Valerie Loveland
I have an audio poetry recording of Priscilla Becker reading and it's charming. So is half of her poetry in her collection, Internal West. The other half is a little vague and short on images. The good poems have been sticking with me, but I couldn't tell you what the others are about. She originally got my attention when her poem, Letter After and Estrangement appeared in The Paris Review. It is wonderful, and I was hoping her collection would be full of poems like that one. There are a lot of good poems in the book, but there are several that aren't up to the high standard of her best work. The poems are a bit prosy, and include a lot of being verbs. Her poem, Make It Like Us, where she threatens to hurt or kill her boyfriend's pet bird, sort of turned me against her fairly early in the book. I still acknowledge that there are some great poems after that one, but I liked them grudgingly. Some of my favorite poems in the book are Vertigo, The Futureless Future, and Idiom.
I especially like
Blond, Ash
Collapsed on a bench in the park
a boy poked me with a stick
just to be sure.
The dog was running wild and
the river was being pushed around
by boats. Three women spoke in code
about me. I didn't feel like
heat anymore but that parts
of me were melting.
Soon the boy
matched me to the dog by our coats.
And for no reason that I know,
I lied.
The boy pretended
to be called from far off
and the dog seemed not to
recognize my voice.
I just found a whole book of my new favorite poems. I don't know why people don't talk about Maura Stanton's Snow on Snow. Her poems are gorgeous and original. She uses cold images in a way I haven't seen before. Since it was published in 1975, my discovery about Maura Stanton might be old news, but I think I would have heard something about this book before. It should be considered a classic.
I know it sounds dramatic, but this book is beautiful. I'd been reading a lot of poetry that was good, but most books aren't consistent. Usually, there will be some stand out poems in any poetry book, but Snow on Snow is consistently wonderful. I was sincerely surprised that each poem was great. This is one that I am going to go back to regularly.
