pagesofjulia

Quick housekeeping announcement: it seems to be time to return to a three-day-a-week schedule here, at least for a while. I’ve got so many reviews to share with you! See you back here this Wednesday.

Thanks, Vince, for the perfect recommendation.

Amy Gerstler reminds me of Amy Leach, in the best ways. Her poems are pleasingly filled with objects, with stuff, as forecast by her epigraph, from Lao Tzu: “He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.” While well-grounded in real things, these poems are simultaneously concerned with spiritual and conceptual themes, too. I appreciated the organization into five sections: Kissing; Womanishness; Dust of Heirs, Dust of Ancestors; What I Did With Your Ashes; Only at Certain Sacred Locations. I felt each section hung together recognizably. (This already represents more success than I sometimes find with a poetry collection.) I loved as well Gerstler’s versatile tone – she can make me laugh and cry, and snort at her irreverence, and sit quietly with her reverence, all within a few lines. This was an easy, rewarding read.

That title, What I Did With Your Ashes: awesome. So suggestive in so many directions. I love it.

And the collection’s title, too: Scattered at Sea makes several suggestions to me. I think of scattering ashes, of marine life, of detritus, of wide dispersal across seven seas, and of scattered minds. The cover art (which extends to the title page[s]) suggests again that mess of stuff that always pleases me so. When I travel into poetry, I’m always a little less comfortable, but the stuff-n-things comfort me.

I like that these poems occasionally rhyme. It feels like each rhyme is more effective for its rarity – kind of like in prose, actually.

I propose that the poem “Disclaimer” is a reverse hermit crab, in the sense that Suzanna Paola and Brenda Miller define a hermit crab essay: one that takes the form of a different kind of text, like an essay in the form of an instruction manual or doctor’s notes or recipe. This is a poem in form, but its content feels taken from a different form. I liked how that lit up my brain.

Here are a few of my favorites lines.

On waking, if seized by an urge to munch shrubs,
give in.

Chew dew-bejeweled weeds till they complain

…as I sip this morning’s cocktail, an eye-opener
after last night’s revels: bitters mixed with curds of cloud.

Now the whole inscrutable crew has lost my vote.

One should give light to the whole world,
And when that gets tiring, lie down on various gregarious grasses.

And besides those quoted above, some of my favorite poems include “Fall On Your Knees,” “Ancestor Psalm,” “Extracts From the Consoler’s Handbook,” “He Sleeps Every Afternoon,” “Miraculous,” and “Sassafras.” I am waiting to discuss with Vince my questions about “Childlessness,” which has two stanzas that feel very different, almost opposite each other. Is there a name for that? It leaves in question the narrator’s final stance on childlessness. I often appreciate such ambiguities.

I can see myself continuing to reread and study this one. Scattered at Sea is a good fit for me; full credit, Vince.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: objects, poetry |