The Commandrine and Other Poems [Paperback]

Joyelle McSweeney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2004

The brilliance of Joyelle McSweeney's poems is a given; what remains delightfully open to negotiation are its methodologies and its mien. In her second book McSweeney finds her subjects in the long form; The Commandrine is a verse-play that in nine scenes tells the story of sailors Zest, Coast, Ivory, and Irish, and their run-in with the Devil.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A "commandrine" is the female captain of a ship, and in the long verse play that gives this sophomore book its title, our leader attempts to guide four unruly sailors who frequently converse with the devil. "Shall I exercise my command?" asks the commandrine, making it clear that this poem, and the rest of this nervy collection, has that most fundamental question of art making at stake: What constitutes the authority of the artist? McSweeney offers no real answer to this ancient unanswerable ("Don't you know/ the riddle?" asks the poet. "I am the world I cannot see"), but raises the question in a manner as convincing as it is playful. And as in life, art making blends with other forms of union and reproduction (the first poem ends with the line, "Ent'ring our marriage ride"; the last is titled "The Born Fetus"), and with renewal: "Toothbrush into a yogurt cup, Recyclamente! I am so/ adamant. The siren with a catch in its cry starts over." (Mar.)
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Review

"'Shall I exercise my command?' asks the commandrine, making it clear that this poem, and the rest of this nervy collection, has that most fundamental question of art making at stake: What constitutes the authority of the artist? McSweeney offers no real answer to the ancient unanswerable, but raises the question in a manner as convincing as it is playful."--Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 61 pages
• Publisher: Fence Books; First Edition edition (November 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 097409093X
• ISBN-13: 978-0974090931
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,195,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comical poems about gap between hopes and reality, November 29, 2004

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Commandrine and Other Poems (Paperback)

The title poem is a 15-page verse play of nine scenes that is like a comical Moby Dick with the nonsensical, yet evocative, repartee of a Samuel Beckett play. The source of McSweeney's poems is a comic energy and skewed eye. The brief poem "Bugs Bunny, Or, The Mirror That Held a Little Camera," beings, "I'm rundown. I've got a sunburn. These ears are my liability but they hold a lot...." Even when the comic style abates at times when a somber subject is raised, the language remains sharp and inventive, as in "Youth Image" where the poet writes, "One bus and then another passed with unresolving traffic of weird angles, logos,/a world that wouldn't math up...."