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New Books - 05/07
In a Dybbuk's Raincoat: Collected Poems by Bert Meyers ($24.95 University of New Mexico) What a thrilling and welcome book. Chances are you are unfamiliar with the poetry of Bert Meyers, a phenomenal but under-recognized lyric poet who died in 1979 at the age of 51 and whose work has been largely unavailable for years. We first came upon his lucid, image-rich poems in a used-book shop and ever since have hoped to be able to one day stock his work. This volume gathers poems from all five of his published books as well as some unpublished poetry, journal excerpts, and two reminiscences about Meyers -- one by Garrett Hongo, his student. Born in Los Angeles to Sephardic Jews, Meyers dropped out of high school, working a variety of manual-labor jobs and eventually becoming a master picture-framer and gilder
(tools and wood appear in his writing). He wrote throughout this period, the quality of his work ultimately gaining him entry to graduate school and leading to his final profession as teacher. Denise Levertov, whose essay on Meyers is reprinted as an introduction to the book, called him "one of the best poets of our time." And it is easy to see why. His graceful, often poignant poems are filled with startling, revealing imagery. His vision is unflinching, his ear musical, his tone embracing but often cool -- "Spring, that young man / is wearing the shirt / I was wounded in." Family, work, landscapes of all types and sizes -- human society and nature -- are rendered with clarity, economy, and freshness: "You stare (propped like a sick man) / from the car's enchanted bed. // A hill nibbles at a field's green fork.. // And all along the coast / the sun drives over the sea. / Its windshields glitter in the waves." Ah, it's so difficult to quote just a few lines from this bounty of deeply and complexly satisfying poems, poems with "a style / so clear it could wash a face." But how wonderful to now have the chance to do so.
Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball ($19.95 Norton) Here's a fine opportunity to delight in the perfectly logical union
of these small, open Japanese poetry forms with the American-invented sport
not ruled by a clock. The beauty of each results from a sequence of seemingly mundane acts. This thick, squat hardcover features the work of thirty American and fifteen Japanese poets. A couple taken at random -- "the boy not chosen / steps over home plate / picks up his books" by Edward J. Rielly, and "the autumn sky / appearing and falling away / a home run ball" by Ozawa Seiyushi.
Earlier Poems by Franz Wright ($26.95 Knopf) This collection presents the work from four of Wright's books published between 1982 and 1995 and as such is a chronicle of his development into the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet he has become. Dark vision, dark humor, and self-deprecation -- "By some inexplicable oversight // nobody jeers when I walk down the street" -- thrive in these early poems, elements he has polished in his more recent books. There is a strong measure of youthful despairing here, as he finds his way to the mature, elegantly weary voice that has of late brought him a measure of renown.
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