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The American Poetry Series #6
Making It Simple
David McElroy's first book of poetry, published as Volume 6 in The American Poetry Series.
- GenresPoetry
79 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1977
About the author
David McElroy
6 booksDavid McElroy grew up on a farm in northern Wisconsin. He moved successively west and north by attending the universities of Minnesota, Montana, and Western Washington and taking various jobs. He has been a smokejumper, teacher in Guatemala, taxi driver, English teacher in Seattle's inner city, and currently is a pilot with over 30,000 hours flying light planes in bush Alaska from coastal southeast, Aleutians, interior, and the Arctic in support of the fishing and oil industries, forest fire control, wildlife censuses and bowhead whale surveys. He has been published in national journals and has a previous book of poems called Making It Simple. Winner of several grants and awards, he has given readings at various universities in the west and New York. His passions include hiking, snowshoeing, kayaking, and birding. With his wife photographer Edith Barrowclough and son Brandon, he travels widely in Alaska and the world.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. For more information please see David McElroy.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. For more information please see David McElroy.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 8, 2023
Purchased second hand at The Strand Book Store in NYC. I was looking at the “controversial” books section for a while. My girlfriend whispered to me that one of the books is smutty. I really love the discretion she takes just to tell me something she knows will perk my ears. I think I could write erotica but I don’t know if I want to read it. I don’t think I’ve really ever tried, now that I think about it.
In the quieter back rows of the store, past the “Germany” section whose various volumes of books seemingly titled HITLER caught my eye for how oppressive even his presence is on a book shelf, there were second hand poetry books. They were indistinct covers with unrecognisable names mostly, I have always been someone who engaged with poetry in music primarily.
I think my girlfriend is an excellent poet, her words move me. I’ve hardly ever been so affected by poetry, the imagery she conjured created myths of america, femininity and a devilish part of her that tore me two ways between longing and curiosity - longing for I wished I had been a spectator to her entire life, that we had known each other longer, so that I had never missed any of these precious details…and curiosity of who she really is as a person. My reading of it is different to her intentions, specifically one poem she has about observing bodies in a pool. She slyly adds “I’ve heard of boys kissing boys”. The implied rumour feels like I’ve just heard a rumour about my girlfriend herself, the rumour that she is voyeuristic and sexually charged. But this wasn’t her intention. I created a fantasy in my head, and in reality it was charging me. Then again, there must be some truth, after all she has spied on the skater boys in the park and waited for their gaze. I know she likes to spy. She does not gossip and if she does, she feels corroded by the ugliness of the routine. I knew that her male gaze was true, honest, innocent and most of all endearing.
So, I picked up this book, searching for more myths. I want America, I want forest fires, I want tornadoes, I want outdated and crude language, I want racial tension and venison, blood, smoke and blue collar brilliance. I want something that uniquely subverts the drudgery of lower class British imagery. Boy, was I lucky. This writer has been a bush pilot, a teacher, a fire fighter and a poet, all around the world. A man of several notable talents, a documentarian and thrill seeker, this is the kind of mythic exploit I was looking for. Even better, I find it hard to read anything about him, so much so that I was reading the blog of a man of the same name, enamoured by his pedestrian musings, reading it in what I assumed to be his voice, until I realised it was not the same man. Which I suppose created an interesting little exercise, how I adore this writing so much that even just believing he wrote something totally unrelated can transform its context, voice and conjure a dusty aura around it.
He writes of pain, growth and manhood. Blackness is often noted, his language is sometimes abrasive, barbaric even. He writes of “blue calvin volts shot to the cock”.
The line captured me completely, I was sure I was misunderstanding it’s intention but I felt it to be relatable nevertheless.
Upon writing only a few pages, I had to write about her. I wrote:
“I picture her in a gown
in a forest, glowing, in ancient America.”
It felt right and honest.
