Customer Reviews

The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996

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Not since William Morris put ink to paper and stained "Tyger, Tyger" has a poet moved me so much as Bob Pinsky has! A solid methodological and whimsically "fresh air" aspect underscores and overdetermines his every line and meme! I loved it so much I forgot who August Kleinzahler was for a minute! Boffo!

I guess his work is so controversial because it's so thoroughly formalist in a time of experimentation. He is a very feeling person, a poet of feeling & great genius. He addresses all sorts of themes in these poems. All sorts, from the serenely bucolic [he sometimes begins poems by showing the reader that he's been sure to learn things about what he uses for images) to overtly sexual experiments that he says in the poem make you feel dirty. In one he muses about philosophy in general, which he declares as a poet is not his field, not quite, as nothing can stop the poet from thinking (no matter how much exile that means, I must add)but the thinking of poetry is be for poetry.

He is a very important poet. He was honored with the distinction of U.S. poet laureate three times in a row -- the first ever to be three times in a row -- because he's done more work for the vitality of poetry than almost any other person alive, matched or nearly matched by very few. In his scholarship, he studies everything so intently. In his writing, he channels the world through an equally unsparing dedication to mastery.

In contrast to, say, John Ashbery, Charles Simic, or Mark Strand, Robert Pinsky's poetry is practically unknown among literary circles in Europe. I guess it is Pinsky's variety both in tone and subject matter, which make him hard to place, and maybe even more, his obviously positive attitude towards life and ordinary people, which make it impossible for him ever to become the darling of European intellectuals.

Writing a long poem called "An Explanation of America" makes it look as if Pinsky wanted to place himself in the tradition of Whitman. And there is something Whitmanesque (?) in the sheer width of Pinsky's concerns - in contrast to contemporaries who dig in the same ground over and over again, Pinsky's imagination tries to encompass the variousness of what's going on around him and in his mind. Just flicking through the table of contents will show you that "Jesus and Isolt" or "The New Saddhus" sit comfortably side by side with what seems like childhood memoirs. Pinsky's humour and sense of irony are a far cry from Whitman, however, and so is his stylistic variety which matches the one of his concerns.

The Pinsky I like best is the one of the rather short, unpretentious poems like "The Beach Women". Here, the speaker recalls his youthful fascination with thirtyish women in the 50s:
"On those days I admired their tans, white dresses, / And pink oval fingernails on brown hands, and sold them / Perfume and lipstick, aspirins, throat lozenges and Tums, / Tampax, newspapers an paperback books - brave stays / Against boredom, discomfort, death and old age."

Other poems may seem daunting by the learnedness they display or by the whimsy of their conceits (I guess that is what put off some of the readers here), but I can only advise you to come back to those poems again - Pinsky's are poems you will not forget; and the more you are familiar with his poetry, the more you will appreciate it.

If Pinsky starts in a Whitmanesque vein ("possible to feel briefly like Jesus, / A gust of diffuse tenderness"), he is honest enough to go on: "But how love falters and flags / When anyone's difficult eyes come / Into focus, terrible gaze of a unique / Soul, its need unlovable" - but he does not leave it at that either. Find out for yourself!

The opening poems in this collection, the more recent ones, gave me reason to think I wouldn't continue with the book, for they consisted of pseudo-formal poetry at its most representative. Line breaks and stanzaic patterns had completely lost touch with meaning and content. After these poems, the collection improves, at least marginally. Every now and then a rhymed or off-rhymed piece appears, and many poems use either a loose pentameter or a free verse line of which, as Theodore Roethke would say, one can see the ghost of formal verse lurking behind it. Pinsky uses assonance and consonance to enrich his lines; concrete imagery and language are plentiful, which will please readers who look for this feature first and foremost; but few lines herein are really memorable. Still, I would single out poems like "Shirt," "Icicles," and "From the Childhood of Jesus" as noteworthy ones.

This is one of the best books of poetry I've ever read. I personally own over 100 books of poetry, including anthologies and I can say, without a doubt, this may be one of the best books written in modern times and certainly in our lifetime.

"~Pinsky is one of my favorite contemporary American poets. He has most certainly not forgotten that SOUND is essential to all poetry, and the sounds of his lines are truly hypnotic. money.

Well I did not keep this long as I found Pinsky to be epically dull. I expected as much, but hoped for better. I am not too fond of modern poetry, but who could forget Robert Pinsky's fabulous cameo on "The Simpsons"? I always wondered how that "Basho, Banana Tree" poem would end. Badly, I thought, after reading it. Touch of a letdown. But it was worth perusing. I will appreciate that episode more when or if I ever see it again. Most of the poems I failed to finish. And I had high hopes for his poems on therapists and America. If you hate Billy Collins, and I mean really despise his formula and signature "voice", then Robert Pinsky...is not going to be for you either. If you love Collins, I can't promise anything, because I find Collins much wittier, deeper, and more fun, though I'm still not a Billy Collins man, for the most part. I've never seen a single Pinsky in a poetry anthology...so maybe that should say something.

Technically brilliant, sonically frugal, stylistically innovative, thematically esoteric, topically abundant and educated. Sure.

Pinksy is all these good things, but ultimately hollow. He perks the mind but dulls the soul. But no matter. He has given to poetry what he can: a voice and face, a teacher's wisdom, a word to the masses, and (of course) technically pristine verse. This is as far as his person can take him - and he should go no further.

He's aced poetry, but failed to do what the greats do: transcend his very words. Keats fills me, while with Dickinson, I shrivel. Of Pinsky, I think of Frost, down the road more travelled.

This book is best when shared with someone you love. Read it aloud, add inflection and passion. Drink a little champagne at the same time. It is a lovely read and should be shared. Isn't that what poetry is all about?

Pensky's forms do not overwhelm the sound and sense of his poems. He is onto something new and good. The freshness he brings to American poetry is rare.