Customer Reviews

Temper (Pitt Poetry Series)

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We are all moved by tragedy and the drama surrounding it. We slow down to witness car accidents and it seems as though most forms of popular entertainment these days are homicide-based genres, whether in television or movies. Poetry deals with death using the elegiac form. I have never read an elegiac work like Temper. Written in dedication to Bachmann's sister, whose unsolved murder is the basis for the trauma underlying these poems, this book has redefined elegy for me.

Temper does not follow the careworn methodology of typical elegies - to guide the reader into the history and experiences of the victim and bystanders (often the author and family/friends) and to find a way to make sense of a loss. Bachmann does indeed take the reader by the hand, but Temper's aim seems not to be to create a metaphorical framework for resolution, but to push past the comfortable boundaries of empathy, leading the reader into very uncomfortable territories. With an amazing skill at manipulating images and lyrical voices and with her own powerful new voice, Bachmann's poetry explores the darkness and horror that truly surrounds homicide.

Temper begins with an almost narrative first section that unflinchingly explores the setting, victims and perpetrator. The second and third sections then transcend the biographical to push further into the relationships between predators and victims, with continuing motifs of power, responsibility and accusal. To me, reframing and recontextualizing these subjects outside of biography was an unexpected and brilliant stroke preventing egress for reader from these uncomfortable subjects, as Bachmann renders them.

Because of the complex image systems throughout the work, I find Temper highly cinematic in character. But not in a 'Tuesdays with Morrie' modality where heartbreaking empathy generates inspirational pathos, perhaps what Lovejoy often refers to as "metaphysical pathos". Nor in the mode of popular homicide dramas in which the viewer is often let off the hook: the bad guys get caught, someone is punished, hope springs from the tragedy, etc. Temper doesn't let you off the hook. Temper is the anti-'Law and Order' more after the fashion of a David Lynch or Guy Maddin film, where violence and trauma don't stroke our empathy or sympathies but shock and horrify us in a way that is sometimes, and embarrassingly, beautiful and fascinating.

But we learn real truths from the discomforting works in Temper - dark truths about violence and its consequences on survivors, families and the community. I think there is a kind of resolution to be found in Temper, but it is the kind of sober resolution you get by daring to look into the eyes of your persecutor and confront the mysteries that lie between you.

I officially love this book, it's hauntingly beautiful with striking imagery that left me breathless. I like that Bachmann's poetry is easy to understand while still showing intelligence and her own unique point of view. At times heartbreaking I could not have asked for a better collection of poetry!

I am reading Temper these days. It's unimaginably wonderful and very powerful. I just love it. It's the best book of poetry I can remember reading, ever. Seriously. It's worth far more than the price of admission. As an elegy it is such an endless gesture of love.

I met the author years ago in Baltimore when she just managed to escape the utterly horrifying tragedy that is partly the focus of this poetry. I knew she was a brilliant person (intensely private and practically mute) but after reading this book I was blown away with her ability to write such a deeply personal and powerful book. My wife and I made the mistake of reading it in bed before we went to sleep and were both utterly haunted by the imagery for weeks. The powerful nature of the poems truly conveys that she was "tempered" by her past to be a amazing poet. I strongly suggest this book and have personally sent copies this last year to about every person I know (something I don't normally do). It is no suprise she won so many awards for this work.