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The Small Dance
- GenresPoetry
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Chris Martin
30 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 24, 2009
(This is more of a response to Sumrall's breezy dismissal of Martin's new chapbook than proper review)
If we can agree that all criticism is ultimately subjective, that we can not help but bring our own baggage to any work we are to consider with any care, then should we not also agree that it is the critic’s task—responsibility—to thoughtfully and carefully attend to the work with as much precision, with as much specificity as possible? To dismiss a work such as Chris Martin’s, The Small Dance with such vagaries as “arbitrary & faddish” as Dan Sumrall does only shows how dull a mind the critic must possess in the first place. To not thoughtfully consider a work from all angles, before making your assessment a part of the public discussion, only demonstrates the weak facility of the critic.
Arbitrary and faddish. Hmmm. Are we reading the same poem? There is nothing arbitrary or faddish about Martin’s work. But since you’ve neglected to give examples of your gripe, allow me to attempt to attend to your vagaries and present the work for appraisal, paying particular attention to your words “arbitrary & faddish.”
We can begin simply enough. The title of the poem. The Small Dance. Had you bothered to read the epigraph you’d have immediately found yourself firmly oriented. This is the small dance of the daily mind, the small dance of the body tuned sharply to it’s fluctuating emotional states. That in the midst of standing still, the world continues its dance—and whether we notice it or not, this dance continues unabated, and as such our movements in the world have/create an emotional register.
from Sec. 3
Do you explain / ice by acting / slippery? / Simply by moving we implicate the hoax…
(give the constraints of the comments box, I would hope you’d consider these examples in their proper light for the full effect of the line-breaks & projection of the voice on the page)
I can’t detect anything arbitrary of faddish in these lines. In fact it seems to me to that Martin has taken the measure of his thought, and found a way of presenting it in an interesting way on the page. The breaks obey the breath. The body & voice reacting to the world it perceives. And this is but one of many examples of his thinking thru the poem that happens constantly in this poem.
from Sec. 7
The vowels are valves / The song is an answer / And this is a question / of forces / a voice to recover / from ourselves
Arbitrary. No. Notice that Martin doesn’t say that the song is the answer. He say it’s an answer. That is absolutely not an arbitrary word choice. This is a poet who takes great care in choosing amongst his options.
Martin is a poet of great consideration. I’d argue that he is a meditative poet who crafts his lines and sounds with great attention to the weight each of these elements will bring to his line. In this sense he is more in line with a poet like, say, William Bronk (although I shudder to think how badly you’re misreading Bronk if your dismissal of Martin’s work is any indication of your critical acumen.) Martin has taken the time and the effort to regard the world around him, it’s layers as well as it’s surface play, and has used it as a way of investigating a deeper dynamic that is at work in the world around us.
Zukofsky: Poetry convinces not by argument but by the form it creates to carry its content.
Martin has crafted his pages to reflect the movement of his mind. The breaks frequently are dictated by the breath. The page becomes the stage for an enactment of the thought process. And Martin handles this terrain masterfully. Open to any section in this book and look carefully at how Martin arranges the page. He breaks poignantly on the moment of a phrase where consideration is most important. And this is the measure of his control. The voice is his own, even when distant echoes and allusions come into play. For instance, in section 10 we see the shadow of Berrigan’s Sonnet 1 in line 4…
The wind proved presence / to be form / a form of magnetism
And Martin elaborates:
The leaves do not need to learn how / to tremble though / probably the world too / sure about its things
Take into consideration all of Sections 6,12, or 28.
Can you honestly say that any of these breaks are arbitrary, or that the language—profound in it’s sincerity—seems faddish? No. It’s a poetry that is vividly aware of itself… and the proof is in the words and their arrangement, their rhythm, & their surgical attention to the sonic properties of the words themselves that make this a poem of the world. Martin’s attention to the valves of the vowels is evident every step of the way. Alliteration, rhyme, assonance – traditional modes of voice-leading, are made sharper by Martin’s contemporary ear and are harnessed to negotiate this difficult mental terrain.
“Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones.” Lest I have to refer you back to your Blake; this is the exact mode Martin works in. And it is the precise reason why the work, THE WORK is NOT arbitrary & faddish. The only thing underwhelming here is your lack of critical observation and ability to make a decent case for why you don’t find this a thoroughly electric work. Again, if all criticism is subjective, why not make your case with specifics. Perhaps that is asking too much. I defer to Blake & leave him to finish his thought… “Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.” This isn’t rocket science. Even a passing glance at anyone of Martin’s pages reveal his unfailing attention to detail, to the “little ones”:
from Section 5
we take the PATH train to Journal Square and the first / store we see boasts 99 cent DREAMS
What poet/writer, in love with words, would let this moment pass by? There is nothing arbitrary or faddish about reclaiming the world we inhabit everyday and translating it and interacting with it on an intellectual level.
I could continue with this all day long. We could go through this line by line and a case could be made at every turn that Martin is anything but arbitrary or faddish. Taste is one thing, astute criticism is another. If you’re going to dismiss a work with such casualness you better not bitch when you’re called to account.
If you’re going to engage in armchair quarterbacking, you should at least have some idea of what you’re talking about. If you don’t attend to the work – and state your opinion soundly – how can we progress into any fruitful discussion of the work at hand?
