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Spill
“There are two one that sings the sheen and hues, the necessary pigments and frankincense while the world dries and the other voice like water that seeks to saturate, erode, and boil . . . It ruins everything you have ever saved.”
Spill is a book in contradictions, embodying helplessness in the face of our dual citizenship in the realms of trauma and gratitude, artistic aspiration and political reality. The centerpiece of this collection is a lyrical essay that recalls the poet’s time working at the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg in the 1960s. Mentored by the insouciant inmate S, the speaker receives a schooling in race, class, and culture, as well as the beginning of an apprenticeship in poetry. As he and S consult the I Ching , the Book of Changes, the speaker becomes cognizant of other frequencies, other identities; poetry, divination, and a synchronous, alternative reading of life come into focus. On either side of this prose poem are related poems of excess and witness, of the ransacked places and of new territories that emerge from the monstrous. Throughout, these poems inhabit rather than resolve their contradictions, their utterances held in tension “between the hemispheres of songbirds and the hemispheres of men.”
Spill is a book in contradictions, embodying helplessness in the face of our dual citizenship in the realms of trauma and gratitude, artistic aspiration and political reality. The centerpiece of this collection is a lyrical essay that recalls the poet’s time working at the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg in the 1960s. Mentored by the insouciant inmate S, the speaker receives a schooling in race, class, and culture, as well as the beginning of an apprenticeship in poetry. As he and S consult the I Ching , the Book of Changes, the speaker becomes cognizant of other frequencies, other identities; poetry, divination, and a synchronous, alternative reading of life come into focus. On either side of this prose poem are related poems of excess and witness, of the ransacked places and of new territories that emerge from the monstrous. Throughout, these poems inhabit rather than resolve their contradictions, their utterances held in tension “between the hemispheres of songbirds and the hemispheres of men.”
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
Published August 14, 2018
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 25, 2019
I was briefly a colleague of Bruce Smith.
This book surprised me, especially the wonderful "Lewisburg" (pp. 23-42), based on a stint teaching at the prison. In structure--short prose poems, it suggested the work of Claudia Rankine (not a bad thing), also taking up matters of race and class from the pov of a somewhat privileged white male, a bit less privileged in the prison environment but aided in acclimating and learning by "'S'" who led him to Black artists and thought. And gave him the title of this book, "'Spill,' S said" (p. 36), and Smith gave his account of the mash-up at the 1968 Democratic convention.
"S" introduced Miles, the I Ching, and much more while on the outside Smith's draft board homed in.
"'Spill,' S said, and I spilled.
"Poetry is the spill [excess and witness].
"Straight line, broken line, straight line." (p. 42)
"Goodbye Tuscaloosa" (pp. 9-11) is a litany of goodbyes, some of which are losses, a poem that promises the kind of expansive detail in "Lewisburg" but does not deliver it, rather giving the reader ample room to envision the suppressed. The delicate repetitions pull the material together, leading toward the shattered speaker of the future:
"I will look back.
I will become cold and salted.
I will go up into the morning, sometimes.
I will be measured. I will be shattered." (p. 11)
Even the "Index," pageless, serves as a Proustian evocation of what one has read.
This book surprised me, especially the wonderful "Lewisburg" (pp. 23-42), based on a stint teaching at the prison. In structure--short prose poems, it suggested the work of Claudia Rankine (not a bad thing), also taking up matters of race and class from the pov of a somewhat privileged white male, a bit less privileged in the prison environment but aided in acclimating and learning by "'S'" who led him to Black artists and thought. And gave him the title of this book, "'Spill,' S said" (p. 36), and Smith gave his account of the mash-up at the 1968 Democratic convention.
"S" introduced Miles, the I Ching, and much more while on the outside Smith's draft board homed in.
"'Spill,' S said, and I spilled.
"Poetry is the spill [excess and witness].
"Straight line, broken line, straight line." (p. 42)
"Goodbye Tuscaloosa" (pp. 9-11) is a litany of goodbyes, some of which are losses, a poem that promises the kind of expansive detail in "Lewisburg" but does not deliver it, rather giving the reader ample room to envision the suppressed. The delicate repetitions pull the material together, leading toward the shattered speaker of the future:
"I will look back.
I will become cold and salted.
I will go up into the morning, sometimes.
I will be measured. I will be shattered." (p. 11)
Even the "Index," pageless, serves as a Proustian evocation of what one has read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review