The Charge

by Patrick Donnelly

Intense and pristine lyrics by a poet living in the age of AIDS. He takes his subject head-on without a shred of sentimentality or self-pity. In spite of its difficult subject, this is not a dark book. Gregory Orr has said of Donnelly that “everything he writes is suffused with tenderness and intelligence, lucidity and courage.” This is Donnelly’s first book.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this first collection by Patrick Donnelly, readers are expected to follow this poet’s spiritual journey as he struggles to find comfort in the traditional religions he was brought up with (and others he later came to explore), while the complicated physical and emotional tolls of living with HIV/AIDS constantly leash him to more human experiences. Many of the poems are written as prayers, or forms thereof (rune, riddle, conjurement, psalm, malediction), and this style creates some interesting moments by infusing this formal discourse with idiomatic elements. For example, the poem “Rune for Michael, Sick and Far Away” takes us through a litany of everyday items, such as a “kitchen with its pots and kettles” or the “knowledge of how to knot ties and drive cars with gears,” evoking their “power” to comfort a sick friend (28). However, other poems in the book, like “The Prodigal Son” (4-5), stay focused on religious mythology and never quite connect to their applicability today. Thus, overall, this collection was an uneven read, with some poems leaping immediately off the page and others making too broad of strokes to ever gel into a theme or other moment of poignancy.

[Maryjoamani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read The Charge a half dozen times and each time I am astounded by its strong emotional pull, causing me to weep, to laugh, to suck in my breath at Donnelly's audacity in putting on paper the kind of intimate details that can make me blush while reading. He's written another book Nocturnes at the Brothel of Ruin, equally wonderful, though for different reasons. The poems in The Charge, ostensibly about being gay and having AIDS, a culture and experience foreign to my own, speak to an underlying truth about our human condition, our simple desire for connection, for love. The poems stand separately but weave a story of a man searching for meaning and finding it, however much he protests, in his willingness to look with freshness at life, at the disease eating his body, at the deaths of so many friends, at beauty, and faith. It's a strong title and the poems live up to it--filled with electricity and connection.

[Phayvanh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Donnelley’s first collection offers up handfuls of prayer to those alone on the subway, bound to hospital beds, those with AIDS, and those that have passed through his heart on their exit from this world. His lyric is bittersweet and full-bodied, forgiving and well paced. Here is the voice of a man captivated by beauty’s pain and resilience. He has turned it into eloquent, restrained poetry.

[Liz Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional book of poetry. Donnelly writes about AIDS and all the passion, grief, rage, and even hope attendant on being a survivor of an epidemic. His language is evocative, precise and tender; some of the poems read like psalms. "Every Night," the short poem that closes the collection is one of my favorites: "One second before I click off / the light beside my bed / I shut my eyes, to pretend I choose / in which dark I'll sleep."

[Patricia Pedrus]

Poignant and heart throbbing.............

Patti