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Practical Water
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry (2009)
Finalist for the Northern California Book Award for Poetry (2009)
Practical Water is, like Brenda Hillman's previous two books, Cascadia and Pieces of Air in the Epic, both an elemental meditation and an ecopoetics; this time her subject is water: Taoist water, baptismal water, water from the muses' fountains, the practical waters of hydrology from which we draw our being--and the stilled water in a glass in a Senate chamber. Not since Allen Ginsberg tried to levitate the Pentagon has American poetry seen the likes of the hallucinatory wit and moral clarity that Hillman brings to Washington in her poems about Congressional Hearings on the Iraq War. Here also--because it is about many kinds of power--is a sequence of twinned lyrics for the moon, governess of tides and night vision, for visible and invisible faces. Violence and the common world, fact and dream, science and magic, intuition and perception are reconfigured as the poet explores matters of spirit in political life and earthly fate. If it is time to weep by the waters of Babylon, it is also time to touch water's living currents. No one is reimagining the possibilities of lyric poetry with more inventiveness; this is masterful work by one of our finest poets.
Finalist for the Northern California Book Award for Poetry (2009)
Practical Water is, like Brenda Hillman's previous two books, Cascadia and Pieces of Air in the Epic, both an elemental meditation and an ecopoetics; this time her subject is water: Taoist water, baptismal water, water from the muses' fountains, the practical waters of hydrology from which we draw our being--and the stilled water in a glass in a Senate chamber. Not since Allen Ginsberg tried to levitate the Pentagon has American poetry seen the likes of the hallucinatory wit and moral clarity that Hillman brings to Washington in her poems about Congressional Hearings on the Iraq War. Here also--because it is about many kinds of power--is a sequence of twinned lyrics for the moon, governess of tides and night vision, for visible and invisible faces. Violence and the common world, fact and dream, science and magic, intuition and perception are reconfigured as the poet explores matters of spirit in political life and earthly fate. If it is time to weep by the waters of Babylon, it is also time to touch water's living currents. No one is reimagining the possibilities of lyric poetry with more inventiveness; this is masterful work by one of our finest poets.
- GenresPoetry
120 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2009
9 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
About the author
Brenda Hillman
41 books57 followersBrenda Hillman (born March 27, 1951, in Tucson, Arizona) is an American poet and translator.
She is the author of ten collections of poetry: White Dress, Fortress, Death Tractates, Bright Existence, Loose Sugar, Cascadia, Pieces of Air in the Epic, Practical Water, for which she won the LA Times Book Award for Poetry, Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Northern California Book Award for Poetry, and Extra Hidden Life, among the Days, which was awarded the Northern California Book Award for Poetry. Among the awards Hillman has received are the 2012 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the 2005 William Carlos Williams Prize for poetry, and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
A professor of Creative Writing, she holds the Olivia Filippi Chair in Poetry at Saint Mary's College of California, in Moraga, California.
Hillman is also involved in non-violent activism as a member of the Code Pink Working Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2016, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
She is the author of ten collections of poetry: White Dress, Fortress, Death Tractates, Bright Existence, Loose Sugar, Cascadia, Pieces of Air in the Epic, Practical Water, for which she won the LA Times Book Award for Poetry, Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Northern California Book Award for Poetry, and Extra Hidden Life, among the Days, which was awarded the Northern California Book Award for Poetry. Among the awards Hillman has received are the 2012 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the 2005 William Carlos Williams Prize for poetry, and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
A professor of Creative Writing, she holds the Olivia Filippi Chair in Poetry at Saint Mary's College of California, in Moraga, California.
Hillman is also involved in non-violent activism as a member of the Code Pink Working Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2016, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 17, 2013
I love Brenda.
April 29, 2011
Brenda Hillman’s seventh and most recent collection of poetry, “Practical Water,” is more reminiscent in style to her first published collection, “White Dress,” than “Cascadia,” which was published in 2001. While still multi-faceted in ideas and meaning, Hillman’s poems in “Practical Water” are for the most part shorter and less abstract on first read. Divided into four distinct sections, Hillman’s work is bound together by an overarching motif of the natural world, especially water-based ecosystems. The poems themselves touch on politics, history, motherhood, environmental responsibility, and – as with her earlier work – question the meaning and place of poetry in our twenty-first century.
