Customer Reviews

The Return Message: Poems

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Tessa Rumsey, The Return Message (W. W. Norton, 2005)

Wow. What an odd, intriguing little book this is. Wholly different from Assembling the Shepherd, Rumsey's excellent first book, but without any decline in quality. Rumsey plays with punctuation here in a way that at first seems fast and loose, but once you glom onto what she's doing, it has its moments of brilliance. The book is also odd structurally, with a senryu (and I use the term loosely) on the left-hand page facing a poem on the right, each time with the same name. There is an obsession with wisteria, about which I know nothing other than that it's a popular incense scent (and wikipedia is being singularly unhelpful on this point).

Beyond all this, though, there is the writing itself. The writing is always where a written work should live or die. And what really sold me was "Notes on Coinage," which I started reading and realized it was one of those poems that, when I encounter it, I want to jump up and read to strangers passing me on the street:

"We begin to "think" the city into being; there is nothing to think; we wander hopelessly into believing.
The Beloved is wallpaper; the room in which you spend the night is defined by unbearable architecture.
Like an eclipse, a heartbeat disappears from its chest when only when overwhelmed by a sound more sumptuous.
Than itself; this disparity points languidly to the genesis of wealth; and thus I came to be a pauper.
Inside your highly reflective city;..."

Two for two from Ms. Rumsey. Looking forward to collection number three. *** ½

2004 Barnard Women Poets Prize winner Tessa Rumsey presents The Return Message: Poems, an anthology of original poetry written with an eye toward 21st-century surrealism and freedom from constraints. Individual poems are brief, and often contemplate similarly fleeting targets such as dreams, moments of emotion, or the all too transitory nature of life. A daring collection that sweeps the reader through its moments of inspiration to the last page. Bridal: Last flower of spring, / Unable to release itself and attain perfection. / Gorgeous pale brocade, arms reaching earthward!

This is the kind of book you stay at home for. The writing is poised and controlled but the poet allows the reader into the world of her poems effortlessly. I recommend this highly and without reservation.

Who is there to dispute the genius of the award-winning poet? It is impossible to measure such studied prose, so carefully constructed, each reader led through a labyrinth of memory and emotion, triggered by the errant phrase, images juxtaposed by a thoughtful mind. Might as well attempt to inhabit the mind of an artist, Vincent Van Gogh or perhaps Cezanne, a world of impressions, glimpses of grandeur, moments of joy and despair. No, such work as The Return Message can only be traveled alone, buffered by recognition and clarity.

For me, this particular book of poetry is like a Jackson Pollock painting, or the scattered notes of jazz, something familiar, sometimes dissonant, often obscure. There are recurring themes: spring, the beloved, blooming gardens, loss and renewal. And there are phrases that catch the eye and skewer the mind: "could you, like Audubon, kill your subjects./ To study them?" (New World Cloud Forest); "because you could not love the world enough to deny your desire" (Special Transmission Outside the Teaching); "Will a lost world spend its last days pleading for survival" (The Expansion of the Self).

Many of the poems are long, filling the page with impressions, observations, shared intimacies, stream-of-consciousness in poetry form:

"You kill the morning with a jailbait hangover, and when your outside aches as much.
As your interior's hidden sadness, you cry until your vanquished metropolis shines...
And lo! You are lit up from the inside! A Jules Verne spaceship that cannot fly-" (Copperopolis)

This book is outsized, with a visually arresting cover, the layout reflective of the author's particular poems, spread gracefully over the pages, often with only a few lines on the left hand page, the right side weighted with the poet's musings. Challenging form, this author scatters her words, thrifty, in few lines or, generous, in great bursts of language that tumbles down the page, periods and apostrophes in unexpected places. This work must be mined carefully and read slowly, thoughtfully, a very personal statement by a woman whose world is strung with words like a necklace of precious pearls, an ever-changing universe of flagrant imagination. Luan Gaines/2005.

With each line and stanza, I found Ms. Rumsey's poetry to be nothing more than an outrage to the environment. Her verse left me wanting despite the banquet of her wasted paper. It is the poetry of a privileged ugly duckling who spent more time manipulating publishers in poorly typed letters than someone with craft. The work demands her to get a real job in ad sales and reeks of a connected child who has the arrogance to imagine herself a poet, someone so bitter and callous that they have no concern for anyone but themselves and their own shallowness. Poetry should connect us all to the ineffable; however Ms. Rumsey's poetry only connects to one thing: herself.