liked this volume generally. I didn’t have any poems I hate, but there where at least half the poems I really liked. I think the second part of the book is stronger than the first, but I think this is a good volume of early-1980s poetry. Eventually I will likely read more by him one day.

View all my reviews

My Goodreads Review of Diana's Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik

Finally got this one out of the way after procrastinating on it for eternity. Diana's Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I have made the leap from myself to the dawn.
I have placed my body alongside the light
and sung of the sadness of the born." - Poem 1

"only thirst
silence
no encounter

beware of me, my love
beware of the silent woman in the desert
of the traveler with an emptied glass
and of her shadow's shadow" - Poem 3

Ever since reading her poem "The Awakening" (in Spanish: El Desperatar) in The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: An Anthology, I had been curious to read more poetry by Alejandra Pizarnik (who was part of the odd, troubling trend of suicidal white women poets of the early to middle of the 20th century) and was recommended this volume. I like that this is a very straight-forward, but still high quality collection of brief poems (the best to read, but hardest to write). These poems are from relatively early in her equally- short career as her more famous work was still 3 years ahead of her. Given that I am reading this totally in-translation (without the original Spanish version) I have to trust that the translator Yvette Siegert did the best she could to keep the original meaning of the poem as one inevitably loses the wordplay that the poet had intended when translating. I don't know if I'll read more by Pizarnik, but I loved the alchemy which she uses in the lyrics of this collection.

"beyond the reach of every forbidden region
lies a mirror for our sorrowful transparency." - Poem 37

"This repentant song, standing guard behind my poems:

it belies me, it has silenced me." - Poem 38

View all my reviews

My Goodreads Review of Eye Level by Jenny Xie

After this long hiatous of mine where I've been staggering alone in the wilderness, I'm making my way back to civilization. This review is just to get me back on the road. I really wish I was in a better frame-of-mind to analyze these poems, but that I was able to write any thing at all on it is a miracle. I'm honestly ambivalent on the book, but I can't quite pick-up why. I also use the word "interesting" a lot in this review: my apologies up-front.



Eye Level: Poems by Jenny Xie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I've grown lean from eating only the past." - Line 9 of "Corfu"


I was supposed to have read this book in–at most–two weeks and then review it, but I ran out of inertia emotionally and spiritually and after almost 2.5 moths away I have finally finished it. This is an interesting book. It is the personal recollections of the author on her life and travels and of the writer. While it did not leave me speechless, it has a lot of good lines in it. I can't remember how I discovered this book, but I had been curious about reading it for awhile. Though I suppose the book is relevant given the news of the past year, it is an interesting travel diary/meditation all its own.

"Look at how I perform for you

Look at how you perform for me

An eye for an eye
is how you and I
take on forms in the mind" - stanza 13 of "Visual Orders"

I am always impressed at how poets are able to use words to create the scene in your mind's eye. The "mind's eye" is what this book is quite literally about and the poet makes references to the title throughout the book. Xie is looking back somberly on her life on the road and is put between nostalgia and melancholia (literally has a poem with that name). She thinks of her time as an immigrant in New York City's Chinatown and her travels throughout Southeast Asia great detail.

I hope I can convey that this is an interesting book to read for someone who likes to read poetry of different people's experiences. I know I am not doing a great job at describing the book because I am still a little bit rusty with my reviewing skills after 2 months. This was an interesting look at a life that could not be more different than my own. And did I mention it has a lot of good quotes.

As a bonus here is Jenny Xie's music poetry video for her poem "Chinatown Diptych": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2vUq...

View all my reviews

My Goodreads Review of The Iliad by Homer

I wrote this after just feeling numb after reading this poem in January 2018. I get why this poem is celebrated, but I had so many thoughts concerning the hypocrisy of Western civilization and I was seeing red a-little.

The Iliad by Homer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have no proper introduction for this, lets just go. I had been torn on whether to read the translation by Alexander Pope or Robert Fagles, but Fagles won me out with lines like this:

"Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles."

