The California Poem

by Eleni Sikelianos

California, hedonistically beautiful and increasingly endangered, is the star of this book-length poem that flies through time, memory, science, history, and imagination, mirroring the topography of the Golden State’s landscape and the history of its diverse cultures. Alternating between grand, Whitmanic tone and scope, Dickinsonian minute detail, Beat rhythms, New York School wit and Objectivist sensibility, this epic poem engages traditional lyricism with a breathtaking contemporary style and graceful urgency. A native of California, Eleni Sikelianos has lived in New York City, Paris and Athens. She is the author of the poetry collection, Earliest Worlds , the memoir, Book of Jon (forthcoming from City Lights), and the National Poetry Series award-winning collection The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls .

Genres: Poetry, American

200 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

About the author

Eleni Sikelianos is the author of six books of poetry, most recently The Loving Detail of the Living and the Dead, as well as a hybrid memoir, The Book of Jon. Sikelianos directs the creative writing program at the University of Denver.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I am biased once again, but what a way this lady has with words. I never thought that a list of endangered or extinct species in California could be what it is here. A place, I feel, has never been evoked like this before. "Ah ha ha! / California is opening / the refrigerator door -- what's / in there? Avocado, /
alfalfa sprouts, and we are laughing our heads off / in Goleta because we just / smoked a lot of pot & don't / have any theories" - an interpretation of pictorial representations of certain sign language vocabulary? If Frank O'Hara lives, it is in Eleni the Miraculous. Her book is a treasure.

[solidad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical, maximalist, witty, sublime - omg, it's so good. You have to read this.

[Dayton Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really beautiful, often sensual ode to the ecology of California, its history and its present, when even as it's dying it's resplendent with life.

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those ambitious volumes I just don't seem to have the patience or perspicacity for any more. I get the feeling it's a very good book and I've become a very poor (21st C. attention span) reader.


(used to be a requirement that I be delving into dictionary page by page - now it's almost a deal-breaker)

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

To a degree I respect and enjoy this great big inventory that makes up California. I enjoy the exhaustiveness of it, and, yes, of course it could continue and continue. But I am just not sure that I see why it has to continue or why it has to end, and, for me that's a problem.

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not you, it's me.

[Alexandria Eyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am biased.

[Kelli Tompkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best poems I've ever read. Would recommend to anyone especially who loves or feels they have an affinity for California.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely dense but stunning poetry. I read it over 8 months and I'm not sure one would want to consume it faster than that.

[brinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me grateful & long for the golden state, despite it mostly being about SoCal

[Sarkis Antonyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(tiniest morsel biased because i’m from los angeles and also eleni is currently my professor in an advanced poetry workshop i’m taking this semester) holy wow holy moly this is a ravishing and awe-inspiring poetics right here. this work and eleni herself actively define the idea of being a “wordsmith” to me again, it’s incredible. cinematic and collaged just like california is. i miss it a lot right now. it’s getting colder and colder outside.

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read it because I'm in California writing poems. And I admire the hell out of its audacity and ambition, but it's just wasn't my cup of tea. Like I liked it, I'm glad I read it, there are people I'd suggest it to, but it's like a lovely dress that doesn't quite work.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in grad school, and recently decided to revisit it to see if my experiences living in California would change my reading of it... And it did, to an extent. I definitely enjoyed this much more the second time around, though I don't know if that's because my tastes have changed or because I was more familiar with the landscape Sikelianos mentions. There are still some lovely moves here.

[Maureen Thorson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes me feel like I have been taped to a movie camera operated by some sort of cinematographic auteur who likes to marry miscroscopic closeups with dizzying pullbacks into outer space. A poem that is all about a place, the essence and emotional heft of the triad of geography, culture, and memory.

[Dearwassily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had such high hopes for this, but my expectations weren't met. Perhaps it was because I'm not a Californian, but I couldn't enter this at all; it felt closed off to me.

[Quoth the Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. This book is a visceral, tangible ode to the state. It felt I was seeing California no longer as a location, but as a person who I love, but have no idea how to approach who they are. Being born and raised in California, this book became quite personal and very real.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really appreciated this book for its looseness and joy, much like California itself. Do I think it will leave much of a lasting impression? Not really.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but didn't engage me the way Bodyclock did... that might be my fault.