Storm Toward Morning

by Malachi Black

"To be both visionary and accurate, true to physics and metaphysics at the same time, is rare and puts the poet in some rarefied company. Black, like a few other younger poets, is willing to include all the traditional effects of the lyric poem in his work, but he has set them going in new and lively ways, with the confidence of virtuosity and a belief in the ancient pleasures of pattern and repetition."—Mark Jarman, American Poet Lush and daring, Malachi Black's poems in Storm Toward Morning press all points along the spectrum of human positions, from sickness, isolation, and insomniac disarray to serenity, wonder, and spiritual yearning. Pulsing at the intersections of "eye and I," body and mind, physical and metaphysical, Black brings distinctive voice, vision, and music to matters of universal mortal concern. Query on Typography What is the light
inside the opening
of every white
behind the angles
is a language bright
because a curvature
of space inside
a line is visible
is script a sign
of what it does
or does not occupy
scripture the covenant
of eye and I
with word or what
the word defines
which is source
and which is shrine
the light of body
or the light behind? Malachi Black holds a BA in literature from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He currently teaches at the University of San Diego and lives in California.

Genres: Poetry

83 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Malachi Black is the author of Storm Toward Morning (forthcoming 2014 by Copper Canyon Press), and two limited edition chapbooks: Quarantine (2012) and Echolocation (2010).
A recipient of a 2009 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Black has also received recent fellowships and awards from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers, and the University of Utah. He was the subject of an Emerging Poet profile by Mark Jarman in the Fall 2011 issue of the Academy of American Poets’ American Poet magazine.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful music in this book, with plenty of substance beneath the style. The gorgeous exterior of the poems combined with the often dark, doubting, self-abnegating voice of the speaker is deeply engaging.

On depression: "the tiny mess // of rainclouds and the odd, slush-stained galoshes / from the snow globe in your chest." "If darkness is a dew, then I am made / of moisture."

On insomnia: "Now there's no nighttime I can own // that isn't anxious as a phone / about to ring." "I hate the clockwork of the waking mind."

To God: "And like the sea, / one more machine without a memory, / I don't believe that you made me."

I found these poems rewarding both in the initial, uninterrupted read and in deeper, closer rereading. The book has a great first poem, great last poem, and an awesome sonnet sequence in the middle. Not every poem succeeds for me (which is the case of every single book of poetry I've ever read), but the successes are numerous and all over. It made me jealous.

[Evan]

"The floating endlessly again:
the glowing and the growing back
again as I am as I can and I can stand.
I understand.
Though I am fashioned
in the haggard image of a man,
I am an atom of the aperture."

[Bryan Dahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb and moving. Some of the best and most intentional use of enjambment. The antidote to all of the modern poetry people complain about that breaks up lines purely for style or for no reason at all. The line breaks here always bring more to the poem.

[Live · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is undoubtedly my favorite poetry book, and I feel challenged to find work more poignant and clever and resonating as this. Quarantine just does something to me.

[AE Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malachai Black’s debut collection, "Storm Toward Morning" (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) provides an excellent example of a contemporary poet reveling in the more traditional lyrical patterns of repetition and rhyme. The book mingles the scientific and disturbing, the profound with the mundane, and juxtaposes themes of religiosity and romanticism in an authoritative voice that treats each topic with equal reverence.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is hard to rate because it is so technically agile. For some reviewers here, that seems to be a strike against it, while as a young poet myself, I am inclined to think that more young poets today should have a mastery of forms and a keen sense of philosophical and poetic tradition like Black demonstrates throughout this volume. I enjoy the reverberations of poems--like Black's "A Memo to the Self-Possessed"--that reward or encourage knowledge of classical figures and authors, such as Marcus Aurelius.

There are, I admit, a number of poems that feel so involved in their own wordplay that (although it's hard to find exactly where they need work) they don't have much emotional resonance. Others, such as the pantoum, were more rewarding when read aloud a few times. Poetry, if it does anything at all, should reward rereading. Several of Black's poems that do--in my view--amply demonstrate lyric sense AND sensibility include "The Beekeeper's Diary" and "Fragments from an Afterlife."

Ultimately, the "spinal cord" of this volume is a crown of sonnets in the tradition of John Donne which will probably remain with me throughout my life. Black has said that the sonnets are written "to the possibility of God." That is the kind of "devotional verse" I want to read--sonnets to God that include lines like "you are the tongue / I plunge into this begging / razorblade so brightened / by my spiderweb of blood, / you are the one: you are / the venom in the serpent / I have tried not to become." I think Donne would quiver a little to the metaphors (and metaphysics) in these poems and that's one of the highest compliments I can bestow.

In short, this book is worthy of attention for the sonnets alone and you'd better believe I'll keep watching the career of a poet who's been called "an intensely inquisitive John Donne for the Millennial generation."

P.S. I really don't care at all about this Donne guy. No feelings about him at all.

[Debra Lowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy poetry. It's my popcorn of the literature world. I can take it with me, absorb it in small increments, digest it for awhile, and then come back later where I left off and not feel disoriented. Having said that, I know nothing about poetry. I can't speak about meter or rhyme. I wouldn't know a good structural stanza (Is that even a thing?) if it wore a nametag. I only know what flows well for me. I know what I find readable.

So with that- I really enjoyed the collection of Storm Toward Morning. Black is highly educated in creative writing so, as expected, his words simply flow. There were poems I knew- Traveling By Train, You- and others that I had no idea what Black was really writing about. Sometimes I caught a literary character that I recognized, other times I had to look up a word I didn't know and that was enough to provide some clarity. But I have to say, as I went looking for some help, I stumbled upon Black's website. THERE WERE NOTES for some of the poems. There were VIDEOS of Black doing a public reading where I could not only listen to the poem but often got the backdrop prior to the reading. FANTASTIC! And, thank you for those, Mr. Black.

This was a very good collection of poems. The poetry, combined with the extras found on Black's website made for a wonderful experience.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those rare collections of poetry I admire but don't love. Black is unbelievably technically accomplished. His command of rhyme is unusual in this day and age - subtle and almost a little too perfect. In general that would be my most salient critique of this book. Black is clearly interested in crafting a philosophical perspective. He's committed to the numinous; unfortunately, that often leaves the reader with no emotional toe-hold. This collection is good to think but I missed the ragged edge.

[Geula Geurts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often find myself going back to the poems in this breathtaking collection. The music, internal rhyme, personal sonnets, and subject matter of battling insomnia and complicated relationship with God, night and the moon, remind me of Rilke, yet Black's poems are wholly original. Quarantine is a phenomenal example of what a crown of sonnets can accomplish. Bravo!

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Black's "Drifting at Midday": "Now I can see: even the trees/ are tired: they are bones bent forward/ in a skin of wind, leaning in/ osteoporosis, reaching/ for a little more than any/ oxygen can give..."

[hh · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 middle section i enjoyed. opening section felt like i was just sliding off the exquisitely-wrought surface of the poems. third section i went back and forth on.

admirable craft. but ultimately not my scene.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was alright, I guess