Green is the Orator

New California Poetry

by Sarah Gridley

Green is the Orator follows on Sarah Gridley’s brilliant first collection, Weather Eye Open, in addressing the challenge of representing nature through language. Gridley’s deftly original syntax arises from direct experience of the natural world and from encounters with other texts, including the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" and the writings of Charles Darwin, Peter Mark Roget, William Morris, William James, and Henri Bergson. Gridley’s own idiom is compressed, original, and full of unexpected pleasures. This unusual book, at once austere and full of life, reflects a penetrating mind at work—one that is thinking through and re-presenting romantic and modernist traditions of nature.

Genres: Poetry

106 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

BA Harvard University, 1990
MFA University of Montana, 2000

Assistant Professor of English, Case Western Reserve University

Reviews

[C · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few years ago, whenever I encountered poetry that made no sense to me, I blamed myself for being too dense to understand it. After getting an MFA from a top 5 school and starting medical school I eventually was forced to come to the conclusion that I am not a stupid person. So now I'm going to say confidently: this collection makes no sense.

The gorgeous cover and lovely title seduced me into picking this book up, but I was quickly disappointed. Gridley arranges words without much care for meaning-making--which I might let slide if the musicality of the poems were stunning. But they're not. These are the sort of inscrutable pieces that students unfamiliar with poetry think of when they imagine a poem: pretty, abstract, and impenetrable. Frankly the only emotion these poems evoked in me was annoyance.

[Melissa Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book, teeming with wordplay and odd word pairings. Intellectual, innovative, and bold. Highly recommended.

"Moon to light the spaces of the glossary. Birdless oak
of folded wings, shadows clotting the moon-green crown."

(from Against the Throne and Monarchy of God)

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

guest
and guessed are one to me

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gridley is a challenging poet to me. Because there are moments where I feel as though I'm truly participating with the poem, reading it on her terms, and understanding something I hope she's intending to express. The first section of this book, I feel she creates a lyric nature poetry that is unlike what I've read before. My closest comparison is Emily Wilson's The Keep. In both books, there are these dense descriptions of landscape, where language is almost derailed from the literal, and instead used like a lexical paint.

I know this might not make any sense. The sounds, the arrangements of sentences, the employment of fragments all create a deeper, metaphysical sense of nature. The difference between the poems centers around the rhythm. Wilson is deeply invested in how the speaker feels in this landscape. Gridley seems to have accomplished the rhythm that would be nature's rhythm. The poems are more static, more there. And I'm surprised by how this is probably a more accurate description.

My main problem comes with the third section, where I feel that the poems go back to the style of Weather Eye Open. I'm just not able to follow along. I want to. And I'm sure I'll return to this book to try.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book disturbed me. Sometimes in a good way, but sometimes not. I felt like I was digging for clams. I would get really frustrated with a poem, but then would find a line that made me see a concept in an entirely new way. I longed for the lines to make me see the poems in new ways. But they were too disconnected to do that.

Here are some of the clams, which are delicious:

"the come-loose asterisks/ of starfish bones."
"I feel before I want to know."
"A body is mainly its branches."
"This region that moves the voice is made of ears."
"Gum tree, gum tree, no gum tree, gum tree."
"In the kind of sex that is metonym for spirit."
"Do not think of the water with foliage in it."
"I have turned the kettle on to forgetting.
"Where the green pump calls for wonderful arms"
"I came through my birth a little bit ragged."

[Jesica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but must admit that I had a hard time following the poems. I would start to read a poem, and felt I had a good grasp of the first image but then as I continued to read, the beautiful amazing images all turned to mush. I just felt a lot of images were just too opaque. Beautiful, wish-I-had-come-up-with-some-of-them, but opaque. Three poems stand out: Miscellany, First Inspirations of the Nitrous Oxide, Pneumatic Institute, 1799 (one poem title), and Second Inspirations of the Nitrous Oxide. This book of poems is one where I will gladly revisit.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

My undergraduate mentor! Her title, a nod to Wallace Stevens, sets the tone of the collection. Ms. Gridley is concerned with green--the color, vegetation, how to live more mindful of the earth. Orator is important--oration not just of speeches but of sounds. It's a quiet urgency in the collection--to let the orator within speak.

[Stef · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind-blowing sophomore collection. The pieces are much quieter than the ones in Weather Eye Open - they breathe much more easily, they mull and meditate and extend an inviting hand to the reader to join in their mindful contemplations. Simply amazing.

[Nia]

The first collection I have read in a long time which bowled me over with awe, envy and language-induced shivers. Thanks to Roddy L for the recommendation!