Soul Data (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry) [Paperback]

Mark Svenvold (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Loads of sonnets and villanelles make up this first volume, the winner of an award honoring the late Vassar Miller, who shares nothing in common with Svenvolds irregularly rhymed verse. Not an object or language poet per se, Svenvold often sacrifices sense to sound, though its not clear if his obscurities are deliberate. A long sonnet sequence, Death of the Cabaret Hegel, celebrates a Seattle performance space in an old factory situated at the continents edge, where everything is all echo and rain. Eventually demolished for a freeway, the scene it leaves behind boasts the glories of mixed zoning and thrift-shop hunting. Three later poems fail to capture the tone or textures of their subject, Thelonious Monk (who supposedly taught us a lesson in liberty); Svenvold seems more at home with the 60s nihilism of the Doors (Variation on Themes by The Doors). The poet establishes his working-class bona fides in poems about a garage during the day (Work) and during the Graveyard Shift. Svenvolds sense of irony fails to illumine poems about his parents dying, even though theyre buried near Jimi Hendrix. Such found facts and a tendency to burst into pseudo-profundity (you cannot connect) suggest artistic immaturity, though there are glimmers of talent here, too. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Augury
Bad Dates, An Excerpt From The Antology
Blue Monk
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 1
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 10 (demolition)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 11
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 2 (noir)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 3 (marlowe)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 4 (west Oakland Somniloquy)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 5 (linoleum)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 6 (the Buffalo Shoe Factory)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 7 (cloudy Bright)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 8 (picaresque At ...)
Death Of The Cabaret Hegel: 9 (trees And November)
Desperate Message
Desperate Message #2
Desperate Message #3 (desire)
Empire Burlesque
Erosion
Eternity, A List
Evidence
Graveyard Shift
The New All Girl Anal
Player Piano (crows At Dusk)
Postcards And Joseph Cornell
Poverty Music
The Predicament Of The Virtuoso (monk As Midas)
Relearning Winter
Saint Monday
Sex Fiend Sonnet
Story
Tiny Histories
Variation On A Theme By Stevens
Variation On The Theme Of Disappearance
Variation On Themes By The Doors
Villanelle Fin De Siecle
Wife
Winter Solstice
Work
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 59 pages
• Publisher: University of North Texas Press; 1st edition (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574410466
• ISBN-13: 978-1574410464
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,790,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High Praise for Soul Data, September 15, 1998

By 

Brian Hopkins - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soul Data (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry) (Paperback)

In the mid '80s, the Cabaret Hegel, a reading and performance series was held in an old boot factory in Seattle, Washington, until the structure was torn down to make way for a major freeway interchange. Fortunately, the Cabaret Hegel has been remembered more poetically by one of its participants, Mark Svenvold, in the opening sequence of his first book, Soul Data. But to say that this homage consists of a series of sonnets is just as inadequate as my flat statement of the cabaret's history. Poetic forms do not restrict Svenvold; rather, they provide a framework for displaying his insight and playfulness. There's nothing stodgy about "Sex Fiend Sonnet," for instance, and "Variations on Themes by The Doors" is an intricately written sestina. Poet and critic Heather McHugh selected this book for the Vassar Miller Award, in 1997, and the two share a deft juggling of language that never overwhelms the content. "I'm not here to double your entendre or your fun/ though, trouble is, trouble (both ex- and in-/ tends, virus-wise, to spread out everywhere," the fiend explains, and the new crowd at the Comet Tavern, the setting for "Variations on Themes by The Doors," is "black-booted, blue-eyed, baby-faced & beer-fisted." Svenvold turns his descriptions, puns, rhythm, metaphors, and occasional surreal twists to such varied topics as Thelonius Monk, pornography, baseball, bad dates, and the death of parents. One of the three poems called "Desperate Message" begins, "There hands have found in each other/the impossibility of bodies," and these hands end up, "like tourists without visas, cameras without film, busily, purposfully/taking picture after picture after picture." Fortunately for us, Svenvold has caught these poetic visions to share.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SVENVOLD: Serenades, Augury, and Elegies, May 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Soul Data (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry) (Paperback)

SOUL DATA by Mark Svenvold is a poetic elegy to place, time, and family.  In EVIDENCE, "...liberty--/ how most of us have used ours up and carry/ what's left as we carry our bodies,/ pouting and untenable, from place to place--".  And in SEX FIEND SONNET: "the wreck I've caused I am."  Serenades, augury, and elegies are all part of the mix here.  Svenvold's western voice is as clear and as erotic as that of Hugo or Wright. The subject throughout this wonderful first collection seems to be the endurance of language and identity between the needed mountain and the histories of clouds, waves, and stone.  SOUL DATA is a book well worth the read.

Scott Hightower ([e-mail])

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical, evocative; dense with meaning and mystery, June 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Soul Data (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry) (Paperback)

The best poetry I've read by a living poet. I've read these poems over and over. I particularly like, for example, the sestina, A Variation on Themes by the Doors. It's work on paper, but unlike so much new poetry, it is not paper thin. It is lyrical, inventive (without being eccentric), evocative and dense with meaning and mystery. It is emotional and yet the author never spews or sprawls. He is pointed, and controlled without ever being rigid. He uses traditional forms effectively, without ever being pedantic, employing them to make the greatest use of what they might have to offer. In a world where so many don't even know what the forms are, this is especially welcome. Such inventive and rigorous poetry, poetry that works the mind AND the soul of the reader, is rare indeed.