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| Close to me and Closer... (The Language of Heaven) Désamère |
| Alice Notley |
| 'O' Books, San Francisco, 1995 |
Review by Christopher North  |
| Her style seems indulgent at first – the poems go on and on – but they fascinate. They seem to me be in the stream of Whitman and Ginsberg – long perorations on a riff – the riff found is stubbornly held on to but it does organically evolve – I sense that there is comparatively little revision; that the poems are written on sustained burns of energy. Her forward notes suggest this. Her concerns in the first sequence the way the parental guidance received as a child continues as a voice in your head forever – here it is given voice. The parental guidance is itself evolved though so that it explores things far more than it would have done in its earthly form. I like the attempts to convey the no-time the dead occupy if it is assumed that in some way they continue to exist. The narrative techniques are innovatory and I found I could relate to them quite quickly. The second sequence follows the same dialogue idea but this time a French poet that clearly had a profound influence on AN and who had died at around about the time she was born. She uses an odd device of giving the dead poet the verbal habits and style of a teacher – she says tormented her at school; the French poet Desnos. Through this vehicle the poet interprets American history – particularly with reference to Vietnam – where clearly her brother was a combatant. These, overlong but enjoyable sequences conclude with a series of desert poems grounded in Arizona. She is an interesting poet. Much more interesting really than most of the mainstream people at present who seem to me to be writing the same thing over and over – elegantly but without real originality. Sample of Part 1: ‘I become…god’s thoughts. They are…it is a…center. But not of a …space, you Know. This…the world’s cosmos, I guess…doesn’t have a center, as if it were a place. The center of it, is from inside god. Where you can be. Why call that center?…If you Were there…And it feels…it is born & isn’t born. Both. That’s how it’s…the center somehow. The world is of…made of…what is, & isn’t there. Because what’ and: Door to the Desert The desert sun has spiky rays No the desert sun’s a floating round ruby Plants itself center of the cross – it’s a world’s trouble, it’s the blood of an are becoming ancient, turning itself into geology A haloed rosebud wants to speak A black tortoise crawls nearer bringing night Why is no one ‘real’ here…’No one’s appearance anywhere is ever that person,’ says the skull The skull becomes a hand, writing with pen and paper The hand then becomes a red skull with a hole in its pate through which something winged squeezes It’s only a tiny black insect, it has white wings as wide as the sky The earth’s a snake with a bright red tongue, the snake’s everywhere though its tongue flickers nearby Desert dancing red motes – There’s the real sun there black hole in the sky |
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To read too many books is harmful. Mao Tse Tung |
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