Silver: Poems

by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Rowan Ricardo Phillips’s fourth collection is a book as lustrous as the metal of its title.

This beautiful, slender collection―small and weighted like a coin―is Rowan Ricardo Phillips at his very best. These luminous, unsparing, dreamlike poems are as lyrical as they are virtuosic. “Not the meaning,” Phillips writes, “but the meaningfulness of this mystery we call life” powers these poems as they conjure their prismatic array of characters, textures, and moods. As it reverberates through several styles (blank verse, elegy, terza rima, rhyme royal, translation, rap), Silver reimagines them with such extraordinary vision and alluring strangeness that they sound irrepressibly fresh and vibrant. From beginning to end, Silver is a collection that reflects Phillips’s guiding principle―“part physics, part faith, part void”―that all is reflected in poetry and poetry is reflected in all.

This is work that brings into acute focus the singular and glorious power of poetry in our complex world.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Hardcover

Published March 5, 2024

About the author

Rowan Ricardo Phillips is the author of Heaven (2015) and The Ground( 2012). He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Gregory Duke]

Another National Book Award longlistee without much going on. Rowan Ricardo Phillips' poems appear more convoluted than they really are, but they don't end up amounting to any grand formal/thematic goals that speak to me. I was either cringing or ambivalent.

Anyway, here are some examples of stanzas that made my bones rattle in ennui before I gave up on this:

"Rowan Tree"

I’d swallowed time just so I could get things / Right. I was a present to myself but went / Right past it. I called myself it and sat / With it, sad with it, and yet couldn’t find / The lie in it. It suited me to a / T. Without it, who would I be? I was / So tired but scared to say it: knowing / What tends to come after—I zipped it. / I parabolaed between parables...

"Romanticism"

So I do and then I don't as I do.

"The Triumph of Song"

Which is what writing poetry is really like: / The dark blood zoning forwards and backwards / In the brain, the heart like grass in a bowl, / And the burning horizon’s sharp swagger

All of it part physics, part faith, part void.

[Cam Waller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorgeous collection with pulsive modern themes. Repetitive, though not in a way that bores; rather, cements. Reinforces.

[Mara]

Favorite poem in this collection was "Biographia Literaria"

"I start with sorrow,
Then feign joy
In the rhythm method." (p.4)

"Like when the greatest love
You'll ever have begins to blend with the paint,
And that feeling, how it won't have been the first time,
And that feeling, how it won't yet be the last time,
Not yet, the last time coming (p.23)

"Night is the political symbol we're unable
To make less literal
A blindness to simple
Basic kindness" (p.37)

"I've had these things and what they half create,
Which is just half of what I recognize
And welcome as nature in its own sense" (p.54)

"When time, that invention of the mind, finally reveasls
Not the meaning but the meaningfulness of this mystery we
call life" (p.59)

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the jacket blurb states, this collection reflects the poet’s guiding principle—“part physics, part faith, part void”—that “all is reflected in poetry and poetry is reflected in all,” not the meaning, of course, but “the meaningfulness of this mystery we call life.” Yes. No. And/Or. Other. The temporary solution for X. All of the above.

“To be described, or just some mortal sleep,
That blank canvas behind our closed eyelids
Where dreams save us, and we all become gods.”
—from “El Pintor,” p. 17

To know, deep in your heart, that every poem has already been written. To know that poetry, like the universe itself, began with its smallest particle, the syllable, expanding and contracting through time. To live a little. To die often. To accept that poetry is older than reflex, that it predates intention, that it is the breath your breath takes before you breathe.”
—from “Biographia Literaria,” p. 24

“Poetry is seance and silence and science. . .
So the ears can see what the eyes don’t see
Like a silver river that bends out of sight
But still roars in your head
As the River Man said it would
On those sleepless nights
When you hear the living
And the dead
Complicit as kites
Rhyming about civil rights.”
—from “Fantasia in a Time of Plague,” p. 38


Favorite Poems:
“The First and Final Poem Is the Sun”
“Biographia Literaria”
“A Brief History of Barcelona”
“Prelude”
“Postlude”
“Fantasia in a Time of Plague”
“The God of Stories”
“Screens”
“Child of Nature”
“The First and Final Poem Is the Sun”

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book because it was long-listed for the National Book award. It's my first time reading this poet. This is one of those poetry books that's for those in the know about poetry so I don't know how much it would be enjoyed by someone not in the know. I'd say I'm about 50% in the know about the classical and allusions he's making to his poet predecessors. He hides nothing in the table of contents itself, which includes titles such as Paradise Lost, Romanticism, Biographia Literaria, Prelude, Key West, Ars Poetica. Okay, so from the getgo I've clearly run smack into a poetry book full of poems about other poems or the writing of poems. This is usually a groanable state of affairs for me. I prefer poems that talk about the world outside of poetry. However, I have to admit, I really enjoyed this book, especially the way he talks back to Wordsworth and the Romantics. Does it make me want to run out and buy more of his books? No, but I enjoyed hearing him grapple with the tension between earlier poets, especially their focus on nature, and the world he lives in. He does so with an admirable balance of appreciation and pushback.

