The Turning

by Maxine Chernoff

Poetry. "Maxine Chernoff's THE TURNING turns at the moment 'when we survive our disappearances,' 'when murder chastises history,' in other words, right now - when all that's left is the leveled playing field of the page, where graffiti scrawled on a wall is just as likely to carry import as Kristeva or Emerson or 'memory or Memorex.' In stanzas taut as guitar strings - or purse strings pulled tight against the chest - these poems recall a kind of classic Ahkmatovan cry (though they never plangent) combined with a Tsvetaeva-like pluckiness, all of which gets overridden by Chernoff's supreme humanity, ferocity, intelligence, wit, 'I had thought I knew how the world would end, but all I really know is how to stare and point.' Then the book takes yet another turn, beyond the staring and pointing" - Gillian Conoley.

99 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2008

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gillian Conoley writes of this new book of poetry, "Maxine Chernoff's The Turning turns at the moment "when we survive our disappearances," "when murder chastises history," in other other words, right now--when all that's left is the leveled playing field of the page, where graffiti scrawled on a wall is just as likely to carry import and Kristeva or Emerson of "memory or Memorex." In stanzas taught as guitar strings--or purse strings pulled tight agains the chest--these poems recall a kind of classic Ahkmatovan cry (though they are never plangent) combined with a Tsvetaeva-like pluckiness, all of which gets overridden by Chernoff's supreme humanity, ferocity, intelligence, wit, and honesty. "I had thought I knew how the world would end, but all I really know is how to stare and point." Then the book takes yet another turn, beyond the staring and pointing. These poeoms dare to be richly imagined. What good is art? Chernoff asks, petulantly, and then she gives us art.

The poem in this volume, "What It Contains," uses the procedures of Flarf in order to produce a poem of sobriety that includes history. Most of The Turning has history in mind and fledges the lyric impulse with political insight and irony.

It's too bad that the publisher, Apogee Press, no longer puts the covers of their books online. The cover of this book, containing a photo by Rika Noguchi of a lone walker in a mist or duststorm, is sumptuous in its minimalism; that is, it explodes time and space around the viewer. As do Chernoff's poems.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of Chernoff's poems in the last decade work with ambivalence and even despair (as in Without). The Turning is not as tightly contracted as the poems in Without. It wonders, with some urgency, about the difficulty of negotiating between intention and circumstance, but it reaches out into that dilemma:

We plunge into place

as if into time

finding our bodies

a bluff or a fairy tale

retreating from knowledge

we seek to form

a pact of mutuality

as if to console.