If we can agree that all criticism is ultimately subjective, that we can not help but bring our own baggage to any work we are to consider with any care, then should we not also agree that it is the critic’s task—responsibility—to thoughtfully and carefully attend to the work with as much precision, with as much specificity as possible? To dismiss a work such as Chris Martin’s, The Small Dance with such vagaries as “arbitrary & faddish” as Dan Sumrall does only shows how dull a mind the critic must possess in the first place. To not thoughtfully consider a work from all angles, before making your assessment a part of the public discussion, only demonstrates the weak facility of the critic.
Arbitrary and faddish. Hmmm. Are we reading the same poem? There is nothing arbitrary or faddish about Martin’s work. But since you’ve neglected to give examples of your gripe, allow me to attempt to attend to your vagaries and present the work for appraisal, paying particular attention to your words “arbitrary & faddish.”
We can begin simply enough. The title of the poem. The Small Dance. Had you bothered to read the epigraph you’d have immediately found yourself firmly oriented. This is the small dance of the daily mind, the small dance of the body tuned sharply to it’s fluctuating emotional states. That in the midst of standing still, the world continues its dance—and whether we notice it or not, this dance continues unabated, and as such our movements in the world have/create an emotional register.
from Sec. 3
Do you explain / ice by acting / slippery? / Simply by moving we implicate the hoax…
(give the constraints of the comments box, I would hope you’d consider these examples in their proper light for the full effect of the line-breaks & projection of the voice on the page)
I can’t detect anything arbitrary of faddish in these lines. In fact it seems to me to that Martin has taken the measure of his thought, and found a way of presenting it in an interesting way on the page. The breaks obey the breath. The body & voice reacting to the world it perceives. And this is but one of many examples of his thinking thru the poem that happens constantly in this poem.
from Sec. 7
The vowels are valves / The song is an answer / And this is a question / of forces / a voice to recover / from ourselves
Arbitrary. No. Notice that Martin doesn’t say that the song is the answer. He say it’s an answer. That is absolutely not an arbitrary word choice. This is a poet who takes great care in choosing amongst his options.
Martin is a poet of great consideration. I’d argue that he is a meditative poet who crafts his lines and sounds with great attention to the weight each of these elements will bring to his line. In this sense he is more in line with a poet like, say, William Bronk (although I shudder to think how badly you’re misreading Bronk if your dismissal of Martin’s work is any indication of your critical acumen.) Martin has taken the time and the effort to regard the world around him, it’s layers as well as it’s surface play, and has used it as a way of investigating a deeper dynamic that is at work in the world around us.
Zukofsky: Poetry convinces not by argument but by the form it creates to carry its content.
Martin has crafted his pages to reflect the movement of his mind. The breaks frequently are dictated by the breath. The page becomes the stage for an enactment of the thought process. And Martin handles this terrain masterfully. Open to any section in this book and look carefully at how Martin arranges the page. He breaks poignantly on the moment of a phrase where consideration is most important. And this is the measure of his control. The voice is his own, even when distant echoes and allusions come into play. For instance, in section 10 we see the shadow of Berrigan’s Sonnet 1 in line 4…
The wind proved presence / to be form / a form of magnetism
And Martin elaborates:
The leaves do not need to learn how / to tremble though / probably the world too / sure about its things
Take into consideration all of Sections 6,12, or 28.
Can you honestly say that any of these breaks are arbitrary, or that the language—profound in it’s sincerity—seems faddish? No. It’s a poetry that is vividly aware of itself… and the proof is in the words and their arrangement, their rhythm, & their surgical attention to the sonic properties of the words themselves that make this a poem of the world. Martin’s attention to the valves of the vowels is evident every step of the way. Alliteration, rhyme, assonance – traditional modes of voice-leading, are made sharper by Martin’s contemporary ear and are harnessed to negotiate this difficult mental terrain.
“Pay attention to minute particulars. Take care of the little ones.” Lest I have to refer you back to your Blake; this is the exact mode Martin works in. And it is the precise reason why the work, THE WORK is NOT arbitrary & faddish. The only thing underwhelming here is your lack of critical observation and ability to make a decent case for why you don’t find this a thoroughly electric work. Again, if all criticism is subjective, why not make your case with specifics. Perhaps that is asking too much. I defer to Blake & leave him to finish his thought… “Generalization and abstraction are the plea of the hypocrite, scoundrel, and knave.” This isn’t rocket science. Even a passing glance at anyone of Martin’s pages reveal his unfailing attention to detail, to the “little ones”:
from Section 5
we take the PATH train to Journal Square and the first / store we see boasts 99 cent DREAMS
What poet/writer, in love with words, would let this moment pass by? There is nothing arbitrary or faddish about reclaiming the world we inhabit everyday and translating it and interacting with it on an intellectual level.
I could continue with this all day long. We could go through this line by line and a case could be made at every turn that Martin is anything but arbitrary or faddish. Taste is one thing, astute criticism is another. If you’re going to dismiss a work with such casualness you better not bitch when you’re called to account.
If you’re going to engage in armchair quarterbacking, you should at least have some idea of what you’re talking about. If you don’t attend to the work – and state your opinion soundly – how can we progress into any fruitful discussion of the work at hand?
March 15, 2009
Wow. I enjoyed American Music, but was not prepared for Chris Martin's poetry when it is free from the constraints of the form--multiple tercets concluding in a single punchline--he uses in his Copper Canyon Press debut. I am breathless from following Martin's page-spanning line segments--a pleasant surprise I will say no more about, as you can see for yourself.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews