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Overview
“David Orr is an authentic iconoclast. His criticism is exuberant and original. Dr. Johnson, my critical hero, urged us to clear our mind of cant. Orr has cleared his. He will enhance the perception of his readers.” —Harold Bloom
“A poetry critic and poet himself, David Orr’s work often explores a gray area of literary professionalism and process. A columnist for the New York Times Book Review. . . . Orr shows himself to be a reader interested in cutting through noise, particularly with the realities of writing and publishing in a popular culture.” —Ploughshares
In his wry debut collection of poetry, celebrated critic David Orr ponders the dark underworld of the ordinary, as he traverses the suburban gothic landscape of modern America. Orr finds and names what’s at the core of being human: sorrow, kindness, familial love, and memory. The poems are playful, fashioned of fables, familiar objects, and the supernatural, inviting every reader to enter in.
From “The Abduction”:
. . . Later, he would wake each night screaming
In helpless confusion, but at the time
There was just the sun, the beach, the sun, the saltwater
And dark forms being kind.
Only a month
After the incident, having lost the skill
Of knowing what was real, he walked
Into headlights he had thought were his wife.
David Orr teaches at Cornell University in addition to serving as the poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review. A native of South Carolina, he lives in Ithaca, New York.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781556595479 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Copper Canyon Press |
| Publication date: | 10/23/2018 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Tea The cup lay deserted on the table. The tea smoldered in the cup. The tea smoldered and transformed the water Into naked expressions of tea And impassioned expressions of tea And bitter expressions of tea. The tea became displeasing to its maker As it became increasingly itself. A Brief History of Projectiles The stone could be easily deflected, but the arrow could be deflected only with effort, and the bullet could not be turned without armor, while the missile yields to nothing except, in mid-air, its counterpart. Fable On the boy’s fifth birthday, his father gave him a lion. “This is not,” said the father, “a symbolic lion; It’s a real lion, and will require real care.” The boy could see that this must be true, Because the lion already had pissed on the carpet. So he undertook the burden of the beast Reluctantly, knowing it wouldn’t be light. Soon, however, the lion became part of his life. In the woods beside the soccer fields Where the boy mostly failed to score, The lion paced or, more often, slept and quietly farted. In school it was a dim, golden presence; Sometimes close at hand (at lunch, for example); Other times, unaccountably difficult to locate, As when the boy was being pushed or made fun of. The boy grew older; the lion remained the same. Fresh from the triumph of collegiate sex, The boy met the lion’s yellow gaze in the bathroom mirror. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?,” the boy asked. To which the lion said nothing, being a lion. As the boy grew into manhood, the years blurred With wife and children and the hopeful sheen Of household devices. The lion slept outside sometimes, But could still be counted on to reemerge At sunrise, its pelt lit softly by the warming sky, To take a dump, or simply flop on the driveway. Then the boy’s father became ill, as all of us must. He was trundled about and filled with cisplatin And drugs to relieve the side effects of cisplatin, And drugs to relieve the side effects of those drugs, But nothing was availing. On his last night, The boy sat alone beside him, for it was his turn To keep the vigil. There was no special sign As death came on, but when the boy looked up, He saw that the lion had crossed the threshold. “It’s okay,” he told the lion. ‘I know what you have to do.” And so the lion ate the body of the boy’s father. It was not symbolic. The boy was surprised By how much blood his father’s body still contained, And disturbed, as he realized what a rude business A lion’s dinner really was. Then it was over, And night didn’t swallow the room, but it did get dark. The boy waited, and the lion sat silently, tail twitching. And suddenly, as if a great wave had passed over him, The boy realized he was waiting For nothing, that he had been waiting for nothing For hours, that he had been waiting for nothing For years, that he had always been waiting for nothing, And that he was in a room with a lion. He backed away slowly and slipped out the door, Only to see his mother hurrying down the hall, Having been alerted by the nurses, And moving slightly behind her, entirely at ease, The warm orange glow of a tiger. Malison I hope someone knocks you into next week, So that you wake to find yourself adrift In next Monday, having missed your own birthday. And if, by knocking you into next week, That same person manages to send you Into next month, then good. No paycheck for you. Likewise, should the knocking in question occur As the year ends, and the holidays transpire Without you – well, welcome to January. But most of all, I hope that you’re struck At the close of the decade’s last December, So that you rise in the cold of a new paradigm, And, walking streets now grown unfamiliar, Are greeted by the children of the next era Saying they remember you. And that you’ve aged. The Abduction For all that vanished week, he seemed to float In bath-warm water by a harmless beach, Never noticing the spinning instruments That exposed his spine, nor the probes that ran Along his lower vertebrae like mice. Later, he would wake each night screaming In helpless confusion, but at the time There was just the sun, the beach, the sun, the saltwater And dark forms being kind. Only a month After the incident, having lost the skill Of knowing what was real, he walked Into headlights he had thought were his wife. The Feud On Channel 2, we’ve got “Family Feud,” A special episode – Hatfields and McCoys. The prize is a pig, the buzzer a gunshot, And everyone’s cheerful, even the men. Forgotten by now are the hungry knives That feasted on Ellison, pride of the Hatfields; Forgotten as well the smoldering homestead Where Adelaide mourned the dead Alifair, And Sarah lay senseless, alas the McCoys; Instead, the host is smooching a Hatfield; The audience roars, the pig is oinking. What harm could flow from these decent people With their bashful grins and Sunday outfits, And what good is memory? To summon The thirsty ghost of murdered Alifair To chide her kin for a blunted purpose, A vengeance owing, a seven-fold debt, Would only make us all embarrassed, as BAM BAM BAM BAM – the buzzer Explodes in the hand of a happy McCoy (The Hatfields look mad, but they’ll get over it); This category is “Things You Lose,” And the Number One answer, he’s guessed it, is “Keys.”
Table of Contents
I
Renovation 5
Dangerous Household Items 7
Snares 8
Daniel 9
Inflatable Pool 10
Unexpected Meeting 12
Sea Nettle 13
Malison 14
The Chameleon 15
Tea 16
The Heroine 17
Quarters 19
Recycling 21
Kindness 25
Sorrow 26
Beach Reading 27
The Frog 29
Fable 30
Sandbox 32
The Source 33
Graphology 34
Homestretch 35
Backmasking 37
II
Fata Morgana 41
III
Appetites 47
Swamp Fox 48
The Train 49
The Abduction 50
Against Strange Maladies a Sovereign Cure 51
Water 53
The King 54
Invasive 55
The Big Bad 56
Cheney in Italy 57
South Tower 60
Found Poem 61
Victory 62
Time's Arrow 63
Cardenio 64
Edinburgh 65
Songbook 66
i "In a Big Country"
ii "Just Like Heaven"
lii "Don't You (Forget About Me)"
iv "The Song Remains the Same"
Folly 70
Winter 73
Acknowledgments 77
About the Author 79