Customer Reviews

An Open Book

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This slim collection has sixty-nine of Card's poems. If there is any problem, it is that there is no real cohesion: he admits in the afterward that they are a sampling of things he has been off-and-on tinkering with for many years now. Consequently, they do not have a specific message or theme. In fact, Card's approach in the selection is a bit nihilistic, or at least impulsive:

"So this open book is a collection of the poems I happened to choose for publication at this time, in the form I happen to prefer at the moment." (p. 93)

This impulsivity, in a way, weakens the selection. With the loss of two of his children (1997 and 2000), many of the poems reflect this devastating loss. For a slice in time, it is essential that the emotion be captured, but for a long-term book, such as this one, it gives Card a darker tint that does not reflect his normal optimism.

We get three death poems in a row: "He Died of Cystic Fibrosis at 24," "Prayer in the ICU," and "Grandma in the Corner, Dying." That is a bit too much, and was more like a speed-bump in the text. A better solution? Probably subdivide "Section One: Hunger, Love, and Death" into three separate subsections. This brackets the death poems, and would dull the impression that Card is a crypto-Goth.

These poems are not all gloomy, however. "Needle," for example, makes an analogy between a stiff body and a compass needle. That is, death is a direction, a part of living a life that is "true north."

The attention-grabbing poem was "In Touch":

"They say the extended family is dead
Everybody's gone nuclear
With fission and fusion at random intervals
We desperately staple on names with a hyphen."

Perfect. We get social critic, observational comic and terse wordplay all in space of four lines. The idea of family break up is crystallized in a novel way, with the memorable puns of "nuclear family" undergoing fission and fusion.

Another phrase that keeps mentally surging is "my white secret shadow" from "Holy Moments." Don't you feel like you have this white shadow, the better angel of our nature that keeps coming to us? Card is not morbid, and despite having lost two children in the space of five years has not snuffed his soul. There is optimism.

Card also included two poems from the Science Fiction point of view. His poem "Tin Men" is a rebuttal to the space operas of Doc Smith, Roddenberry, and Lucas.

"And when we set our hands
To killing evil at its source,
We traced it through its tortuous course:
We found it shyly hiding in our glands"

By the way, "loop" in the first lines refers to the lifeloops in "The Worthing Saga"

The other poem is "The Man Who Came Back from the Lunar Colony." It describes a person leaving a colony, and having to adjust to earth life. But it is exactly the type of thing a person WOULD write if he was a poet and had come from a lunar colony. He thoroughly understands the Sci-Fi genre, and has uncovered a delightful corner in the milieu.

The oddest selection is "Fire At The End OF The World: Nonscriptural Verses." It is two chapters discussion the encounter of a BYU student (I assume Seventh and University to be in Provo, along with the university branch), meeting an apocalyptic religious crackpot and how it affects her life. I'm not sure what it is, or what it means, but merely by its format, it stands out.

My favorite poem is a toss-up between "Elves," the poem on aging that reminds me of Chesterton's essay on "The Ethics of Efland," or "Jacob Smith of Somerset," a delightful vision of Genealogy. This is free-verse poetry, as opposed to the didactic rhyme that we usually get in Home Teaching visits.

If you can make the move from rhyme to poetry, then you will enjoy this collection.

The only other review for this product effectively captures what I had to say about it. I post this only to encourage potential readers to first visit the online poetry magazine that Card publishes, called Strong Verse (reachable at strong verse dot org). Their motto is "Good poetry is meant to be understood, not decoded." If this sounds like a mindset you agree with, you will probably enjoy this collection.

This is mostly a comment about one of the previous posters. He/she said that this book diverts from Card's "normal optimism," which leaves me thinking, "Which Card has this person been reading?" I have been a long time fan of Card's work and own a huge library of Card books. I would describe very few of them as containing any sort of optimism whatsoever. For the most part, Card's writings reflect and mirror the dark, sinful, and broken world around us in very poignant and touching ways. This particular book is no exception and in order to read it, you must understand that Card doesn't write poetry in general for its entertainment value. His poetry, like his prose and his fiction reflect the world as Card sees it. If you want a slice out of Card's brain, read this book.