{"id":143,"date":"2011-01-24T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=143"},"modified":"2011-01-24T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T21:00:00","slug":"book-review-%e2%80%93-beverly-ellis-says-lifes-like-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/book-review-%e2%80%93-beverly-ellis-says-lifes-like-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Book review \u2013 Beverly Ellis says life's like that"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Piercing Blue of Sirius, Selected Poems 1968-2008<\/span> by Larry Kimmel<\/span>
Winifred Press, USA, ISBN 978-0-9792484-7-4<\/span>

This Is Not About What You Think<\/span> by Jim Murdoch<\/span>
Fandango Virtual, UK, ISBN 978-0-9550636-3-3<\/span>


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\u2026  One thing is for sure: I don\u2019t want to part with <\/span>The Piercing Blue of Sirius<\/span>.<\/span>

Even for a \u2018selected\u2019 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 \u2018travelling eye\u2019 accompanying the reader to places where we have all been \u2013 perhaps not geographically, but instantly recognisable in terms of common human experience.<\/span>

The poems about the author\u2019s \u2018Pennsylvania Deutsch\u2019 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 <\/span>Strange Harvest<\/span> \u2018His first day home on the farm, unscathed by combat, he loses an arm to the combine harvester\u2026\u2019  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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 <\/span>Holes<\/span> by Louis Sachar or (a guilty pleasure) the beet-farming tales of Dwight K. Shrute in <\/span>The Office: An American Workplace<\/span>.  The long poem which vividly relates the author\u2019s grandmother being swept away in a torrent \u2013 <\/span>The Johnstown Flood, May 31 1889<\/span> \u2013 also sweeps the reader away, rendering them powerless to stop reading until the final word is reached: a classic.<\/span>

Whether family folklore or personal observations about life and mortality, Larry Kimmel\u2019s 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\u2019re still in print \u2013 they certainly deserve to be…)<\/span>

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.<\/span>

Jim Murdoch says in his introduction to <\/span>This Is Not About What You Think<\/span>: \u2018I\u2019ve 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\u2026\u2019  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.<\/span>

Without the protection of cynicism or bravado, these poems acknowledge all the usual human vulnerabilities, reflecting the real world where l\u2019esprit de l\u2019escalier 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 <\/span>Father Figure<\/span> and the series of poems <\/span>Advice to Children<\/span>.<\/span>

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 \u2018You can drown inside yourself you know\/but only a dripping tap can drive you\/insane\u2019 (<\/span>Old Flames In The Rain<\/span>).<\/span>

In his introduction, the author offers the reader permission to use his poems: \u2018Just because I\u2019ve finished thinking my thoughts, doesn\u2019t mean that someone else won\u2019t be able to make use of them.  They may make something of them that I never intended or imagined.\u2019  And that\u2019s the whole point of this text, as demonstrated by the cover illustration of a Rorschach ink-blot which appears to be a naked man \u2013 or is that just what I see?  Get a copy and see what you think: it\u2019s well worth a look.<\/p>\n


<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n

…our reviewer Beverly
\nEllis<\/span> is a poet working in the east of England. <\/span>She studied American Literature at Warwick University and
\nhas a PGC in Creative Writing from UEA.<\/span><\/i><\/font>
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Piercing Blue of Sirius, Selected Poems 1968-2008 by Larry KimmelWinifred Press, USA, ISBN 978-0-9792484-7-4This Is Not About What You Think by Jim MurdochFandango Virtual, UK, ISBN 978-0-9550636-3-3As 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}