Book Review |
Undanceableby Michael Kelleher |
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Undanceable
by Merrill Gilfillan
Flood Editions, 2005 $12.95
Since I don’t have too much space, I’ll just out with it: Undanceable, by Merrill Gilfillan, is the best new book of poetry I’ve read this year. Though not a new poet (he published his first collection in 1970), he’s new to me, and a revelation. Comprised of short, efficient, effective (and affecting) lyric poems, often written in serial sequences under one title, this singular collection contains everything I need from a book of poetry. In short: it sings. Just listen: “Sunrise more/a porridge than a fire:/low slough/of off-whites, cold grays./One long lone rosy bar/far south–” This is a man who knows his phonemes! A veritable encyclopedia of bird-knowledge, tree-knowledge, and earth-knowledge, Undanceable homes in on the language of the natural world (specifically that of the western United States) without falling prey to easy idealizations of nature-with-a-capital-N. Which is not to say these poems are tame. Many of them actually bite–deliciously–and with great wit. Listen: “In an ancient world like this/is, the penalty for harming/a live tree–navel cut out/spiked to the injured trunk/then driven around/and around it/till full length/of the gut is wrapped/about the tree./A sort of May day/upside down.” If anyone has any further questions about lyric poetry’s right to sing in the face of modern horror, please address them to Theodor Adorno. Kudos to Flood Editions for calling attention to yet another diamond in the “sough.”
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