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Open Books: Events
September 29, 2008 07:30 PM
JANE MEAD
The Usable Field ($14.95 Alice James) is Jane Mead's most recent
book, a fine collection of spare, haunted poems. The locale of this work is
California ranchland, arid and sparse. And in that locale Ms. Mead finds an
unusual kind of nature poetry, not one of embracing or being embraced by
nature, but one more close to clutching nature in response to deep grief.
"In the high and mighty grasses / the dead lean on the living / like nobody's business, -- // they think we are their mission," is how the book begins.
What follows are lovely and often sad poems of perseverance -- "best I can
do these days is hope / for some way to keep the rote days rote."
Wistfulness, colloquial phrasing, and a delightfully odd, light touch bring
such character to her poems that there's comfort in being her companion in
this terrain. The emotions here are tough and clearly hard-earned. Ms. Mead
appears to find acceptance, even cause for quiet celebration, in the
presence of a difficult, beautiful, and indifferent world.
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