Hillman introduces several new poetic devices into her work with “Practical Water.” First, she includes two essays in the collection. Neither is more than two pages long, and both challenge the conventional understanding of the form. They employ short, grammatically incomplete sentences which give the reader an impression of reading poetry in block-text form as much as prose. “The eighties: an essay” is a nearly stream-of-consciousness response to the question “what was at stake for you in the eighties?” and paints a portrait of the public and private, the political, ecological and the personal. “Reportorial poetry, trance & activism: an essay” is much more expository in form, explaining the technique of trance writing and the author’s application of it during political protests at congress. Still, here, the writing often feels poetic with the inclusion of lines such as, “If bees can detect ultraviolet rays, there are surely more possibilities in language & government. The possible is boundless.”
Another new technique for Hillman in “Practical Water” is the inclusion of photos at the bottom of a number of her poems. The collection’s afterword explains that many of these were taken by the author herself, and each offers an additional insight into the context or situation that inspired the poem above it. The photos range from aerial photos of dams and reservoirs to photos of birds, wetlands and political protests. Though small in size and printed in black and white (the reader often needs to squint to make out the image) I found that they did offer more context in less space than would have been possible with a textual element such as footnotes.
The third section of “Practical Water” offers another interesting combination of poetic techniques for the reader. Subtitled “(of the months when you work & the months when you can’t)”, it includes a series of poems titled after each month of the year, starting with “September moon” and concluding with “August moon.” Each of these poems, except “August Moon,” includes a shadow poem on the right-hand half of the page, printed in grey text. The poems feel very documentary in nature (an effect that is heightened by the inclusion of photographs at the bottom of each column on the page), and the content of the poem and shadow poem contrast each other. In this sense, the entire section could be seen as presenting a diary of a year, including both the ying & yang of each month. “September moon” for example, offers a poem about walking the speaker’s mother, while the shadow poem documents an act of civil disobedience. The final poem in the section, a ‘shadow’ poem also entitled “September Moon” concludes with a photo of the author’s second wedding. The fact that the poems start with September may also be a reference to the author’s experience as a mother, whose life is suddenly dictated by the academic calendar as her daughter grows older.
Motherhood is one theme that can be found in “Practical Water,” presented most directly in the poem “Girl Sleuth,” in which the speaker observes the progress of a young girl learning to read. Politics is also much more explicitly discussed in this collection, particularly the politics surrounding the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Several poems, including “Ballad at the State Capitol,” “In a Senate Armed Services Hearing,” and “Dragonskin” all address the war and its consequences on American lives. The essay “Reportorial poetry, trance & activism” includes a forceful call to action and community organization. Environmental issues are also prominent in this collection. Many times, Hillman extols the beauty of the natural world through documentary poetics without explicitly making a call for change or action. Other poems, such as the 10 page “Hydrology of California: an ecopoetical alphabet” or “Request to the Berkeley City Council concerning Strawberry Creek” leave less doubt as to the consequences of human development on the environment.
Hillman nevertheless questions the impact of her own activist poetry in “Economics in Washington,” where she writes, “This isn’t a political poem / there are no results in poetry.” (pg.53) Yet upon finishing the collection, it becomes clear to the reader that “Practical Water” is an intervention, a poetic call to consider our actions at home and abroad, and consider the value of what’s around us. Highly recommended.
Hillman introduces several new poetic devices into her work with “Practical Water.” First, she includes two essays in the collection. Neither is more than two pages long, and both challenge the conventional understanding of the form. They employ short, grammatically incomplete sentences which give the reader an impression of reading poetry in block-text form as much as prose. “The eighties: an essay” is a nearly stream-of-consciousness response to the question “what was at stake for you in the eighties?” and paints a portrait of the public and private, the political, ecological and the personal. “Reportorial poetry, trance & activism: an essay” is much more expository in form, explaining the technique of trance writing and the author’s application of it during political protests at congress. Still, here, the writing often feels poetic with the inclusion of lines such as, “If bees can detect ultraviolet rays, there are surely more possibilities in language & government. The possible is boundless.”
Another new technique for Hillman in “Practical Water” is the inclusion of photos at the bottom of a number of her poems. The collection’s afterword explains that many of these were taken by the author herself, and each offers an additional insight into the context or situation that inspired the poem above it. The photos range from aerial photos of dams and reservoirs to photos of birds, wetlands and political protests. Though small in size and printed in black and white (the reader often needs to squint to make out the image) I found that they did offer more context in less space than would have been possible with a textual element such as footnotes.
