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Forth A Raven
In the Book of Genesis, Noah sends forth a raven and a dove to test the status of the flood. The return of the dove is widely celebrated, but the fate of the raven-the bird who speaks-is left ambiguous. In Christina Davis’ luminous first collection of poems, her questions are those raised by the journey of the raven and what he language and communication, risk, exile and mortality.
- GenresPoetry
57 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 21, 2008
This is one of the strongest and most moving first books of poetry I've ever read. Austerely carved, moving poems of immense intelligence, each word honed as a Giacometti sculpture, to equally profound and mysterious effect.
March 13, 2023
Sometimes I read books of poetry and, lacking a pencil or bookmark, I dog ear the pages with the poems I like. This book is now about twice as thick at the top as it is at the bottom. Blown away by these poems
March 18, 2015
A lovely book, my favorite was Bluegrass.
September 1, 2014
Maybe more of a 4.5 but found myself to be quite fond (and maybe unexpectedly) of this book. I suppose that bears some explanation: the voice tends to take on a number of overtones or stances, gestures even, that I find quite aesthetically displeasing and which would normally put me off a book. Despite this, there was a strong attention to form and breakage that was incredibly rewarding and more than made off for the qualities that I normally would shy away from a text because of. Poems felt crafted confidently with what I might describe as a hybridity that made each more than a sum of parts or pieces. Taken together, it was quite enjoyable.
Highlights for me included the title poem, "The Raven's Book," "Third Person," "The Great Fire," and "Palmistry." Others might be "The Primer" or "Preternatural."
The structure of the book in 3 parts, I felt, was certainly a good decision. Loosely thematic, each portion yet dwells on themes and ideas (the title of the book, Forth A Raven, necessarily indicates a bird leaving safety and implies via its biblical allusion something of a break with Christianity, not quite explicit but ambiguous in whether it has truly happened or not) that recur throughout and are of a kind throughout. The second sequence, I think, was able to create the most distinction, and the first and third felt rather like two halves of a part operating about and around another that has bifurcated it.
Having read Davis read briefly from this book and her more recent work, it is both difficult and easy to reconcile that reading (incredibly brief) with the sparsity on display in the work here. As easy as it is to call the work sparse, there is still a density to it that bears searching out or investigating. Maybe informed by the reading, I also found the book subtly gendered in a way that I wasn't sure was present firmly in the text rather than created by me as a reader and my expectations of the author. Davis seemed quite able to move about in ways that wandered a line between expected and unexpected, more concerned with the underlying meaning of what it might represent than the "reality" of the line, less concerned with identifying locations than wandering and wondering what a landmark might signify. As the opening poem, and the source of the book's title, identifies in the beginning:
We came in full view
of an island
or a continent, for we knew
not whether."
Highlights for me included the title poem, "The Raven's Book," "Third Person," "The Great Fire," and "Palmistry." Others might be "The Primer" or "Preternatural."
The structure of the book in 3 parts, I felt, was certainly a good decision. Loosely thematic, each portion yet dwells on themes and ideas (the title of the book, Forth A Raven, necessarily indicates a bird leaving safety and implies via its biblical allusion something of a break with Christianity, not quite explicit but ambiguous in whether it has truly happened or not) that recur throughout and are of a kind throughout. The second sequence, I think, was able to create the most distinction, and the first and third felt rather like two halves of a part operating about and around another that has bifurcated it.
Having read Davis read briefly from this book and her more recent work, it is both difficult and easy to reconcile that reading (incredibly brief) with the sparsity on display in the work here. As easy as it is to call the work sparse, there is still a density to it that bears searching out or investigating. Maybe informed by the reading, I also found the book subtly gendered in a way that I wasn't sure was present firmly in the text rather than created by me as a reader and my expectations of the author. Davis seemed quite able to move about in ways that wandered a line between expected and unexpected, more concerned with the underlying meaning of what it might represent than the "reality" of the line, less concerned with identifying locations than wandering and wondering what a landmark might signify. As the opening poem, and the source of the book's title, identifies in the beginning:
We came in full view
of an island
or a continent, for we knew
not whether."
March 10, 2009
Christina Davis is “carving out a place in the noise.” Hers is a syntax stripped bare, absent of the “ums,” the “likes,” the half-starts and premature stops of everyday speech. In that syntax one finds evidence of the contemporaneous density and paucity of text. A few words in succession reveal the locked chambers of childhood, loves longed for and lost, the vigor of grief.
We are each what never leaves us, what we never see
the back of
is the self. But what loves us
is at the back, as Eurydice was
escorting him out
without his knowing.
Her concerns are the interchangeability of opposites and the human community; the need not only to speak, but for speech to reach an intended.
I want to tell you all the little wrongs between us,
the ones they don’t arrest.
If you were here, you’d bend into me,
low as a fountain’s stump of water, and whisper
“Once everyone’s dreamed, we will sleep.”
In “Forth a Raven,” her first collection of poetry, this is embodied by the raven itself. It is the bird, and the flight of the bird. It is the recollection of mourning, and the act of having loved. So we learn to read these poems not only as independent vessels, but also as a poetic sequence.
Thus, in the deep of winter, we find ourselves on foot in a New England landscape where the seasonal cycles are in gentle juxtaposition with the cycles of human experience: life being lived, imbued as it is with loss, and loathing, and loneliness. Overhead, the birds fly south.
Carlin M. Wragg, Editor
Open Loop Press
We are each what never leaves us, what we never see
the back of
is the self. But what loves us
is at the back, as Eurydice was
escorting him out
without his knowing.
Her concerns are the interchangeability of opposites and the human community; the need not only to speak, but for speech to reach an intended.
I want to tell you all the little wrongs between us,
the ones they don’t arrest.
If you were here, you’d bend into me,
low as a fountain’s stump of water, and whisper
“Once everyone’s dreamed, we will sleep.”
In “Forth a Raven,” her first collection of poetry, this is embodied by the raven itself. It is the bird, and the flight of the bird. It is the recollection of mourning, and the act of having loved. So we learn to read these poems not only as independent vessels, but also as a poetic sequence.
Thus, in the deep of winter, we find ourselves on foot in a New England landscape where the seasonal cycles are in gentle juxtaposition with the cycles of human experience: life being lived, imbued as it is with loss, and loathing, and loneliness. Overhead, the birds fly south.
Carlin M. Wragg, Editor
Open Loop Press
May 29, 2010
What happens to the raven, sent by Noah, to scout for land? Unlike the returning dove, the raven's fate remains indefinite.
Christina Davis' small book seems a subtle form of devotional. In the titular poem, Davis asks, "Do you love me? Will I die?" And the bird's response: "We came in full view // of an island / or a continent, for we knew // not whether." To appreciate such answers, one must be negatively capable in the spirit of Keats.
My favorite poems in the volume include:
"The Sadness of the Lingua Franc" (p.17) : "In Bird, I speak brokenly. Hiss and flail and never learn."
"The Primer" (p. 25): "In the history of language / the first obscenity was silence."
"The Raven's Book" (pp. 30-34): "...I can trace the isosceles of our seeing."
"Two Varieties of Passion Plays" (p. 40): "...so what, if the mothers must agree / to raise their girls as voices?"
"The Calling" (p.46): "What is the name of our death. / Is it really stroke or rope, really fever or falling?"
Christina Davis' small book seems a subtle form of devotional. In the titular poem, Davis asks, "Do you love me? Will I die?" And the bird's response: "We came in full view // of an island / or a continent, for we knew // not whether." To appreciate such answers, one must be negatively capable in the spirit of Keats.
My favorite poems in the volume include:
"The Sadness of the Lingua Franc" (p.17) : "In Bird, I speak brokenly. Hiss and flail and never learn."
"The Primer" (p. 25): "In the history of language / the first obscenity was silence."
"The Raven's Book" (pp. 30-34): "...I can trace the isosceles of our seeing."
"Two Varieties of Passion Plays" (p. 40): "...so what, if the mothers must agree / to raise their girls as voices?"
"The Calling" (p.46): "What is the name of our death. / Is it really stroke or rope, really fever or falling?"
January 4, 2016
I liked the middle poems the best in this collection. Do I prefer poetry without an "I" that is so central, or does it just seem to intrude too much here? Davis' relationship to the natural world also seems forced, painted on, especially in part one.
Some ideas and phrases caught my ear, but did not for the most part form anything memorable in my mind. More a volume of potential than realization.
Some ideas and phrases caught my ear, but did not for the most part form anything memorable in my mind. More a volume of potential than realization.
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September 3, 2016I wish I had more time to read this one. I read it quickly, making notes on the things I would like to go back to. Hopefully I will.
There is no obscurity in Davis's poems, as there is in the poetry of so many others. The remarkable thing about Forth A Raven is its clarity.
There is no obscurity in Davis's poems, as there is in the poetry of so many others. The remarkable thing about Forth A Raven is its clarity.
April 17, 2012
Cassie, I hope you read this because I want to thank you for this book ending up in my hands. It's the best book of poems I've read in a long while.
June 15, 2015
Beautiful!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews