Friday, November 18, 2005
fantastic new Joseph Massey book BRAMBLE (Hot Whiskey Press)
staring at water
in a glass
you felt the earthquake
Did you see the water move in the glass? What a terrific book! Joseph Massey has learned what I believe was one of my most valuable lessons as a poet, and that is to trust readers. So much overwritten poetry in the world in the name of believing no one's as smart as the poet. It annoys me because...
A) it's so obvious, this overwriting for lack of trust that we will get it
B) it's insulting, this lack of trust (I hope people were annoyed and insulted with me when I was a kid with a bloated head. It takes someone SAYING they are annoyed though to help change the poet)
Better than that, Joseph Massey has a handle on the follow-up lesson (which took me a little longer to learn) which is to not only trust, but allow. Allowing everyone to get what they get: see, feel, believe what they see, feel, believe. Let us readers Be in the poem as we damn well want to Be.
With Massey's latest book -- this poet's on a ROLL writing/publishing -- there's SO MUCH sSspace you will find yourself wading into each page, slowly, and getting warm your own way, stopping, to, just let your mind build a trellis out of his beautifully chosen, few, words.
He of course doesn't just create space, he often uses the line to make the breath of the reader follow the shape of the space of land, air:
pulp mill steam plume falls
up against
dusk, the stretched red clouds
Like my singing bowl I'm fond of traveling out of myself with, I feel Massey's new book can place us, each, on our own plane, to the center of the sound's wave.
His political themes remind me of illustrator R. Crumb's drawing of a wooded area, still-by-still, becoming paved, human, shit.
1860
Indian Island
where they sing
the world's renewal
2005
Indian Island
where a few
private docks reside
Joseph Massey's new book BRAMBLE makes me feel fortunate I'm alive today to read his pages. There's a few dead poets I wish I could mail a copy to right now! They'd LOVE it! Is that silly? I never seem to know if I am silly, but poems for the living please, these poems for us! This much I am sure I know.
there's a metaphor
behind each
breath your life lets go
Thanks, and much love to YOU Mr. Massey,
CAConrad
in a glass
you felt the earthquake
Did you see the water move in the glass? What a terrific book! Joseph Massey has learned what I believe was one of my most valuable lessons as a poet, and that is to trust readers. So much overwritten poetry in the world in the name of believing no one's as smart as the poet. It annoys me because...
A) it's so obvious, this overwriting for lack of trust that we will get it
B) it's insulting, this lack of trust (I hope people were annoyed and insulted with me when I was a kid with a bloated head. It takes someone SAYING they are annoyed though to help change the poet)
Better than that, Joseph Massey has a handle on the follow-up lesson (which took me a little longer to learn) which is to not only trust, but allow. Allowing everyone to get what they get: see, feel, believe what they see, feel, believe. Let us readers Be in the poem as we damn well want to Be.
With Massey's latest book -- this poet's on a ROLL writing/publishing -- there's SO MUCH sSspace you will find yourself wading into each page, slowly, and getting warm your own way, stopping, to, just let your mind build a trellis out of his beautifully chosen, few, words.
He of course doesn't just create space, he often uses the line to make the breath of the reader follow the shape of the space of land, air:
pulp mill steam plume falls
up against
dusk, the stretched red clouds
Like my singing bowl I'm fond of traveling out of myself with, I feel Massey's new book can place us, each, on our own plane, to the center of the sound's wave.
His political themes remind me of illustrator R. Crumb's drawing of a wooded area, still-by-still, becoming paved, human, shit.
1860
Indian Island
where they sing
the world's renewal
2005
Indian Island
where a few
private docks reside
Joseph Massey's new book BRAMBLE makes me feel fortunate I'm alive today to read his pages. There's a few dead poets I wish I could mail a copy to right now! They'd LOVE it! Is that silly? I never seem to know if I am silly, but poems for the living please, these poems for us! This much I am sure I know.
there's a metaphor
behind each
breath your life lets go
Thanks, and much love to YOU Mr. Massey,
CAConrad
