Customer Reviews

Beyond: New Poems

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll mostly confine myself to being oppositional. The Kirus Review appraisal of the book is silly, and I'd hate it to be the only one accompanying the book on this service. Golbarth is a very good poet. Few poets writing have his knack for producing gorgeously textured sounds out of the most improbable materials or for showing (or creating) compelling connections between seemingly disparate ideas or oddities. So, while _Beyond_ isn't Goldbarth's best book, it's far from being as slapdash or long-winded as the blurb from Kirkus would have us believe. Indeed, the poems are in the main quite well-constructed. What Kirkus calls "his pile-on sensibility" is actually a very careful and structured style that shouldn't be so easily dismissed, and the fact that the poems are energetic at the same time they're cautious about easy answers doesn't mean they're desperate. For example, "News from Home" displays many of the traits Kirkus dislikes but, though not a great poem (and far from the best in the book), is certainly an intelligent, lush take on what does and doesn't change in human life as centuries roll by. Our anonymous friend at Kirkus calls Goldbarth "[m]ore tummler, barker, and prankster than poet," and I must admit that I'm not quite sure what this means. Poetry doesn't need to be fustian, confessional, or arch to be wise and moving. I may not know what Kirkus means, but I do know that a _poet_ wrote "Two Cents," which is a lovely poem (and it's to have Goldbarth's two cents thrown into the canon debates). A poet capable of restrained meditation on family history and inequity wrote "Even; Equal." And a poet who understands suffering, longing, and love gave us "Meop." The book isn't certainly isn't crying out for an editor's pencil, though I can't necessarily say the same for all its reviewers.

Just want to second the other customer review: Goldbarth's poetry is complicated and exciting stuff. The anonymous Kirkus Reviewer must not read much poetry if s/he doesn't understand that.