The third section of “Practical Water” offers another interesting combination of poetic techniques for the reader. Subtitled “(of the months when you work & the months when you can’t)”, it includes a series of poems titled after each month of the year, starting with “September moon” and concluding with “August moon.” Each of these poems, except “August Moon,” includes a shadow poem on the right-hand half of the page, printed in grey text. The poems feel very documentary in nature (an effect that is heightened by the inclusion of photographs at the bottom of each column on the page), and the content of the poem and shadow poem contrast each other. In this sense, the entire section could be seen as presenting a diary of a year, including both the ying & yang of each month. “September moon” for example, offers a poem about walking the speaker’s mother, while the shadow poem documents an act of civil disobedience. The final poem in the section, a ‘shadow’ poem also entitled “September Moon” concludes with a photo of the author’s second wedding. The fact that the poems start with September may also be a reference to the author’s experience as a mother, whose life is suddenly dictated by the academic calendar as her daughter grows older.
Motherhood is one theme that can be found in “Practical Water,” presented most directly in the poem “Girl Sleuth,” in which the speaker observes the progress of a young girl learning to read. Politics is also much more explicitly discussed in this collection, particularly the politics surrounding the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Several poems, including “Ballad at the State Capitol,” “In a Senate Armed Services Hearing,” and “Dragonskin” all address the war and its consequences on American lives. The essay “Reportorial poetry, trance & activism” includes a forceful call to action and community organization. Environmental issues are also prominent in this collection. Many times, Hillman extols the beauty of the natural world through documentary poetics without explicitly making a call for change or action. Other poems, such as the 10 page “Hydrology of California: an ecopoetical alphabet” or “Request to the Berkeley City Council concerning Strawberry Creek” leave less doubt as to the consequences of human development on the environment.
Hillman nevertheless questions the impact of her own activist poetry in “Economics in Washington,” where she writes, “This isn’t a political poem / there are no results in poetry.” (pg.53) Yet upon finishing the collection, it becomes clear to the reader that “Practical Water” is an intervention, a poetic call to consider our actions at home and abroad, and consider the value of what’s around us. Highly recommended.
July 7, 2024
So so. Not Hillman's best work, and as a collection, lacks cohesion.
December 13, 2022
Rly liked this. Oh no I’m kinda behind on reviews! I got this bc I heard she makes clever use of punctuation and bc I’m trying to write a sequence on public pools. I also just like quirky white ladies writing about water (plainwater by Anne Carson 💙). this book made me think a lot about letters punctuation as concrete objects and water as a bureaucratically regulated public good—and how to engage w that poetically! Language felt like this thing that could come out as lies out of politicians’ mouths, but also live independently as its own thing. Independently like amorally so, nonhumanly so. Damn I read this a month ago so I feel like a thought I had then about this is escaping me. Anyway I also couldn’t help favorably comparing this to nature writing I find more conventional and romantic, and perhaps overoptimistic, like ada Limon and to a lesser extent Mary Oliver. I like that for hillman water is as much part of the pacific as it is used for irrigation. her approach feels more comprehensive and thereby realistic. I’m inspired by how much political action she does in her life and how her poetry will be informed by it, rather than substituting it. No claims of language as inherently powerful/revolutionary here, the attitude was more a curiosity toward the many lives that language lives. Doing stuff outside of the literary world makes u understand its limits! Sad that hillman was/is rly involved in codepink which now has tankie positions on China lol
August 14, 2010
Somebody recommended this book to me. I don't know why. The only possible link I can see is that my poetry tends to be "female" (or at least has been described to me as such) and that Hillman writes from a female point-of-view (in that women are the protagonists and enforcers in this book). Overall, I found this book pretentious (politically and artistically) and avante-garde in all the worst possible ways (believes that the undisciplined presentation of a mind's meanderings is interesting; uses punctuation in a cutesy and attention-demanding manner; is often unconcerned with making sense). That about covers the artistic pretension; as for political pretension, Hillman is apparently a member of CodePink. From my limited political knowledge, I believe this is some group of all women who think they are defending liberty, freedom, etc., by protesting war, but in reality, their efforts get in the way of groups who can actually accomplish pro-peace agendas. In other words, they are self-important rabble-rousers who give serious activists a bad name. So anyway, a lot of the book is about CodePink endeavors, told in a overly somber, victimized tone.
There seems to be some undecipherable theme of water throughout the book. Water randomly appears in poems about Congressional hearings, that kind of thing.
Most of the poems I did not understand (or enjoy the experience of, as, yes, I know, meaning is not always a priority for contemporary poets, a decision I often have problems with, but at least with an Ashbery poem, I can often enjoy a carefully planned induction of impressions and vibes--here, I'm just lost). There were a few poems I did like--these were the ones that were more accessible in their structure and syntax and content. "Berkeley Water" was clever--it simply and effectively satirized the kind of yuppie organic lifestyle so prevalent among certain groups these days (I got a great giggle from "...smart, worried-/looking babies slumped in very / expensive strollers while their mothers eat / carob-coated pretzels & their fathers eat / floppy artichoke pizza slices."). Some of "The Covenant" moved me--it starts out as a promising poem about how dolphins used to be used to find explosives before nosediving into a pointless, lazy reminiscence about remarriage ("should i wear reading glasses at the wedding?"). It does return to the dolphins in a very sweet final image.
