Customer Reviews

The Violence of the Morning

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Cal Bedient, The Violence of the Morning (University of Georgia, 2002)

There is a school of poets operating today who it wouldn't be quite right to call language poets, but who are obviously descended from the same tree. Cal Bedient is one of those poets. Sprouting from such roots can certainly have its strong points (once can't imagine one of today's mainstream poets coming up with something like the term "salvadordalliance," which alone is worth the price of admission), but it can also have its weak ones, as well (lord spare me from ever seeing another poet use the tired, and still stupid, cliché of putting open parentheses in his work and never closing them). In Bedient's latest poetic offering, the two balance themselves out, more or less.

A number of the poems in this collection are amusing, well-written, and fun, but a roughly equal number simply don't seem to go anywhere. The latter doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, if you are so in command of (and so trusting of) your language that you can completely let go of meaning (as in, say, Timothy Donnelly's brilliant Twenty-Seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit [cf. Rev. 5-12-2005]), but it doesn't seem like Bedient ever quite gets to that threshold; his poems always want to mean something, rather than being simply about the beauty of the language. And this is the trap that so many of those evolved from the common ancestor of language poetry fall into, unfortunately.

Some good stuff to be had here, and some filler and fluff as well. Still, if you stumble across it at a used bookstore or library sale, it's worth a look. ** ½

Late in life Calvin Bedient decided to change the trajectory of his career; he's been one of America's finest literary critics for decades, and a few years ago he came out with his first book of poetry. _Candy Necklace_ was both authoritative and innovative, and it doesn't hold a candy to _The Violence of the Morning_.

It's a book populated by outlandish acts of language, nonstop creativity, brilliant humor, and powerful mourning. Many people, particularly those who think poems are only worthwhile if their emotional range is limited to grief, will be bothered by Bedient's wit and originality and playfulness. And yet Bedient's broad room can enclose grief masterfully; his two elegies, for his mother and his brother, are among the most devastating I've ever read.

For the last few years, American poetry has been undergoing a kind of revolution. Mainstream poetry had set itself guidelines in which every poem had to be plainspoken, unassuming, and bland. Extravagance, beauty, and wildness re-entered our poetry with Lucie Brock-Broido's _Master Letters_, and once that door had been spread so amazingly open, many other extraordinary poets followed. Some might think Bedient is a kind of johnny-come-lately in this field, but it's important to remember that Bedient, as critic, was an early champion of Brock-Broido's work. It could be said that Bedient presided over this movement in American poetry towards sheer deliciousness.

This is a book that will last. Its soundtrack includes both laughter and weeping, but the utter exhilaration that comes from reading it will have no sound but delight.

The beautiful work of depth and mere dissection of dissection. Layers and layers of knowledge and perception to create his work of art with words.