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Tales of Muraski and Other Poems (New American Poetry)

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Japonisme, the vague contact with an oriental tradition of other love and other bliss, finds a new outlet here, bravely and meanderingly so. The book has a handsome cover as is true of Sun & Moon books where design often overrides the slightness of manifest content and irrelevance of politics: here, the collection of fragments has an atmosphere of vague longing and urbane lovelornness about it. One feels the high tradition of the great Lady Murasaki is being sifted through the intense lens of American solipsism, and the fit is selfindulgent, poised, posed, and unnerving. At least this author is moving out beyond the landscape of the self, is seeking to get beyond the babble of love bliss and self-therapy. A mixed offing, but suggesting more to come. This is not so much 'Japan bashing' as it is Japan blessing of courtly love. If the whole world now belongs to globalizing Americans, say, we might as well have some lyric fun shopping over the traditions and the advanced poetic goods! Let them eat sushi.

It's rare that a book of poems nowadays can invoke the mythic, the mystical or even the erotic, without falling into an expected system of metaphors that no longer live up to the power we would like to find in them. Yet somehow Martine Bellen's elegant new collection does just that. Drawing on the spirit of Lady Murasaki's writings, she interweaves the classical with the contemporary to produce an intuitive and almost visionary kind of poetry that enables her to examine issues of gender and language from a sweeping perspective. "If a mother's blood is smeared on ancient/ coins, the currency will find her children no matter how/ long it circulates." As these poems travel through time and culture, we are invited to discover, along with the poet, the lineaments of self. Loss and longing become a guide: "She says she is leaving me/ but I hear, 'I am leading you'/ and follow." Passionate yet stylized. Melancholy yet radiant. Powerful yet subtle as water on stone. These poems continue to unfold in surprising new ways like "A manicurist digging for more." You will want to read them again and again, and each time, Tales of Murasaki will lead you further.