Poetry with a punch
Pittsburgh native’s poetic straight talk goes deep
In poetry as in life, clarity earns trust. “Kingdom,” Joseph Millar’s fourth book, is filled with straight talk, with poems that speak with an honesty and generosity that disarm whatever misgivings a reader may bring to a book of poems. These poems are open doors, invitations to explore the wildness of our world and the depth of the human heart.
“Kingdom” covers a lot of territory: Mr. Millar writes about everything from horses to porn stars, from Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow to roofers in Paris. The most compelling moments arise when Mr. Millar writes about family and the body. Consider this section from “Semi-Retired”: populated with the objects of this world, with black pans and train stations, with dandelions and the Oprah channel, the larger intellectual dilemmas Mr. Millar approaches never feel abstract or overbearing. The world of these short, lyric poems is a microcosm of our own, making the book hard to close once opened.
Many poems take risks, most often by interrogating our culture’s ideas of masculinity. Even though Mr. Millar, a baby-boomer and a native of the Pittsburgh area, comes from a generation of men that often shies from talking of emotions, there is a striking emotional honesty permeating this collection.
“Bad Love Affair” begins with the speaker walking alone through a city, describing how “the night grows larger inside you, / stars, the sparks from a lit cigarette thrown down onto Dolores Street.” The poem ends in a bar, with the speaker watching clips of ’80s middleweight fights. The final image portrays “Tommy Hearns from Detroit / who would smile in the ring / like he had a secret / every time he was hurt.” Lucid and complex, this image, which on its surface acknowledges that men often mask their feelings, also serves as an admission of pain. The speaker identifies with the fighter, revealing that he, too, is hurt. And so the poem undercuts our culture’s prescription that males be stoic by acknowledging the norm and challenging it.
This is a brave collection, deeply engaged with life. These poems are vivid and direct — they are blazons marking our mortal trail, a guide to our interior lives. They document what it means to be a human moving through this world, this kingdom.