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Call Waiting
David C. Ward's first full-length poetry collection combines wry meditations on twenty-first-century life, work and family with observations of America - its landscapes, its history, its politics. Ward's poems are peopled by those who seem never quite able to inhabit their own lives, from Andy Warhol or Weldon Kees ('Case closed. / No body was ever found') to Ward's own father, playing poker against himself in the early hours. The book's final section turns an unflinching gaze on the post-9/11 USA and its self-deceptions.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 9, 2016
Goodreads Winner!
I won this copy in exchange for an honest review.
Poetry in its self is subjective in nature: the quality of the poem differs from reader to reader. In this collection some of the poems really spoke to me as an individual, these I loved; others, less so. That’s not to say that these “others” would not be enjoyed by you.
Many of the poems have a morose feel to them with almost sarcastic undertones which captured my imagination. These poems had me pondering many issues of life and thus will be remembered. What surprised me about this book was the adept skill the author had for poetry styles: he used many different forms of poetry which broke up the monotony of reading just one type.
My favourite two poems of the collection are:
-June Swoon, a very short piece on the attraction of night time writing has upon insomniacs.
-Saints Today, mostly likely up for the reader’s interpretation but what I got from this was how saints have gone out of the world and their deeds forgotten
I would recommend this book to enthusiastic readers of poetry and those that read little of it. This is because the poems are very precise; it’s not hard to understand some of their meaning and form your own ideas form the authors words.
I won this copy in exchange for an honest review.
Poetry in its self is subjective in nature: the quality of the poem differs from reader to reader. In this collection some of the poems really spoke to me as an individual, these I loved; others, less so. That’s not to say that these “others” would not be enjoyed by you.
Many of the poems have a morose feel to them with almost sarcastic undertones which captured my imagination. These poems had me pondering many issues of life and thus will be remembered. What surprised me about this book was the adept skill the author had for poetry styles: he used many different forms of poetry which broke up the monotony of reading just one type.
My favourite two poems of the collection are:
-June Swoon, a very short piece on the attraction of night time writing has upon insomniacs.
-Saints Today, mostly likely up for the reader’s interpretation but what I got from this was how saints have gone out of the world and their deeds forgotten
I would recommend this book to enthusiastic readers of poetry and those that read little of it. This is because the poems are very precise; it’s not hard to understand some of their meaning and form your own ideas form the authors words.
October 5, 2014
I received this book as a GoodReads First Reads giveaway.
Overall: a generally solid first long collection of poetry.
While a tendency toward clichés and (especially in Part I) poems brought to a full stop with an imperative was initially grating (and personally remains so), Ward’s expertise and interest in history and art shine through to provide a critique of contemporary America. Though the clichés and a tendency toward what I perceived as a whiff of WASPishness in tone and a nostalgia-driven sentimentality for the White Bread Americana of yesteryear must be endured, they serve well in a Benjaminian reading underscored by the volume’s last poem, “The End of History.”
Though Ward may certainly have Christian allegory in mind (not least from the collection’s epigraph), the final line (“Where is the Angel now?”) of "The End of History" may also be interpreted as a reference to Walter Benjamin’s Angelus Novus. Face turned to the past, history hurls its events as wreckage. We are forced into America’s future (via “progress”) even as the debris of/from America’s social//historical/cultural legacy continues to pile at our feet. (See: Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte) The “old-timey” American slang and images of the all-American idyll must necessarily be confronted and wrestled with when reflecting on the nation’s trajectory of (especially) the post-9/11 era: ultimately it’s one intricately woven tapestry of narrative.
If I had to force my way through some of the earlier poems, I was cheering for Ward by the middle of Part II. Ward is at his best when drawing from his vast knowledge and expertise in history and art (a subject also reflected upon in this collection). His meditations on grief and temporality poignantly convey the human encounter (and struggle) with mortality. Ward plumbs the interstices of being, grappling with questions surrounding selfhood and locating the self; there is a sense of Ward’s subjects at once being centered within their own being, yet simultaneously adrift from external experience. This is especially intriguing in terms of the historical context mentioned earlier in this review.
Especially notable: Part I: “Aces and Eights,” “Clothes Make the Man,” “Canker,” Part II: “The River Refuses its Name,” “1914,” “Jack and Bill,” “Jackson Pollock Crashes his Car,” “Two San Francisco Poets,” “Nighthawks,” “Camouflage Self-Portrait,” “Still Life, Grand Central Station,” “Alcools,” “Call Waiting. Waiting…,” Part III: “Zero Sum,” “At 9:45a.m.,” “CCTV,” “Death From Above,” and “The End of History”
Overall: a generally solid first long collection of poetry.
While a tendency toward clichés and (especially in Part I) poems brought to a full stop with an imperative was initially grating (and personally remains so), Ward’s expertise and interest in history and art shine through to provide a critique of contemporary America. Though the clichés and a tendency toward what I perceived as a whiff of WASPishness in tone and a nostalgia-driven sentimentality for the White Bread Americana of yesteryear must be endured, they serve well in a Benjaminian reading underscored by the volume’s last poem, “The End of History.”
Though Ward may certainly have Christian allegory in mind (not least from the collection’s epigraph), the final line (“Where is the Angel now?”) of "The End of History" may also be interpreted as a reference to Walter Benjamin’s Angelus Novus. Face turned to the past, history hurls its events as wreckage. We are forced into America’s future (via “progress”) even as the debris of/from America’s social//historical/cultural legacy continues to pile at our feet. (See: Walter Benjamin, Über den Begriff der Geschichte) The “old-timey” American slang and images of the all-American idyll must necessarily be confronted and wrestled with when reflecting on the nation’s trajectory of (especially) the post-9/11 era: ultimately it’s one intricately woven tapestry of narrative.
If I had to force my way through some of the earlier poems, I was cheering for Ward by the middle of Part II. Ward is at his best when drawing from his vast knowledge and expertise in history and art (a subject also reflected upon in this collection). His meditations on grief and temporality poignantly convey the human encounter (and struggle) with mortality. Ward plumbs the interstices of being, grappling with questions surrounding selfhood and locating the self; there is a sense of Ward’s subjects at once being centered within their own being, yet simultaneously adrift from external experience. This is especially intriguing in terms of the historical context mentioned earlier in this review.
Especially notable: Part I: “Aces and Eights,” “Clothes Make the Man,” “Canker,” Part II: “The River Refuses its Name,” “1914,” “Jack and Bill,” “Jackson Pollock Crashes his Car,” “Two San Francisco Poets,” “Nighthawks,” “Camouflage Self-Portrait,” “Still Life, Grand Central Station,” “Alcools,” “Call Waiting. Waiting…,” Part III: “Zero Sum,” “At 9:45a.m.,” “CCTV,” “Death From Above,” and “The End of History”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews