Wordspinning

Jim Moore - The Freedom of History

It's odd to read books written by people you've met. Jim Moore was my teacher for the first class I took at Hamline in the MFA program. The Core course: Readers and Writers, Creators Both. Several of the poems in this collection were familiar to me from the class.

I don't really know what holds this thing together. Let's see:

I. TODAY'S MEDITATION - meditative poems in first, second and third person
II. THE FREEDOM OF HISTORY - a conversation with Czech woman over a number of days
III. WILD LIGHT - mostly visual; metaphorical stuff, imagining things a different way
IV. BLACK & WHITE/COLOR - poems based on visual art: black and white photos, a Matisse
V. TERROR'S ONLY EPITAPH - narrative from a first person experience surviving a bomb
VI. GIVING AWAY LOVE - sex and romance poems
VII. FOR YOU - Issues that cross borders (Vietnam, Europe, Canada, Greece, Vietnam War)

The collection begings very internally, goes outward in conversation, becomes abstract, imaginitive and visual, then returns to personal stories and once again an internal narrative.

I. TODAY'S MEDITATION - meditative poems in first, second and third person

Today's Meditation: It's Not Supposed to Last Forever - remembering being in prison
Today's Meditation: Happiness - perspective through a window (still in prison?)
Today's Meditation - dreaming well (of wild sex and secret meetings) aftermath in leaves
Today's Meditation: Travel: Ravenna - how our lives are written on our faces
Today's Meditation: A Summer Afternoon, Venice - realizing you are not the point
Today's Meditation: The Crucifixion - It is ongoing - a description of a visual image?

II. THE FREEDOM OF HISTORY - a long conversation over a number of days from P.O.V. of Czech woman

The Freedom of History - One side of discussions: American man Czech woman in Prague

III. WILD LIGHT - mostly visual; metaphorical stuff. Not sure why Details from August is in this section

Winter Smoke - visual of smoke as horses escaping into the sky
Snow - Self as snow
You and Snow - Self as snowflake
Into the Circle of Death - death as a flying horse (image from Sioux effigy)
In the Aviary - ravens as mystical
Details from the August Heat: Your Rape One Year Later - Normalcy after horror

IV. BLACK & WHITE/COLOR - poems based on visual art

A Sudek Place - on a photograph by Josef Sudek
The Valley Called Curve - Josef Sudek, photographer (1896-1976)
Here, Too, There Is a Paradise - on a photograph of Prague by Josef Sudek
Rothko - about the painter
Matisse's "Dance" - about the painting

V. TERROR'S ONLY EPITAPH - narrative from a first person experience

Terror's Only Epitaph - On surviving the bombing of La Guardia in 1975

VI. GIVING AWAY LOVE - sex and romance poems

Do See It My Way - risks of falling in love
In Rain - sex as a cat
That's the Dusk - romance of darkness
What the Bird Sees - gentle sex between consenting adults
Giving Away Love - Happy aftermath of loving while love is still asleep
London: 33, The Last Movement, the Longest Day - man panics at being 33-- relaxes at 34

VII. FOR YOU - Issues that cross borders

Fires That Won't Go Out - translplanted Vietnamese waiters in Boston
All the Raised Arms - The calm beauty and tradition of an old city and its citizens
This Passing - A man dying from cancer at 30 (longing to visit Greece in spring)
The Poet of Minsk - Taking risks as a poet (Mandelstam and others) in Minsk in 1928
Beyond the Border - Crossing the border to Canada on a bus
For You - Poetry prof. whose students die in Vietnam finds a reason to protest loudly and go to prison

posted by Kiara at 7:03 AM