Sherry Chandler » 2008 » January » 21
The American Heritage Dictionary defines wit, among other things, as
- Keenness and quickness of perception or discernment
- The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things
- A person of exceptional intelligence
Marilyn Taylor has wit.
In Subject to Change (David Robert Books, 2004), Taylor links an edgy, modern idiom with traditional forms and the result is constant surprise and delight.
How witty, for example, to form an ars poetica as typically American praise for a favorite car: “In Memory of the Nissan Stanza Wagon, 1982-1996″
Perhaps it was because we knew our beat
so well, the basic letter of the law,
while improvising several ways to cheat
a little, cut some corners, raise the baron all the disagreements, groans and whines
about what Stanzas could or couldn’t do.
So if one comes your way, check out the lines
and brakes. Make it yours. And make it new.
These stanzas (ahem) offer a pretty good description of what Taylor does in this collection: she takes the old forms (sonnets, villanelles, rondeaus…) and makes them new, makes them hers.
Taylor is fond of cycles. The crown of sonnets, “Notes from the Good Girl Chronicles,” plays, I think, on Molly Peacock’s signature poem “Good Girl.” It cycles from youth to age, from stewardess to stage mother to crone. The Aunt Eudora poems, “Aunt Eudora’s Harlequin Romance,” “Aunt Eurdora in Paris,” and “How Aunt Eudora Became a Post-Modern Poet,” show us not youth, but age, in rebellion. A glimpse of “Aunt Eudora in Paris:”
Eudora lifts one eyebrow, pats her hair,
and with a queenly autocratic look
says: Vas faire foutre a la vache, monsieur!
and turns again, serenely, to her book.
Time and aging are the themes of Subject to Change, which may be the source of much of their appeal to me as a woman of a certain age. These poems don’t tug at my heartstrings, however, as much as they activate my neurons. They inspire more anger than nostalgia. They incite one not to go so very gently into that goodnight.
They are also, sometimes, deceptively light-hearted. Sorrow at the human condition sort of sneaks up and grabs you as you read these poems, just when you think you’re having a lark.
Take “Rondeau: Old Woman With Cat”
Osteoporosis (one of life’s indignities)
is such a splendid name for the disease—
all those little o’s, holes in the bone
where the rain gets in, rendering a crone
like me defective, porous as swiss cheese.
The form is perfect, the tone jaunty, all those internally rhyming long Os in the bones. And yet, those of us who are aging or who have had an aging mother know that the subject is deadly serious.
This is whistling past the graveyard.
Or the mantelpiece, as in “Posthumous Instructions”
After the fire, when I am rattling in my urn
and have no more to say to you, go home.
Have lunch. Ignore me, while I try to learn
the etiquette of ash and clinkerdom.
Like Louise Glück in Averno, Marilyn Taylor faces up to death without flinching. But where Glück finds tragedy, Taylor finds comedy.
Who is to say which is the higher form?
Read Barbara Crooker’s review at Valparaiso Review and Diane Lockward’s at Smartish Pace.
This post was written by sherry
On this day observed in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., consider these words:
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
…
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
…
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
…
Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
This post was written by sherry
