Customer Reviews

Riding Westward: Poems

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

 

 

This, like most of the rest of Carl Phillips' work, makes the reader work towards meaning and the unmasking of desire. The density of language and the "baroque" sentence structure urge the reader to delve into the semantics and syntax of passion and longing. One thing I have always appreciated about Phillips' poetry is the incredible demand upon the reader: it's a work/collaboration between the reader and the author, rather than a one-way street of meaning-creation.

Thus what might seem cruel and sordid on the face of it becomes an incredible legend to a map of longing and emotional upheaval (or more than one read: one reviewer calls attention to same sex desire as a problematic aspect of the work; lack of earnest engagement -- or of understanding -- shouldn't be an excuse for airing one's barely concealed homophobia, in my opinion). As a reader, one must be willing to read the map and strive to make the journey suggested by the words, by the lines of desire. Cruelty, as a recurring image or trope, becomes part of a sorrowful process of becoming, of dealing with oneself and of literally (f)laying oneself on the page.

After reading and re-reading Riding Westward: Poems I finally got some semblance of coherence. At first, I blamed myself for being so structured in my poetic thinking...like is this a sestina or a pantoum? or am I just not deep enough to get it? or why are the sentences in this poem indented without symmetry or fluency?

Carl Phillips is lauded for his imagery as he was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and recipient of a American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. I guess you have to be in the club.

There was a title I liked: "Radiance Versus Ordinary Light," but I didn't find the poem illuminating. "The Smell of Hay" stimulated my memory of how hay smells but the poem makes no reference to hay, or the animals who eat hay, or what the hay (obviously I didn't get it)! "Ocean" described the writer's obession for a man so I was grateful that I got the redundant codependency message. "Bow Down" impressed me as a poem about a self loather looking for the slightest hint of affection from someone who holds him in contempt as he bends over.

In conclusion, my impression of this book is that there is some sordid preoccupation with male genitalia with a touch of mental cruelty masked in images of birds and their winged ability to elude tangible, confining relationships.