BOOKS
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After "the terrors, " in the final section the author prays for the
capacity to continue feeling, no matter the cost. He concludes the
poem with a paradoxical vision: the creation of the umverse, a
destruction.
there was a coin of light ; no voice inside
or further inside , not one choirboy did appear;
it was only a light made up of particles of light ,
it was just a black table soaked
in light and then the black broke down ,
split apart , dispersed with a purpose - like drops
of blood borne off a battlefield
on the backs of ants , and following : rain , rain .
In a decade in which much of the poetry being published seems
merely decorative, solipsistic, or willfully obscure, it is a pleasure to
read poems that quicken the senses and challenge the reader.
Half
Promised Land
is an excellent book .
Chapbooks are often poorly distributed and seldom get re–
viewed, yet they are an honorable tradition in the world of letters.
The Theory
&
Practice of Rivers
by Jim Harrison is a handsomel y pro–
duced volume and contains many fine drawings by Russell
Chatham .
Harrison's work is also influenced by Roethke, and like
Roethke, Harrison hails from rural Michigan. The title poem oc–
cupies most of the text. It is a long poem of tributaries, dams, and
diversions.
It is not so much that I got
there from here , which is everyone's
story , but the shape
of the voyage, how it pushed
outward in every direction
until it stopped... .
He meanders to the cities and people he has loved along his way . In
these voyagings he accumulates strength. His sentiments are a mix–
ture of the gruff and the tender. Harrison is most sure in his descrip–
tions of nature, his ability to create a correspondence with it .
