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The Oval Hour
In The Oval Hour Kathleen Peirce addresses the vulnerability of language -- which is to say the vulnerability of our reality -- when we are in extreme states of desire and loss, especially erotic desire and erotic loss. Central to the book is its series of "Confessions, " twenty formally similar poems that contend with the Confessions of Saint Augustine. "Passing through innocence, I came either to experience / or guilt, or they came to me, displacing innocence": these luminous poems explore the generation and overlapping of carnal and metaphysical identities.
- GenresPoetry
86 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 25, 2008
The illustration on the book jacket, invites a surrealistic world where it would not be surprising at all to think of the mind as mouth. (see Confessions of St. Augustine, p. 39).
Indeed, The Confessions are central to the book. What seems to concern the speaker in these poems is what hides truth, and what revelation vision, division and metamorphosis teach us. Ms. Peirce draws generously on myth and paintings and some of the poems are beautifully lush such as “Figure with Trees”. The idea of landscape coming to us, (whether in a painting or in real life) as opposed to us approaching the landscape is another recurring technique she uses as she wanders and ponders the metaphysics of openings, entrances, innocence, experience pleasure, desire. Some of the poems require great effort to decipher, beyond a sensation of “weird”. The language flows and creates an enchanting other-worldliness, but I do not see how it “addresses vulnerability” or “extreme states of desire and loss” referenced on the book jacket.
Although I am attracted to many of the ideas in the poems, I feel that I am reading a personal diary peppered with questions.
If the gaze stayed only with “I”, the reader could not escape the riddle of the personal.
Fortunately, Peirce uses other points of view. A painter, a ten year old, “her” or “him” and uncertain “you”. One of her best poems opens the collection. Ovidian. It is an invitation to see beyond what we see. “What feels like one is often two”. Ms. Peirce is comfortable in exploring the layers of appearances, delving to seek what is hidden. In “Nearness and Entrance” “absolute time had always been near… entered her seemingly/ by letting go at either end. In Divided Touch, Divided Color – Georges Seurat a macabre scene ends with the charcoal line of black birds, and the father, a black line eating snow.
Certainly, the poems require the reader to reconsider what it is that we see, and this odd sense of invisible lying beneath the surface, ready to enter into us. Demanding, but the reader is rewarded with new ways of framing questions.
Indeed, The Confessions are central to the book. What seems to concern the speaker in these poems is what hides truth, and what revelation vision, division and metamorphosis teach us. Ms. Peirce draws generously on myth and paintings and some of the poems are beautifully lush such as “Figure with Trees”. The idea of landscape coming to us, (whether in a painting or in real life) as opposed to us approaching the landscape is another recurring technique she uses as she wanders and ponders the metaphysics of openings, entrances, innocence, experience pleasure, desire. Some of the poems require great effort to decipher, beyond a sensation of “weird”. The language flows and creates an enchanting other-worldliness, but I do not see how it “addresses vulnerability” or “extreme states of desire and loss” referenced on the book jacket.
Although I am attracted to many of the ideas in the poems, I feel that I am reading a personal diary peppered with questions.
If the gaze stayed only with “I”, the reader could not escape the riddle of the personal.
Fortunately, Peirce uses other points of view. A painter, a ten year old, “her” or “him” and uncertain “you”. One of her best poems opens the collection. Ovidian. It is an invitation to see beyond what we see. “What feels like one is often two”. Ms. Peirce is comfortable in exploring the layers of appearances, delving to seek what is hidden. In “Nearness and Entrance” “absolute time had always been near… entered her seemingly/ by letting go at either end. In Divided Touch, Divided Color – Georges Seurat a macabre scene ends with the charcoal line of black birds, and the father, a black line eating snow.
Certainly, the poems require the reader to reconsider what it is that we see, and this odd sense of invisible lying beneath the surface, ready to enter into us. Demanding, but the reader is rewarded with new ways of framing questions.
June 5, 2019
“Because I cannot understand how things are made,
I seek to be perfected, to watch myself being made,
fluttering between the motions
of things past and to come, as if presence
is not possible in present time
except between the hands of was and going to be,
and not like between hands, but like between
the motions of the hands.” - “Confession 11.11.13”
I seek to be perfected, to watch myself being made,
fluttering between the motions
of things past and to come, as if presence
is not possible in present time
except between the hands of was and going to be,
and not like between hands, but like between
the motions of the hands.” - “Confession 11.11.13”
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews