The Mind-Body Problem: Poems

by Katha Pollitt

In The Mind-Body Problem , Katha Pollitt takes the ordinary events of life–her own and others’–and turns them into brilliant, poignant, and often funny poems that are full of surprises and originality. Pollitt’s imagination is stirred by conflict and juxtaposition, by the contrast (but also the connection) between logic and feeling, between the real and the transcendent, between our outer and inner Jane Austen slides her manuscript under her blotter, bewildered young mothers chat politely on the playground, the simple lines of a Chinese bowl in a thrift store remind the poet of the only apparent simplicities of her childhood. The title poem hilariously and ruefully depicts the friction between passion and repression (“Perhaps / my body would have liked to make some of our dates, / to come home at four in the morning and answer my scowl / with ‘None of your business!’ ”). In a sequence of nine poems, Pollitt turns to the Bible for inspiration, transforming some of the oldest tales of Western civilization into subversive modern What if Adam and Eve couldn’t wait to leave Eden? What if God needs us more than we need him?

With these moving, vivid, and utterly distinctive poems, Katha Pollitt reminds us that poetry can be both profound and accessible, and reconfirms her standing in the first rank of modern American poets.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Katha Pollitt is well known for her wit and her keen sense of both the ridiculous and the sublime. Her Subject to Debate column, which debuted in 1995 and which the Washington Post called “the best place to go for original thinking on the left,” appears every other week in the Nation; it is frequently reprinted in newspapers across the country. In 2003, Subject to Debate won the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. Katha is also a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.

Many of Katha’s contributions to the Nation are compiled in three books: Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (Knopf); Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture (Modern Library); and Virginity or Death! And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time (Random House). In 2007, Random House published her collection of personal essays, Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories.

Katha has also written essays and book reviews for the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New Republic, Harper’s, Ms., Glamour, Mother Jones, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books. She has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air and All Things Considered, Charlie Rose, The McLaughlin Group, CNN, Dateline NBC, and the BBC. Her work has been republished in many anthologies and is taught in many university classes.

Katha has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship for her poetry. Her 1982 book Antarctic Traveller won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her poems have been published in many magazines and are reprinted in many anthologies, most recently The Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006). Her second collection, The Mind-Body Problem, was published by Random House in 2009.

Born in New York City, Katha was educated at Harvard and the Columbia University School of the Arts. She has lectured at dozens of colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brooklyn College, UCLA, the University of Mississippi, and Cornell. She has taught poetry at Princeton, Barnard, and the 92nd Street Y, and women’s studies at the New School University.

Reviews

[anya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, like many collections of poetry, was a decent mix of notable poems and less notable counterparts. I enjoyed The Mind-Body Problem but it did not stand out as a whole. Still, I will leave for you the highlights of the collection:

- Lilacs in September: “What will unleash itself in your when your storm comes?”
- Mandarin Oranges: “We can’t keep faith with the past, in the end we love it because it is the past.”
- A Chinese Bowl: “How did I love so far away just living day by day, that now all rooms seem strange, the years all error?”
- The Expulsion: “How pleasant it had been, how unexpected to have been, however briefly, the center of attention.”
- The Cursed Fig Tree: “A bend in the road, and he was gone, helpless in his world as I in mine.”
- The Heron in the Marsh: “Wanderer, lordless samurai with only yourself for armor, tell me, why is loss real even when love was not?”

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even if the kernel of the poem isn’t intriguing, there is usually enough creative imagery to carry it to the end. Sometimes there is an over reliance on delivering information in lists. A couple were compelling but unraveled unsatisfyingly, such as Visitors. I felt the weakest section was Part Part II: After the Bible.

The poems that stood out to me were: “Lives of the Nineteenth-Century Poetesses”, “Playground”, “Atlantis”, “Happiness Writes White”, “Epithalamion”, “Forwarding Address”, “Evening in the Mugello”, and “Old.”

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure why it took me so long to finish this book (months and months), because every time I picked it up I remembered how moved I was by so many of the poems, which are smart and have a deceptive ease to them, but which are so deeply felt and passionate at the core. The deeply-felt-ness sort of sneaks up on you, because the surfaces of the poems are so accessible... I'd be reading along, just enjoying their gracefulness, and then a line or a couple of lines would slap me in the face. The poems are funny, too, as well as being wise, and taking delight in the everyday. I actually think this is a book that invites reading slowly, a couple of poems at a time... it isn't hard to re-enter Katha Pollitt's world, the way it can be sometimes, for me, with more mysterious or more "difficult" poets. Actually, the latter is the kind I tend to prefer, because I often feel that very accessible work doesn't stay with me or invite me to read it again. But I've already read a bunch of these poems again, and I think I will want to keep revisiting them.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of original poetry by Pollitt who is a poet, essayist, and columnist for "The Nation," and who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems entitled "Antartic Traveler."

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not certain I appreciated these as much as I should have.

"nuzzling the tender leaves at the top of trees" from title poem

Lives of the Nineteenth-Centry Poetesses … "a little troubled in her mind by her habit, … much disapproval of by the ignorant of writing down the secrets of her heart."

"A melancholy restraint is surely the proper approach to take in this world" … A Walk

crew-cuts the crabgrass

"the beaver, prince of chaos, -- is tirelessly constructing his dark malace of many rooms."

What will unleash itself to you when your storm comes?

Mandarin Oranges … 'as if they held the whole essence of youth and joy'

we can't keep faith with the past,
in the end we love it because it is in the past

Reading Jane Austen novels … 'the happy end ends all'

Night Subway … 'signal lights wink and flash like the eyes of dragons'

The Cursed Fig Tree
'Before his hunger
I stood mute
I did not flower
I did not fruit.'

Happiness Wears White
'wear melancholy like an old brown sweater'
carrying an immense bouquet of white lilac
wrapped in white tissue paper, like a torch'

MAYA for Anna Fels
'my antique
red-lace camisole
lifted by the class kleptomaniac
and smuggled in atonement to Goodwill'

everything is illusion

a mermaid drowns in the net

the kitchen smelling of bean-steam

OLD
death can't help but look friendly
when all your friends live there

Dreams About The Dead
'My death was mine. It had nothing
to do with you.'

starreling dog

[Angie Fehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Pollitt's collection here runs the gamut from references to Jane Austen to new motherhood to thrift store shopping!

The opening of "Mandarin Oranges" gave me a laugh -- the bit about "smacked of bribery" -- but I also like the line towards the end: "we can't keep faith with the past" ... and how the rest goes on to reference how we tend to glamorize and soften the reality of our memories / past experiences. Something to think about for sure.

There's quite a bit here on the topic of faith. In fact, in this book Pollitt includes a whole grouping of nine interconnected poems all inspired by biblical text.

Other topics covered include appreciation for classic literature; scenes unique to a writer's life; and things that get you thinking simply by going for a walk, people-watching out your window, or observing the change of the seasons.

The rhythm and imagery of this collection spoke to me much stronger than Pollitt's earlier poetry in Antarctic Traveller.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really loved a couple of the poems in this collection - the first one in particular is a stand out for me. We spend so much time thinking of our body as the adversary, instead of an ally and it was a good reminder.

The second part of the collection that was about bible stories felt a little on-the-nose and most of the poems were okay, if not particularly memorable.

[Demi Work · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good book, I just didn't really like it.

[Lawrence King · Rating 2 out of 5]

....dense, cluttered, heavy, internalalized, atrophied, ponderous, removed, distant, self-absorbed....

[Patrick Bello · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick little ditty, with plenty of existential crises

[Avery · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I’m too 22-years-old to enjoy these poems. I like my poetry bursting with feeling and necessity, and these....just aren’t.

[Charles Dingman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading poetry with new eyes, drinking from a fire hose the famous municipal water of New York until I either finish or burst, satisfaction only dreamed of until this week now a daily delight.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Worth re-reading.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since poems have literally helped me understand and get through parts of my life, and even feel the profundity of some things before I experience them, my review is based on the fact that I didn't feel moved while reading from this collection of poems. Obviously, it will be different for different people. A few lines stood out for me, maybe five from the whole book...but maybe it tells you something I can't really recall them right now and I'm not going to look them up...oh, there was one poem about seeing the soul in many places that I mostly liked.
Personally, I feel like the poems are specific to a class experience that I am not familiar with. I'm not going to do an analysis or anything of it, though, just saying. I think that New-Yorker-type poetry isn't really raw enough for me at this point...

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoy Pollitt's political writing, so maybe I should stick with that when it comes to her. This collection was underwhelming. There were a few that stood out, all from the third section: 'Epithalamion,' 'Two Cats,' and 'What I Understood,' but that's possibly because they spoke to me specifically ("Cats never mistake a/saucer of milk for a declaration of passion/or the crook of your knees for/a permanent address"; "But here we are, in a kind of post-imperial/permanent February, with offices and apartments/balked latecomers out of a Stendhal novel.") Other than these few that said something to me, they all seemed a bit gimmicky, like they were trying too hard to be either important or cute. Not for me.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I received this for my birthday a couple years ago, and despite loving Katha Pollitt's essays, I've not gotten around to reading it until now. This is an enchanting volume of poetry, and exactly what I should have expected from her: smart, sad, tender, and wise. Take, for instance, the ending of "Small Comfort":

We're near the end,

But O before the end, as the sparrows wing

each night to their secret nests in the elm's green dome

O let the last bus bring

love to lover, let the starveling

dog turn the corner and lope suddenly

miraculously, down its own street, home.

[John Pappas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been long enamored of Pollitt's poem "Metaphors of Women", from her previous collection from 1982, and her essays in The Nation. This collection or poetry, long overdue, is much more concrete than Pollitt's older work, as indicated by "Metaphors of Women", and less abstruse. The first third of the book is a masterpiece in and of itself. These poems about aging and confronting mortality are brilliant and stand with the most evocative poems of the 20th and 21st centuries concerning the same themes. Lyrical, plaintive and melancholy explorations of the spirit as it ages -- Pollitt's slim volume belies the depth of feeling, and range of emotion contained within.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I didn't get it? Only like 4 or 5 of the poems in this book meant anything to me and often what they meant was actually significant. The collection seemed to jump around without a common thread. Yes, the poems were broken into segments, but those segments didn't seem to go together.

I think I'll stick to the other writings of Katha.

[Lindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title poem drew me in and a couple others sealed the deal. I don't usually buy or read poetry, but every once in a while a poem hits me where I live, and "The Mind-Body Problem" hit my bulls-eye.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much here to admire and quote. Poems that I have remembered for years from a magazine: Night Subway. Some new poems I like very much -- The Old Neighbors, Visitors, Abandoned Poems, A Walk. Great clarity of language, precise images. As a whole though, the same chords again and again.

[Johari · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the risk of sounding cliche, reading and experiencing this collection of poems was like eating a big piece of chocolate cake-dense and filled with flavors, feelings and life times. It was better than reading prose.

[Alyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection. Experts call her work "accessible". I call it divine.
Pollitt, who writes the extraordinary column "Subject To Debate" for The Nation (amongst a zillion other things)has long been a favorite of mine. This book enhanced my admiration.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good poems were GREAT. The rest were just kind of 'eh.'

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems!

[Moira Richards]

http://www.off-the-coast.com/OTC_spri...

[Livinlite · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Okay, but not that unique or inspiring.

[Jolynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite: "What I Understood"

[Rita Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved quite a few of these poems, including "Collectibles," which might have been my favorite.

[Christina M Rau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing, unique perspective on gender, religion, and the basics of human life. Such skillful language play from beginning to end.

[Tom Romig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems sharp, pulsing, wise, insightful, beautifully expressed. Katha Pollitt sees with a special clarity, with an unabated honesty.