Customer Reviews

Obscenities (Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporaries)

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

 

 

I have not read 'Obscenities' on the page, but was fortunate to hear Casey read from it, and other works (Mill Rat, Million Dollar Hole) this past Friday night at the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Lowell. Listening to him read his own work was wonderful: I found myself smiling, guffawing out loud, and impressed with the simplicity of his language and the honest irony it almost effortlessly produces. I can't compare him with other poets in terms of composition, but I can say that he is one of the more accessible and effective poets that I have ever heard recite their own works. He has none of the deliberate musicality of Robert Pinsky, no need for the electronic accompaniment that Anne Waldmann has integrated into her work, and is not guilty of the unnatural poetic voice that so many writers assume when reading in public. He is clear, direct, and almost apologetic in tone: he is a draught of spring water, from the source. I plan to acquire and read all of his work.

I FIRST READ THIS BOOK SOON AFTER PUBLICATION. I WAS NEVER WITHOUT IT UNTIL I LOANED IT TO THE WRONG PERSON. I HAVE MISSED IT EVER SINCE. IT IS POETRY IN ITS MOST HONEST FORM. IT INTERWEAVES AN OPIUM-LIKE NARRATION WITH STUNNING BRUTALITY. IT GIVES US A SNEAK-PEAK OF THE TRAUMA OF WAR AND THE CONFUSION OF THIS PARTICULAR WAR, VIETNAM. IT SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING IN EVERY HIGH SCHOOL IN THE WORLD! MICHAEL CASEY IS THE EVERYMAN'S GENIUS.
M. VINCENT SAVAGE

The previous reviewer bemoaned the disappearance of Michael Casey. At the risk of starting an "Elvis Sighting" type phenomenon, I just saw him last night. He was at a "Poets for Peace" reading at the old North Church in Portsmouth NH last night [November 13, 2001]. I absolutely love his style. Gone are all the gooey and fay poetisms, all the 'delicate flower' stuff of the past. Here is a guy who refines each poem until it is as true to the way people are and the way people speak as possible. *I* should be so true to my ears! And, in case you're interested in pursuing things, his other books are: The Army at War, Millrat, and the brand new book he had at the reading last night: Million Dollar Hole. Such an Irish mensch you won't believe!

Michael Casey, Obscenities (Yale, 1972)

Casey, the 1972 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets award (judged and introduced by Stanley Kunitz) offers up what Kunitz believes is the first artistic comment on the Vietnam War. Solely on that merit, the book demands close scrutiny. Casey reads like a kind of odd cross between Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot, in that his spare lines encompass the many dialects across which he ran during his time in-country. Eventually, though, the mind and the ear both tire of the unending stream of dialect and wish for one of the very few poems here (I recall two) in which Casey reverts to non-dialect-spelling English and flashes the ability to put words together that so obviously impressed Kunitz:

Her back is arched
Like something's under it
That's why I thought
It was booby-trapped
But it's not
It just must have been
Over this rock here
And somebody moved it...

Casey, like most of the Yale Series, definitely had some raw talent, and it would have been interesting to see what became of him. Unfortunately, also like many of the Yale Series, it looks as if Casey may never have published another book. ** 1/2