I love misunderstanding something momentarily. I have always wondered things for so long without searching for an answer, because I dislike the concrete bluntness of ending a train of thought. Now that I have the answer, the often agonising but wondrous exercise of pondering is gone. In the first few times I read her poem, I was misunderstanding her intention but creating my own world around it, my own meaning. It’s so life affirming to feel so strongly about someone, that you not only accept their meaning but create your own. No longer a myth, she is real. She is everything I wanted and she is real. And together you meld them together into this sobering harmony: not just answers, but now even more to ponder. About her, about David McElroy, America, history, mythology and love. And it’s true, because I say so.
“I think of you, I do.
I think of you all of the time.
I think of my rib cage showing
I’ve exited hunger
Into growling delirium
I gnaw on every string section you showed me
I’ve hit the bones in your poems”
In the quieter back rows of the store, past the “Germany” section whose various volumes of books seemingly titled HITLER caught my eye for how oppressive even his presence is on a book shelf, there were second hand poetry books. They were indistinct covers with unrecognisable names mostly, I have always been someone who engaged with poetry in music primarily.
I think my girlfriend is an excellent poet, her words move me. I’ve hardly ever been so affected by poetry, the imagery she conjured created myths of america, femininity and a devilish part of her that tore me two ways between longing and curiosity - longing for I wished I had been a spectator to her entire life, that we had known each other longer, so that I had never missed any of these precious details…and curiosity of who she really is as a person. My reading of it is different to her intentions, specifically one poem she has about observing bodies in a pool. She slyly adds “I’ve heard of boys kissing boys”. The implied rumour feels like I’ve just heard a rumour about my girlfriend herself, the rumour that she is voyeuristic and sexually charged. But this wasn’t her intention. I created a fantasy in my head, and in reality it was charging me. Then again, there must be some truth, after all she has spied on the skater boys in the park and waited for their gaze. I know she likes to spy. She does not gossip and if she does, she feels corroded by the ugliness of the routine. I knew that her male gaze was true, honest, innocent and most of all endearing.
So, I picked up this book, searching for more myths. I want America, I want forest fires, I want tornadoes, I want outdated and crude language, I want racial tension and venison, blood, smoke and blue collar brilliance. I want something that uniquely subverts the drudgery of lower class British imagery. Boy, was I lucky. This writer has been a bush pilot, a teacher, a fire fighter and a poet, all around the world. A man of several notable talents, a documentarian and thrill seeker, this is the kind of mythic exploit I was looking for. Even better, I find it hard to read anything about him, so much so that I was reading the blog of a man of the same name, enamoured by his pedestrian musings, reading it in what I assumed to be his voice, until I realised it was not the same man. Which I suppose created an interesting little exercise, how I adore this writing so much that even just believing he wrote something totally unrelated can transform its context, voice and conjure a dusty aura around it.
He writes of pain, growth and manhood. Blackness is often noted, his language is sometimes abrasive, barbaric even. He writes of “blue calvin volts shot to the cock”.
The line captured me completely, I was sure I was misunderstanding it’s intention but I felt it to be relatable nevertheless.
Upon writing only a few pages, I had to write about her. I wrote:
“I picture her in a gown
in a forest, glowing, in ancient America.”
It felt right and honest.
I love misunderstanding something momentarily. I have always wondered things for so long without searching for an answer, because I dislike the concrete bluntness of ending a train of thought. Now that I have the answer, the often agonising but wondrous exercise of pondering is gone. In the first few times I read her poem, I was misunderstanding her intention but creating my own world around it, my own meaning. It’s so life affirming to feel so strongly about someone, that you not only accept their meaning but create your own. No longer a myth, she is real. She is everything I wanted and she is real. And together you meld them together into this sobering harmony: not just answers, but now even more to ponder. About her, about David McElroy, America, history, mythology and love. And it’s true, because I say so.
“I think of you, I do.
I think of you all of the time.
I think of my rib cage showing
I’ve exited hunger
Into growling delirium
I gnaw on every string section you showed me
I’ve hit the bones in your poems”
Displaying 1 of 1 review