E.M. Schorb's book of pathologies and cures, Murderer's Day, reflects life on the mosquito coasts, the plains and foothills of Parnassus. There is less magic down here than there is up there, and the poet seems certain, as all poets must be, for wonder is their way, that there is even more magic beyond. Schorb hopes that his little missal/missile shines with truth and reflects his faith that, although it is dark down here, we are all going into a world of light.
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
Schorb's thick third book of poems has the feel of occasional verse; hes so indiscriminate in style and subject that his work as a whole seems motley and muddled. He mixes forms and diction, from the tried and true villanelle to jaunty Skeltonics, and some poems imitate their subjects in structure: Pollock splatters words on the page; Snowbound piles them on in a white blur. The title poem begs for more music and better news in life; and elsewhere the poet champions mind-altering Sex (Ode to Sex) and his wife, as well as the pleasures of domesticity. Though he worries about genetic determinism and other scientific explanations of things, Schorb ponders mostly oddball stuff: a couple in China (Old Chinese Couple during the Cultural Revolution); Houdini (Houdini and the Dying Swan); and some apocryphal sketches by Bosch more disturbing than his paintings (Lost Sketches by Bosch). For shock value, he mentally undresses a comely nun (The Nun) and recalls his mad uncle who killed his own family (Family Tragedy). In a tight, clever poem like The Night Sweats, Schorb is at his impersonal and resonant best, but thats rare in a volume overloaded with long- lined imitations of Whitman that simply run on ad nauseam. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Schorb's is a unique voice .,
By A Customer
This review is from: Murderer's Day (Paperback)
From its opening lines--"It was disheartening when physics told us/the universe was alien, indifferent"--many of the poems in Schorb's Murderer's Day argue against the dominance of the sciences (physics, biology, psychology, history) as the measuring stick for reality. As if offering a protective dimming of the senses, flattening the globe while proving its roundness, the sciences are a satisfying counterpoise to the inherently non-linear poetic vision contained in Murderer's Day. " I'd have thought that I'd gone mad before,/ but no more since the famous physicist has said,/ upon accepting his Nobel, 'It's poetry,/ out there, and deep in here,' pointing at his head./ 'The microscope and telescope look in and out/ but not across the warp and woof of time.'" His poetry is rich with humor and an almost gestaltic sense of clarity; this unique voice allows him to maintain a tonal unity while moving through a variety of forms, including villanelles, a sestina, from tight, chiseled stanzas to long, yawping, Whitmanesque lines. His penchant for outlandish first lines rivals that of Stevens: "Atomic transmigration was beyond Rodin," or "Why is it always Murderer's Day?" This book's tone is that of a Columbia University professor holding forth at a marguarita happy hour--it has just the right mix of sweet, salt and bite. Raymond Thibodeaux New Delta Review Fall/Winter 1998
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughts of Houdini Free a Poem Aimed at the Heart of Death,
By A Customer
This review is from: Murderer's Day (Paperback)
All Schorb knew was that the poem was going to be about Houdini. He'd been watching a TV program about the magician and about how Houdini was going to try to come back each year on the anniversary of his death. Schorb wondered: So where was Houdini when he wasn't around. The poem, "Houdini and the Dying Swan," appeared first in the Sewanee Review and is included in this collection. To think about Houdini surviving death is, in essence, to consider one's own mortality. For, as Schorb says, if anybody could come back, if anybody could do it, it would be the great magician. So the fact that Houdini hasn't come back must mean he's been distracted by something en route. What could that be? Enter into Schorb's imagination the image of a woman in a tub contemplating suicide. "Naked, she lay back in the tub, / white as a white swan, long-necked / as a swan, thin as a silken thread, / her gloriously thick dark hair/ piled loosely up, collapsing / onto her wide, sloping shoulders, / dark, water-dipped ringlets forming, / her swan's-down skin pinking, / steam misting her swan song, / her suicide with water and razor." Part II of the poem depicts the "glittering company" awaiting Houdini's return. Houdini hears them say, "Houdini, do not disappoint us, / for we must believe that Death / cannot take us, utterly." And there is the heartbeat of the poem, the universal question: Does death take us utterly? Part III returns to the woman in the marble tub. She is dying, the water streaked now "in ribbons of red." But a noise jolts her, a noise "like / breaking plaster, like tumbling bricks, / like an earthquake." It is, of course, Houdini, breaking through to her through the tunnel, and he "lifted her from / the marble tub and taped her wrists. He put her in her bed and tugged / the bell pull. She was too beautiful to die. / A great grandfather clock obliterated / the last of midnight. A doorknob turned, / and he went back the way that he had come. / Houdini darkened into death." At last, Schorb had answered his own question. Indeed death does not take us utterly. I choose this poem out of a collection full of excellent poems . . . because it helps to illustrate the elusive process of making poetry, how meaning can quicken from the stray and specific to the deep and universal. Schorb has finessed his own way into the deep, and the poems in MURDERER'S DAY will challenge both your mind and your soul. They will also make you laugh with joy at the mind's swift and graceful flight into wit and fancy. -- Dannye Romine Powell, "The Charlotte Observer," July 5, 1998
5.0 out of 5 stars
From Journal of New Jersey Poets - - Frank Van Zant,
By A Customer
This review is from: Murderer's Day (Paperback)
E.M. Schorb's Murderer's Day is an intelligent and subtly passionate work which combines age-won wisdom with a craftsman's thorough eye. Schorb is often playful, trying out a boasting verse in "A Tumble for Skelton," or, as in his "No": The world says No. It has a genius for No. Everything is No. In the beginning was Yes But the world says No. . . No is the genius of the world. Still, even with playfulness in mind, Schorb is always confident and in control of his prime concern: craft. His title piece, "Murderer's Day," exemplifies Schorb's aesthetic. * * * An Angry Young Man didn't write these lines; but even so, any young man might profit from the study of Schorb's even temper presented in the craftwork of one of his well-wrought formal pieces. When Schorb becomes closely personal--yes, my bias perhaps--the work intensifies and shines. In "Kid Danger" the poet recalls drawing and writing a comic strip as a kind of childhood coping strategy. Schorb's restraint is evident when mentioning serious issues ("Being an only child and being poor with parents who are drunk a lot. . ."), but this self control surpasses what could have been over-anguished by a less mature poet. Schorb's thoughtful approach allows the wildness of childhood creativity and imagination to be captured and exalted in the poem, especially in the clarity of details about the hero: "a motorcycle cowboy who was always out to lasso a gangster/and who had a magical friend who I believed was a Hottentot. . ." Nostalgia for the comic strip is framed by an overriding nostalgia for the parents: But just recently I remembered them all again. . . and how I could never show them how finally to catch that gangster, and I sat on linoleum roses again and cried, seeing my poor father And mother. Moreover, Schorb is a poet of far-ranging knowledge and experience. He has regard for people, for their celebrations and agonies; he has the philosopher's eye and the poet's loupe. --Frank Van Zant
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