I was kept engaged by beautifully placed lines like that. One of the advantages of listening to hip-hop is that a lot of rappers like to use hexameter (what Homer and Virgil used) over common meter. Oh, I will get back to the relationship between hip-hop and Homer in a moment.

My thoughts about the poem: It was decent. The introduction by Bernard Knox was very good, even if I disagreed with 4% of what he said. The main hero for me is Fagles, for making these guys way more appealing than they should have been. I was not a big fan of most of the Acheans, I only favored Odysseus and Nestor. Though I liked the Trojans more, it was just barely. Hector was the only sane man in this whole poem, Aeneas was Odysseus' equal (that's why he gets a sequel). Priam is a much better king than Agamemnon. My thoughts on Achilles are the same as Apollo in the last book (chapter/book 24 lines 46-65). My one compliment is that he earned his epithet of man-killer (as did Hector). I feel the meeting between Priam and Achilles was perfectly done. I was amused at the lax nature of this epic poem. During very crucial times in the actions we get a page long reminiscence to something that happened years ago.

When folks speak of this poem, they often speak with an awe of the "old Greek virtues" or they hand-wave many of morally hateful things to praise the parts of the poem they liked. I wasn't impressed because, growing-up in the DC-Maryland area in the 1990s, these virtues weren't as praise-worthy. I suspect that the majority of people who like Homer are not fans of gangster-rap--which is a shame, because you would get much better renditions of the things in this play and in Homeric meter. Having read this book I scoff at folks who think Achilles is nobler than Tupac. Achilles says:

“Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life--
A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,
Death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon
When a man will take my life in battle too--
flinging a spear perhaps
Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.”

While Tupac Shakur says:

"The other day I thought I seen my homeboy Biggy
Sayin' shit don't stop, nigga, no pity
We all hoods and all we ever had was dreams
Money makin' motherfuckers plot scandalous schemes...
Man, ain't nobody promised me a thang
I been caught up in this game
Ever since I was a little motherfucker wantin' to hang
I can see 'em in my head – pow!
Memories of my nigga but he dead now
Lookin' back in my yearbook
All the years took half my peers, they're stretched for years
And if I die, will they all shed tears?" - Few men were as much doomed by fate as Tupac.

Some will scoff at my analyzes, but I couldn't help seeing the parallels. In my heart, I believe the only reason this poem is still talked about is because it is really old, which is fine, but I wonder why no one else is admitting this. Outside of Europe, we have other tales of old kingdoms going to war. In Asia, the big war epic is the Romance of Three Kingdoms or, more suitable for comparison, The Tale of the Heike. Like the Epic Cycle of Troy, "Heike" is about the complete destruction of the Heike Dynasty in Japan with the Battle of Dan no Ura and its aftermath being every bit as brutal as the Fall of Troy.

But I am getting off topic, I am gald to finally have read this and look forward to reading The Odyssey.

View all my reviews

Some thoughts on Maya Angelou & poetry

A while back I mis-read an advertisement for a poetry contest and had the mis-placed courage to think I could try poetry. While in this delusionary-state I came across a poem by Maya Angelou which brok my heart by how beautiful, simple, and complex it was:

 When you come to me, unbidden,
Beckoning me
 To long-ago rooms,
Where memories lie.

  Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
Gatherings of days too few.
  Baubles of stolen kisses.
Trinkets of borrowed loves.
  Trunks of secret words,

I CRY.

These words sound so effortless, but anyone who has tried their hand at any type of creative-writing knows how hard it is to make something like that. You can do and show so much in poetry, but it takes so much more technical skill  to do compared to prose. I really wish I had the talent  and discipline  of  my literary  heroes. The ability to not only say something, but to have the know-how of getting correct how one says it. I think poets are the best storytellers--the best writers. Even the writing of blank verse and free verse is done with an eye to precise word-order.

I've thought about the poetry of Maya Angelou and how she is able to get a direct emotional effect from every word she uses. The fact that she was as capable at reciting poetry as she was reciting it is amazing. When I think of people like her, Dylan Thomas as well as lyricists like Stevie Wonder and Kendrick Lamar--I am amazed the genius of these artists.