Distant Mandate: Poems

by Ange Mlinko

In Distant Mandate , Ange Mlinko moves between the tormented southern landscape, with its alternately arid and flooded scrublands, and the imaginative landscapes of Western art. Guided by her spiritual forbears―Orpheus, Mallarmé, Pound, Yeats, and others―Mlinko deftly places herself within the tradition of the poet in protest against the obduracy of the real.

Mlinko takes the title from a piece by Laszló Krasznahorkai on the unknowable origins of the Alhambra, the monument “for the sight of which there is only a distant mandate . . . [one] can see, in any event, the moment of creation of the world, of course all the while understanding nothing of it.” This distant mandate, also the “bitter ideal” of Mallarmé, is the foundation upon which all works of art are composed―the torment of eros and the intimation of war.

Myth is central to these poems; some are based on the story Cupid and Psyche, others serve as odes to Aphrodite or as explorations of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In Distant Mandate , Mlinko has given us a shimmering and vibrant collection, one that shows us not only how literature imagines itself through life but also how life reimagines itself through literature.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Hardcover

First published July 11, 2017

About the author

Ange Mlinko is an American poet. The author of four books of poetry, she is currently an associate professor in the English department at the University of Florida. She was the poetry editor for The Nation from 2013-2016.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dreamlike yet honest; a very original voice that challenges your perspective in a profound yet friendly way.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good little collection of very intricate poems. One poem begins with six stanzas of six lines each, moves to five of five, and so on, counting down. The whole is in something very like terza rima, with rhyme words such as, lawn, avatar, brawn, gone, Balthazar, paragon. It may remind you of Wallace Stevens.
Interesting and strong. Yet if you feel like I do, you may find it a tad dry, maybe even haughty. ("Antinomian PA"? I mean, sure, but how does Hershey Chocolate World get you there? Some people don't like chocolate, it's fine)
You may even find yourself thinking about Masters's poet, -- tick tick tick, the little iambics, while Homer and Whitman roar in the pines

[Paul Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

DOES STEPHANIE BURT'S descriptor from the late 1990s, "elliptical poetry," still have any currency? I think it would apply to this volume (from 2017) and to Mlinko's work more generally. The real subject of the poem often seems to be not quite there in the poem, but a bit off to side, in the peripheral vision of the poem, vanishing when looked at directly.

Mlinko's rhyming may have something to do with the I'm-not-there of her poems' (let's call it) representational aspect, as her rhymes have a Muldoonian dazzle capable of upstaging whatever the poem's looming question or agon is: isotope/trope, bronchitis/fight this, obol/scroll. Then we have the resourcefulness of her sentence structures, the unpacking of which offers delight even when you are not sure exactly what is being presented:

A replica factory in this pastoral
crushes fake beans
with brushed steel, utterly simulacral;
branded Halloweens
emerge from this maw, as if the plain fact
of horror streams
from a roller coaster, digestive tract
for swallowed screams.
Amid the dazzle, though, I did find myself wondering whether there had been some strain in Mlinko's marriage, especially in "Decision Theory," "Marriage as Baroque Music," "Knot Garden," and two longer poems, "'They That Dally Nicely with Words May Quickly Make Them Wanton'" and "Epic."

A closing note from Mlinko states that "The myths of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Cupid and Psyche, subtend the book." Orpheus, we could say, was a husband who did not have enough faith in his wife, hence his looking back to see whether she was following; Psyche, on the other hand, was a wife who did not have enough faith in her husband, hence her following her sisters' admonitions and resorting to the lamp. The two myths make for a nice matched set. Psyche does persevere to a happy ending, though, so I can hope Mlinko and her spouse did as well...if that is even what the book is about.

[Robert Walkley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s difficult to give these poems only one rating. In one way they deserve five stars. But they are so frustrating to read that I can understand the impulse to give them only one star. For now, I’ll give them two, and hope to glean more from them as I re-read them.

Mlinko offers lines that best define her own intentions. In “Epic” she writes “until what seems like fripperies / start to take on aspects of a universal / grammar.” And in “Milkweed” she says, “I indulge in that which is by definition / interesting to one: nostalgia.”

These poems are heady, airy, and gorgeous. The writer is an acrobat flying through the air of these poems with the seemingly greatest of ease. This reader I’m afraid never lands on his feet. I remain up in the air chasing after these poems and their elusive meanings.

[atito · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this effusive, astonishing, pristine collection over a harried & overwrought day (currently pushing the limits of what else can fit in this diurnal stretch). before i reread this, i can say that mlinko's poems, from place to place and myth to myth, index the faint layers of almost ornamental contact, which is not unlike the work of her taut rhymes... at times i could not make out what i was reading (often) so mired i would be in the unlikely coincidence of hog-callin and pollen. hers is a kind of vision that can hold it all lightly & residually: "speaking of ground flowers: / Epiphany"

[Steve Mossberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection. It's metered, rhymed, contemporary poetry with clever use of alliteration and all kinds of internal hijinks. The poems are big on classical allusions and obscure vocabulary, the latter of which was more entertaining than enjoyment-hindering in most cases. There seems to be overwhelming theme of falling apart and coalescing here, and not always in that order. For me, the work was most effective at its most earnest -- I connected least to the pieces with a humorous bent.

[hesione · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, so there were a few words I didn't know (a plus), a lot of references I didn't get (a sort-of-not-really-in-the-veins-of-t.s.-eliot minus) - in essence, these poems required a lot of time and effort to read - but I grew to like the voice and the style. I don't see much alliteration and strange, whimsical rhyme schemes these days, so I really appreciated it here.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the shorter poems worked for me, but some of the longer ones dodge and weave through word acrobatics so obtusely that I have no idea what is going on. Yet — and this is what makes her writing very good — the beauty of her rhyming is a joy to behold.

[Tim O'Neill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good poems but like Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller the flow is often interrupted when you need to look up some words.

[Michael Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the poems in this collection are fine. Some are even very good. However, the book as a whole has too much of the academy of the unnecessarily obtuse in it.

This is really a 3 1/2 for me.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

The back half of this book is way more intersting than the front half. It was a three star book until the letter about the mirror. Then the work started to do more for me. This was a fun read