The White Words

by Baron Wormser

Poems deal with history, nature, death, childhood, self-knowledge, and small town life

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Benjamin]

“There are names for everyone, for every day,
And every sort of weather…To study people
You must be free and easy and remember nothing.
Then you will see what it is about each one of them
That has passing significance. There is a book somewhere. In it are names, as beautiful as they are obscure.”

Excerpt from “Passing Significance”
(P.3)

[Shara Azad]

"The White Words" is Wormser's first volume of poetry, and as the opening act to a lifetime of writing, the book does a fabulous job is setting up Wormser as a master of wry humor within direct, succinct language. "The White Words" is split into four parts--part I seems to draw more upon the experience of living in rural America, using short sentences to capture the mundane imagery of small-towns and nature. Wormser's style seems to be to tie images together with statements of gravity toward the end, but even these lines maintain his simple diction. He closes his poem "Of Small Towns," with the lines: "It is these towns that dignify the slimmest/of lives with a history, remembering even dogs/with an earnest pleasure, a rush of anecdote and regret," an exemplification of the beauty in well-arranged simple language.
Wormser also demonstrates in this book that he is a master of humor. Some of the poems in "The White Words" touch upon Wormser's experience writing poetry. Of poets in "Uncle Poetry" he writes, "They want you to like what they like./ They are all little dictators in that way." A wry tone shines through his words as he pokes fun at himself as a poet. This tone is established throughout this book, even in his experimentations with rhyme. But then the range of Wormser's abilities is also demonstrated as he takes on weightier subjects such as the death of a parent (see title piece, "The White Words") and heartache in "Nothing But" as he switches his tone from one satirical to another more empathetic, while still maintaining a beautiful Hemingway-esque sparseness in diction.