Some of the poems in this book are linked on this page of Phillips' website:
https://rowanricardophillips.com/sele...
They are: Rowan Tree, Key West, La Pulga, El Pintor, Prelude.

[John Lorenc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ricardo Rowan Phillips is just a fantastic poet. Everything he writes comes with a new perspective, a new take on what poetry can do. It's difficult for me to say too much about his poems because I believe his poems have to be individually experienced by each reader. When you read one of his poems you'll want to read it again. There's so much in each line, stanza, word. I love how he reinterprets other admirable poet's work by including his thoughts within the context of his own poem. He does this with Stevens, Wordsworth, Auden, and Eliot. It's like listening to a great jazz composition, whereby there's these little phrases from other legendary jazz musicians included and riffed on in the new composition. The performance of the new piece re-generates and transforms the old into the new, while forging ahead, leaving us in awe.

[Jennings · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was strange and modern and often beautiful. I didn’t like them all but the ones I did like were excellent.

Particularly: “the first and final poem is the sun”, “the triumph of song”, “nobody” as a nod to the Odyssey, “el pintor”, “biographia literaria”, and “Prelude”


——-
(1) “Not the meaning but the meaningfulness we call life”

(2) “All of it part physics, part faith, part void”

(4) “everyone wants in. to be described, or just some mortal sleep, That blank canvas behind our closed eyelids, Where dreams save us, and we alll become gods”

(5) “to accept that poetry is older than reflex, that it predates intention, that it is the breath your breath takes before you breathe”

[Leonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the back cover of this book Craig Morton Teicher describes the poet as "..accessible, but never more than a couple of rungs down from high art, never far from beauty, able at any moment to toss off poetry's most ponderous questions without answers, like ' is a poem the wonder or the matter? ' " Another reviewer, Elizabeth Lund describes the poet's language as " hauntingly astute." However to me these poems, despite being short and compact, seemed vague and inaccessible. Check it out and see what you think. Nov, 2024

[James Roane · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was searching for a book of poetry that matched my vibe and thoughts I came across this one first. Silver, is beautifully composed and is a wonderful read. I read a poem a day and it would take me, during the time it took to read one, into a world of absurd but relatable and interesting thoughts. Rowan found away to put these feelings into his own words and stanzas making a story of maturing thought. One poem was so short and I read it thinking what? This is too short. But now it’s the only one I can fully remember and it still intrigues me, this is the genius behind this book.

[Catherine Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of poems was great. Loved it!! Some of the.poetry confused me for a.bit. when you read it again , its like "oh I got it now!". I love this kinds of poetry. You really gotta think about it when your reading it. If you like deep thinking poetry then you would want to read this collection of beautiful poems.

I received a free copy of the book and is voluntarily writing a review

[Natalie T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb collection by a master poet at the peak of his powers--so beautiful, so various, so new. Don't miss the astonishing "Child of Nature," or "Fantasia in a Time of Plague," or "The Triumph of Song," or "La Pulga," or the magic of "The First and Final Poem is the Sun," which both begins and ends the volume (but with a surprise that delights with discovery). A perfect read for the last day of the year, read in bright morning sunshine. Wow.

[Byram · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was on a list of “anticipated books of poetry” that I found online and it did not disappoint. Accessible but beautifully constructed. A mixture of sweet and science and the beauty in the mundane. The poem about the beauty of the game of Messi was a standout, but all are worth the read

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m very glad I read these poems. These poems bristle with a quiet energy. They move across the pages with craft and guile and wisdom. They reveal things I hadn’t thought before - or seen, but now do.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic poetry collection that focuses on existentialism, death, physics, and some wonderful, darker imagery. Definitely pick this up when it comes out in March!

[cady_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection of poems. I am still “new” to reading poetry but each poem struck me as beautiful and will stick with me. I plan to buy a physical copy of this collection as well.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine mix of style and refreshing humor. A good place to begin reading poetry, and a collection worth mining for experienced readers.

[Eric]

My review at Open Letters: https://openlettersreview.com/posts/s...

[Chris L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some beautiful lines and scraps of imagery within the book. However, I found the poems didn't come together as a cohesive unit.

[YSahara HH · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the repetition/matching poems. Some really striking lines and the themes of sun and silver brought up in numerous beautiful ways. A short collection yet quite dense with meaning.

[Dree · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short but enjoyable collection, about general life in an interesting way, many referencing Covid. The author clearly lives in or has lived in Spain, as several poems reference Spain in ways that are clearly not by a tourist.

My fave: La pulga--this poem is several pages long, and is about a professional soccer player and a game that was told to the player by the narrator when the player was a child

Others:
Prelude
Postlude
Both about grandmother dying, “saw it coming and she left" it being COVID

En el tie no indeciso (airplane)