Braided Creek, A Conversation in Poetry with Jim Harrison & Ted Kooser has the feeling of renku; each poem a link in a chain.
It isn’t marked who said which but then it seems to emulate the groove of conversation where the distinctions and divides dissolve. It’s more the matter of cooperatively amicably choosing to remain in dialogue.
A nucleus of the text appeared in a chapbook and here is 85 page hard cover of only 250 copies.
Here’s a sequence of 6 to sample from page 6-7. The soft link of concept of word hooks forward.
…thought I’d die
in my twenties, thirties, forties, fifties.
This can’t go on forever.
There are mornings
when everything brims with promise,
even my empty cup.
Two squirrels fight
to near death,
red blood flecking green grass
while chipmunks continue feeding.
What a pleasure: a new straw hat
with a green brim to look through!
Rowing across the lake
all the dragonflies are screwing.
Stop it. It’s Sunday.
Throw out the anchor
unattached to a rope.
Heart lifts as it sinks.
Out of my mind at last.
The intermixing of tones of life and weights strike me throughout.
Like the dark humour of the pessimist of the first, acknowledged in the cup half full or half empty and the devil’s advocacy poiting past. The dialogue hat tips to concede this point, remarks on the concurrent wars and peace even in nature. A soft link green and a turn to the light and simple pleasures in life of new sunhat.
In the passback more of the sunny day and earthy humour to offset the sweet simplicity. And then from thread of suggested water, the boat and more depth of forever time playing cheeky by eternal jowl.
The last one stops me entirely. In a good way. It can turn back and forth in a rich way.
Drop the security line, release yourself from the necessity to figuratively moor or rest at anchor. To be impractical, impossible, short-sighted is a kind of freedom. The last line suugests finally release self from worries, or finally sanely mad.
It’s nice to find something that was written from a contomplative place and feels to not attempt to be poeterly contrived. The form is talk between poets so there’s that coloring of density. There’s universality and particular lining up in a resonating gratifying way. One last sample from the book is this of page 9
As a boy when desperate I’d pray with bare knees
on the cold floor. I still do,
but from the window I look like an old man.
Time is baffling. Feeling old and decrepit by times as a child, and by moment not understanding how decades pass that fast.
The background context of the work (of them being poems exchanged during hospitalization for cancer) and some favorite bits are at Poet Hound written a few months ago the Copper Canyon Press item from 2003. I’ve seen reviews of Copper Canyon and seen the sight (which at time of writing is down) but this is this first time I’ve had one in hand.
Although a library find I was pretty immediately in the bind of wanting to own for a lifetime. Masters at play and rich and rewarding to come back and rest in the words.
Also spotted. Essay on Dana Giola’s relationships with chapbooks over the 80s onwards.
He says
To recognize the sensual contributions of the physical elements of a book is somehow assumed to demean the spiritual purity of the text. To notice the book itself smacks of philistinism, and to make distinctions based on paper, binding, and typography brings accusations of elitism or decadence.
on making his argument for the artisinal book, the fine press printer for literary works. The New Formalist talks about his relationshop with Windhover Press, Aralia Press and Greywolf Press (which apparently began as a letterpress operation).