The Art of Mercy: New and Selected Poems

by Robert L. Penick

Robert L. Penick’s short, masterful poems have been showing up in small press magazines since the early 1990s. The Art of Mercy, his first full-length collection, contains excerpts from four chapbooks, as well as fifty-seven new and previously uncollected poems.

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Penick is a true man of the streets, chronicling with clear-eyed sensitivity the ordinary lives of marginalized people, the elderly, the forgotten, the blue-collar workplace, the seductions of alcohol, and the heartbreak of failed relationships..

Written in a straightforward narrative style, with deft use of metaphor, these poems sneak up on you with understated dignity.

The 100 poems collected in The Art of Mercy represent the best of a long, quiet career in the poetry trenches.

In Penick's own words:

“This book took forty years of staring out of windows, finding release in booze and borrowed women, and scraping away at an indistinct idea of kindness and deliverance, the way a would-be prison escapee would work on a cement seam, hoping someday to see the daylight on the other side of the wall. Along the way, I’ve acquired a good command of cliche-less narrative. My major accomplishment: Stamina.”

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2023

Reviews

[Keith Rosson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not to make this review about me, but some context is needed. I started my creative journey in my teens doing punk zines and writing poems. My long-running zine AVOW started out as an inglorious cut-and-paste mishmash of punk stuff and poetry, much of it requested from other writers. Robert Penick, the author of this book, was an early, long-time contributor to the zine; we even did a chapbook of poems together many years ago. Anyway, Bob has stuck with the poetry game for decades now, quietly publishing hundreds of pieces in hundreds of journals, and his first full-length collection, THE ART OF MERCY, has just come out. It's truly fantastic, spanning thirty years worth of selected works, and while his style has tightened over the years, become more economic and sparse, the beating heart of it - the sadness, the measured hours, the moments of quiet contentment - has never flagged. This is a collection of beautiful, contemplative work, and I 100% recommend it.

[Steven Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Robert L. Penick’s poetry in issue 18 of Aji. His poems “Man as Cartoon” and “Asphalt” appeared after one of my poems. It was love at first read! I was excited when the release date finally came for The Art of Mercy. The poems in The Art of Mercy foster a secretive withness with people (“Personals”), places (“The Joy of Cofer Avenue”), struggles (“Getting Sober Again”), and things (“Purchase”). The first line after the collection’s title poem reads “begins with surrender” and the poem concludes with “Master this and discover / Charity. Grace. Love.” As you read and reread these poems, let Penick help you contemplate with striking honesty charity, grace, love, and so much more!

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought Henry Miller said he likes to read writers after his own heart but I could find no proof. There is something like it from the Bible: “King David was considered "a man after God's own heart."
In The Art of Mercy you’ll find a poet after your heart and soul. It would be easy to walk a spiritual path describing this collection. Bibles are sold door to door. God is mentioned 7 times, a crucifix twice, a communion wafer, Sunday Mass, the rosary and a prayer flag but move on: Helios, Samsara, Elysium, Sirens, Odyssus and Pegasus appear; Munch, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. Down to earth, find the Quarterpole Bar, racehorse talk, Secretariat, hope, booze dependance, drying out, recovery, sobriety. There’s love and failed relationships, sex, growing up, growing old, retirement and death, parents, friends and a daughter, fear, loneliness, trailer parks, Dollar General, the Confederacy, fire, past and future. The Holocaust is twice handled with care. This is poetry and its turns of phrase, drama and images that are the proof.

Here are your bread crumbs.

“the future’s fanged, open mouth”
*
“Winter arrives like a rude inlaw”
*
“Embrace the prodigal day”
*
“Yet another carried a snifter of kindness”
*
“the replacement value of this scarred life”
*
“with a reptile’s precision
she inches across great swarths
of uneven asphalt”
*
“1974. You were ten years old
the world was an unbuttoned blouse”
*
“The wind makes the japonica bush and your
remaining hair dance like seaweed in a riptide.”
*
“If you hand him a bouquet
he will hear each flower scream”
*
“The calendar begins to laugh
Objects in the rearview mirror
are miniscule compared to
the images you have on file.”

[Johnny Cordova · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the editor of The Art of Mercy, I read the manuscript before it went to print. So I have the privilege of being the first reviewer.

The Art of Mercy is divided into six sections:

The first consists of forty-eight new and previously uncollected poems. Some of what I consider Penick’s strongest poems are in this section.

The next four consist of excerpts from four chapbooks, starting with the recent Exit, Stage Left (2018), winner of the Slipstream chapbook contest, and ending with Blue Forms (1999), winner of the Chiron Review chapbook contest.

The last section consists of a series of nine new poems, all titled “When You’re Old.” After journeying back through time with the chapbook excerpts, the “When You’re Old” poems re-situate the reader in the present. Penick’s humor and understated dignity are on full display in these closing poems.

I worked closely with Penick to make the selections for The Art of Mercy and feel confident that this collection represents the best of his output over the past three decades. There are exactly 100 poems collected. It’s a “greatest hits” compilation in the best usage of the phrase.

It’s not easy getting a book of poetry published in this current climate, especially when you are a self-taught, working-class poet with no MFA connections. The Art of Mercy is Penick’s first full-length collection, and while it is long overdue, I feel it is perfect timing—some of his best poems have been written in the past few years.

I’m honored to have worked with Penick on The Art of Mercy. I hope you will purchase a copy. It’s a book that deserves to be read.