The Piercing Blue of Sirius, Selected Poems 1968-2008 by Larry Kimmel
Winifred Press, USA, ISBN 978-0-9792484-7-4
This Is Not About What You Think by Jim Murdoch
Fandango Virtual, UK, ISBN 978-0-9550636-3-3
As someone who has always preferred American literature, it must surely be my fault that I have (so far) failed to encounter the work of Larry Kimmel. What a pleasure, to be given his selected poems to read. I usually hand back to the editor copies of books he gives me to review, especially if they contain dedications, but may conveniently forget to return this one, or just confess and ask to keep it… One thing is for sure: I don’t want to part with The Piercing Blue of Sirius.
Even for a ‘selected’ covering a writing career of forty years, the range of forms and styles represented here is impressive. Taken from nine collections, the sampling includes all sorts of poems, prose poems and narrative fiction. Quite literally a feast and never a dull moment, as the subject matter also ranges over a variety of places, times and situations. His shorter poems, eg the haiku, are acutely observed, a ‘travelling eye’ accompanying the reader to places where we have all been – perhaps not geographically, but instantly recognisable in terms of common human experience.
The poems about the author’s ‘Pennsylvania Deutsch’ family history are particularly memorable. They are reminiscent of the real-life stories told to me by relatives living in similar German-speaking farming communities in other US states, eg Strange Harvest ‘His first day home on the farm, unscathed by combat, he loses an arm to the combine harvester…’ I always begged my family for more of these high-octane rural tales, eg the new bride who was handed an axe and told to dispatch four hundred chickens before lunch; the writhing mass of garter snakes hibernating in my aunt’s cellar each winter; the events of the nearby Sioux reservation. This book contains an exhilarating thread of work along these lines, on the subject of Larry Kimmel’s first-generation American ancestors and their polyglot neighbours. The people, events and the land itself are somehow mythologised into folk legend: very characteristic of American literature and absolutely fascinating, like the back-story in Holes by Louis Sachar or (a guilty pleasure) the beet-farming tales of Dwight K. Shrute in The Office: An American Workplace. The long poem which vividly relates the author’s grandmother being swept away in a torrent – The Johnstown Flood, May 31 1889 – also sweeps the reader away, rendering them powerless to stop reading until the final word is reached: a classic.
Whether family folklore or personal observations about life and mortality, Larry Kimmel’s work presents the reader with a fresh viewpoint from a sympathetic correspondent. (Now to try and track down copies of his previous books; hope they’re still in print – they certainly deserve to be…)
Another author whose work gives a compassionate response to the human condition is Jim Murdoch. Both of these men are prepared to talk directly about the adversities of life as it is lived: unglamorous sometimes, but honest and timeless.
Jim Murdoch says in his introduction to This Is Not About What You Think: ‘I’ve long held the belief that writers should say what they have to say and get off the page. So I try to do exactly that. This has resulted in an aphoristic style of writing which I happen to like…’ True enough: due to the highly personal viewpoint, some of the poems have an aphoristic feel, but the collection goes far deeper than the usual surface gloss and easy wit of actual aphorisms.
Without the protection of cynicism or bravado, these poems acknowledge all the usual human vulnerabilities, reflecting the real world where l’esprit de l’escalier reigns and that pithy one-liner is never on the tip of your tongue when you need it; hurt is deeply felt, but quietly borne. The author gives us his careful observations of life far more than his opinions and the concerns are universal. The wisdom in the text seems to have been hard-won and some of the subject matter is very moving, eg Father Figure and the series of poems Advice to Children.
Some of the poems can appear deceptively simple at first glance, but the points they make often resonate and demand subsequent readings; this is an unassuming book which quietly grows on you. The longer poems are frequently supple and mediate between an interior/exterior world, eg ‘You can drown inside yourself you know/but only a dripping tap can drive you/insane’ (Old Flames In The Rain).
In his introduction, the author offers the reader permission to use his poems: ‘Just because I’ve finished thinking my thoughts, doesn’t mean that someone else won’t be able to make use of them. They may make something of them that I never intended or imagined.’ And that’s the whole point of this text, as demonstrated by the cover illustration of a Rorschach ink-blot which appears to be a naked man – or is that just what I see? Get a copy and see what you think: it’s well worth a look.
Ellis is a poet working in the east of England. She studied American Literature at Warwick University and
has a PGC in Creative Writing from UEA.