Book of poetry full of humility. wit
Throughout much of my life, poetry didn’t really grab me. As a kid, I loved trying to memorize “The Wreck of the Hesperus” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, though I couldn’t begin to tell you why. As a teenager, I’d often read song lyrics as poetry, just to make sense of the words. (Bob Dylan, anyone?)
But my experiences in college, slogging through classical poetry courses, left me feeling flat and, frankly, a little stupid. My poor professors would spend hours interpreting the words of John Keats, William Blake and John Donne. Their efforts were heroic as they tried to engage their young students to explore a higher level of thinking, one that may have been beyond the reach of many of us youngsters. All the while, I sat there wondering what the all excitement was about while desperately hiding my ignorance, hoping I would not be found out.
Fortunately, I matured and began to develop more appreciation for poetry. Someone gave me “A Coney Island of the Mind” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Soon, Gary Snyder’s Pulitzer Prize winning poetry collection, “Turtle Island,” found its way to me. The best of all? I fell head over heels for E.E. Cummings. His poem, “i carry your heart with me,” remains one of my favorites.
Then, along came Mary Oliver, with her smooth, shimmering voice and uncanny ability to breathe hope into a fresh blade of grass or the sweet notes of a songbird. Though sometimes panned by critics as being too simple, hordes of us love her, happily turning to her words for special occasions or to quietly contemplate while falling asleep after a lovely summer’s day.
Most recently, I had a richly satisfying reaction to reading “Cathedrals & Parking Lots” by Clemens Starck. (Empty Bowl, 2019.) I found myself fully engaged.
On a recent rainy afternoon, I curled up on the couch with this book. Like so many other collections of poetry, I began slowly slipping through the pages, stopping to read a poem and then, perhaps read it again. It was a lovey escape in these turbulent times.
I quickly discovered my penchant for Starck’s works was their clean, crisp accessibility. Words flowed together naturally, images entered my mind’s eye effortlessly. I was charmed by his ability to turn an everyday activity into a rich, meaningful experience.
Part of Starck’s appeal is that he writes of what he knows, a lifetime of physical labor in a variety of settings. This is not the typical stuff of poets and I find it somehow endearing. In “What We Are Doing,” Starck writes, “What we are doing is hard to explain. It would take diagrams and curse words, complicated facial expressions … It would be like trying to explain quarks and leptons to someone who has merely asked where the restrooms are.” It’s a delightful piece about two construction workers in a library, perched high on twin ladders, attending to a ceiling grid. But, it is also about so much more.
Whether laying railroad track, taking a Sunday drive in the country or recounting his 12-year-old self who dreams of becoming a crop duster, Starck includes us in his poems. His poems are full of humility and wit, desire and lamentation. I also appreciate his talent for capturing any number of our senses in a single phrase. I can feel the ocean waters he describes in “Ammo Ship” and see “the starry night in early spring” in the poem, “El Paso.”
There are scores of good poems in this collection. I keep returning to it to savor yet another little gem. (I already know two people who will be getting it for either a birthday or Christmas present and, oh, don’t forget Father’s Day.) What a lovely little find, especially now when life benefits from words, themes and images laid out in such a welcoming, inclusive fashion.
“Cathedrals & Parking Lots” can be ordered through local, independent bookstores, from the publisher, Empty Bowl, www. emptybowl.org, or https:// bookshop.org.
Tracey Barnes Priestley is a life coach with a master’s degree in community counseling psychology and more than 30 years of experience as a counselor, educator and consultant. Visit her website, www. thesecondhalfonline.com; email her at: tracey@ thesecondhalfonline.com; or send letters to 665 F St., Arcata, CA, 95521.