Shy Green Fields

by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

Hugh Behm-Steinberg's Shy Green Fields is in company with books by poets who wrote about glorious ordinary days in extraordinary times. In a pillowbook of a hundred seven-line poems, this life, as it is written, has the shadow of Robert Creeley's A Day Book behind it, and the shadow of Federico Lorca in his famous, reiterated line, Green, I love you, green, . a specific, and pacific, emotional response in difficult political times. Behm-Steinberg's book is, likewise, carnal, primal, and intellectual. Shy Green Fields exults in experience, Such versions! --Jane Miller

Genres: Poetry

114 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2007

About the author

Recipient of a Wallace Stegner and NEA Creative Writing Fellowships, Hugh Behm-Steinberg is the author of two collections of poetry, Shy Green Fields (No Tell Books) and The Opposite of Work (2nd Edition, Doubleback Books). In 2015 his short story "Taylor Swift" won the Barthelme Prize for short fiction, and his story "Goodwill" was picked as one of the Wigleaf Top Fifty Very Short Fictions of 2018. His most recent book, Animal Children, a collection of prose poems and micro-fiction, was published by Nomadic Press in 2020. He teaches writing and literature at California College of the Arts.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review first appeared in MiPoesias

SHY GREEN FIELDS by Hugh Behm-Steinberg / No Tell Books / 978-0-6151-6133-4 / 106pps

Hugh is a lusty fellow. He tells us right off the bat with the first of his untitled 7-line poems; “I cannot talk without my body, my/body keeps leaning into you” and “I know the joys/that unbutton you” .. I believe I’d have to follow lines like that home. The book is dedicated to Mary and what a homage he gives to her; “the angelfood cake in the basement” .. “Your body is so literal: low, and/out, so sleepiness and sugar.” .. “I/am turning into you, tuning into you.” .. “I like your scent,//the tendencies, the exactly how.” .. “we’ll turn all the//appliances off and watch the tomatoes grow.” .. Such a gentle, deliberate lover. (Judy Tenuta would have assuredly given him her gum!)

and this poem in it’s entirety;

Actually brave, only appearing tentative
as a kind of slyness, some soft dust;

you can see you, peeling off of
you, your voice, reaching out, the branches,

the radio glow of the sky, a possibility of ticking,
see - it was hardly known, so we hung back,

oiled into ourselves, budding green shoots, sleep.

But his love is not all licentious eloquence and evenness, he allows a playfulness to creep in; “Let’s do the sleep, let’s do the stumble,/let’s park, early high, early green, new.” It’s sustainable living via her body, juxtaposed with all of nature. One metaphors the other. A continuity of their ebb and flow, their breathing and exhaling. And these poems float from each other, existing as if off the last word, as if believing the last line and following it home.

[Allison Goldstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, maybe I am a little biased but from the moment I started reading Hugh's book I wanted to start writing beautiful 7 line poems and that is the highest compliment I can give any collection of writing-- my need to want to imitate.

Really lovely in such an intimate way without feeling invasive. There are a few I remembered reading here and there but to see them working all together was really a treat.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like this book as much as I do, you may also be interested in reading this interview with Hugh Behm-Steinberg: http://wordswithwriters.com/2010/04/0...

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

As if the title was not enough enticement to read this book let me tell you the poems in here are quite good and it's one of those books you'll want to own so you can go back and reread.

[Rusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intimate, fine stuff.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this volume--I can't pin down what it was exactly that made these poems so open or vulnerable but I can easily feel like there is an actual human being behind each written line. Loved the dynamicism and the language employed. You'd think that reading the same structured poem a hundred times over would get boring but not at all. :)