Well, what can I learn from this? Her form can be very innovative. I suppose, formally, she could help me experiment. But overall this is an example of a type of contemporary poetry that I can't stand--self-righteous language poetry. Whee.
Also it makes me wonder how I'm a "female" poet. In subject matter, often (I write about mothers and daughters and sex and the female body a lot). Maybe only in subject matter? I'm definitely not a political poet like I guess Hillman is--I'm most interested, I think, in metaphor, image, play, and emotion.
There seems to be some undecipherable theme of water throughout the book. Water randomly appears in poems about Congressional hearings, that kind of thing.
Most of the poems I did not understand (or enjoy the experience of, as, yes, I know, meaning is not always a priority for contemporary poets, a decision I often have problems with, but at least with an Ashbery poem, I can often enjoy a carefully planned induction of impressions and vibes--here, I'm just lost). There were a few poems I did like--these were the ones that were more accessible in their structure and syntax and content. "Berkeley Water" was clever--it simply and effectively satirized the kind of yuppie organic lifestyle so prevalent among certain groups these days (I got a great giggle from "...smart, worried-/looking babies slumped in very / expensive strollers while their mothers eat / carob-coated pretzels & their fathers eat / floppy artichoke pizza slices."). Some of "The Covenant" moved me--it starts out as a promising poem about how dolphins used to be used to find explosives before nosediving into a pointless, lazy reminiscence about remarriage ("should i wear reading glasses at the wedding?"). It does return to the dolphins in a very sweet final image.
Well, what can I learn from this? Her form can be very innovative. I suppose, formally, she could help me experiment. But overall this is an example of a type of contemporary poetry that I can't stand--self-righteous language poetry. Whee.
Also it makes me wonder how I'm a "female" poet. In subject matter, often (I write about mothers and daughters and sex and the female body a lot). Maybe only in subject matter? I'm definitely not a political poet like I guess Hillman is--I'm most interested, I think, in metaphor, image, play, and emotion.
October 7, 2009
I knew I wouldn't be disappointed by this collection, and while my favorite Hillman books are still in the earlier years of her career, this book certainly met my expectations. Now that I live in the Bay Area, many of the sights and sounds of Hillman's poetry ring even more true. Just another dimension of enjoying Hillman's poems.
May 22, 2010
Whether or not you have the strength to resist official versions that are devastating the earth & its creatures, you could in any case send back reports.
A poem doesn't fail when you set your one good wing on the ground
I left the world & felt a world
A poem doesn't fail when you set your one good wing on the ground
I left the world & felt a world
Read
August 21, 2011Wow this was terrible.
April 5, 2012
Her poems are bizarre, strong, and politically driven. I enjoyed how she doesn't write to appease the reader but writes to challenge him/her.
December 2, 2020
Often-times beautiful, but highly inconsistent poetry that blends nature and observations of the natural world with activism and ecological politics. It's fascinating more than anything else, how much variation in voice and purpose there is within this collection. The book has an epigraph from David Hume, which says "Water, whatever it communicates, always remains at a level," and I can't help but be amused by the irony when this highly variable collection is, as much as anything, a call to action, using skew lines of thought and voice to lever or channel the soul to motion.
October 16, 2024
A FORMAL AND LYRICAL GENIUS
February 18, 2016
maaaaaaaaaan, i wanted to love this. like, i think anyone who knows me knows how much i love Brenda. i have maybe half of Bright Existence straight-up memorized. i was so excited about this book and then i was SO BORED with this that it took me two years to finish. i don't really have an explanation for that. but there was one poem that was basically a multi-page run-on sentence with that kept putting me to sleep.
on the plus side: out of all her books, this one has the most attractively designed cover.
on the plus side: out of all her books, this one has the most attractively designed cover.
June 23, 2011
My interest ebbed & flowed while reading Hillman's third installment in her ecopoetic series of books organized around the 4 elements. Cascadia, the first of the series, still ranks number 1 with me.
I do admire how Hillman is able to blend political activism with sensitivity to both the language and the environment. Language is environment after all.
I do admire how Hillman is able to blend political activism with sensitivity to both the language and the environment. Language is environment after all.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews