Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

Michael Waters (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Poets Continuum | Publication Date: March 1, 1997

Poems that speak to love and loss, our foibles and imperfections, and the possibility of transcendence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The '66 Mets
Airing The Mattress
Avesta
The Brooch
Burning The Dolls
Chrisoms
Christ At The Apollo, 1962
The Curiosities
Driftwood
Ephratga
Everlasting Pea
First Lesson: Winter Trees
First Mile
The Floating Wreaths
God At Forty
Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum
Herbs
Last Joke
Morris Graves: Blind Bird, 1940
New Age
New Hope
Not Love
Parthenopi
Rain: Lake Forgotten
Simple Happiness
Snow Cone
Snow Globe
Ssss
Stoning The Birds
Swamp Rose Mallow
Two Baths: One
Two Baths: Two
Voyeur
Wasps
Whitefish
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Michael Waters is Professor of English at Salisbury University in Maryland where he teaches creative writing and American literature. He has published six collections of poetry, including three from BOA Editions and three from Carnegie Mellon University Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 75 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd. (March 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238438
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238431
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,335,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars ~, August 3, 2003

By 

Jennifer Merrifield (Frostburg, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

The devastating force of Waters' imagery remains the most potent technique of his poems. So many of the images resonated within me, I was hard-pressed to find one example, one stanza, or even one poem to speak for this talent. The matchstick girl in "Snow Globe," the teasing arousal of "Snow Cone," the raw energy of "Swamp Rose Mallow," the longing of "Simple Happiness," the crescendoing passions in "Two Baths," the developing anguish in "Airing the Mattress" - in short, Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum itself - draws a sequence of unforgettable images, harmonic and conflicting, into the mind of the reader.

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum, November 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Michael Waters brought together a collection of poems that
brings mixed reviews from me. I didnt really like the
poems that were not written with a narrative style. Many of
them seemed too ambiguous and didnt really keep my
attention as well as I thought they should have. I like poems that are more
straight forward and simple, with a complex meaning deeper
inside (much like a lot of William Blakes work). This is
not Waters style and that is probably why I have these
problems with his book.
Note that I did say that I have mixed reviews for the
book. There were a lot of things that Waters did do that I
really liked. I enjoyed some of his poems simply because of
the topics. Most of the poetry in the poem dealt with sex
in one way or another. His poetry has a very smooth flow
and often times a sexual connotation was thrown in to break
up the reading and re-capture the readers attention (at
least thats what it did for me). I liked the sexual nature
of the poems and how he used this topic to cover such topics
as love lost, a teenager being horny, bathing or even a
metaphor for nature. In one of my favorite pieces, Voyeur,
Waters makes reference to leaving the blind open while
having sex just to add a little thrill to the process.

...their lovemaking self-conscious, a rehearsed
choreography of mouths and genitals
for the imaginary voyeur who quickened their pleasure with
his presence.

He makes the point that just the idea that someone could be
watching is enough to cause arousal.
The author also used the idea of God a lot in the book,
especially at the end. This could of been a resolution of
some sort, but Im not sure. God is seen as an everyday
person just doing his job in poems like Driftwood. Jesus
Christ is even compared to James Brown in Christ at the
Apollo:1962. I like these metaphors because I think that
it keeps the reader into the poem and always looking for the
next clever thought by the poet. These, along with the
intense imagery of body parts in a lot of his poems are the
positives I found in Waters book. However, in a lot of the
poems I felt like the flow became so steady the reader could
become lost in the words that didnt have a lot of
direction. That is why I enjoyed the sexual breaks so much.
While I enjoyed a lot of the poems, the style that Waters
uses is not the one that I particularly prefer.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only control, December 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

This book is a disappointing departure from Waters, a poet whose early poems spoke with a tensial strength, but these poems are full of a solipsistic vision that never leaves the patio-- even the historical poems, or poems which should be heartbreaking, rely on an overly cautious formality that just left saying, so ... poem after poem, no investigation into figurative language and its usages, no emotional risk taking. Only control.