I learned how to make ring tum ditty when your father and I didn't have two cents to rub together.
Well, these saltines are a little stale. (p. 6, from "Splitting Hairs")
Lace our shut eyes shut.
Don't you ping my machine. Young lady. (p. 20, from "Judas Priest")
Well, these saltines are a little stale. (p. 6, from "Splitting Hairs")
Lace our shut eyes shut.
Don't you ping my machine. Young lady. (p. 20, from "Judas Priest")
Susan Wheeler's National Book Award-nominated poetry collection, Meme, is difficult to sum up in a few pithy paragraphs. Divided into three parts, the first of which, "The Maud Poems," being based on Wheeler's mother, Meme explores several themes, among them the trials and travails of motherhood, the dangers and joys of childhood, the temptations of life, and cruel humorous ironies of life through protean verses that shift in register, tone, and form to fit the characters contained within.
Take for instance the two citations provided above, both taken from "The Maud Poems." Here we hear one half of a conversation, or perhaps "Maud" is caught in a soliloquy over her past poverty before interrupting herself to respond to her children's needs. This alternation between reminisce and response catches the reader reacting on two levels, the recalled past and the immediate present. Wheeler's lines are deceptively simple. Vivid images are created through the use of alliterations, such as this combination found within "The Devil – or – The Introjects":
She's got your hand moving out for a dish, for a drink, for a doughnut. (p. 30)
Wheeler is more than a one-trick poetess. Further on in "The Devil – or – The Introjects," she creates memorable descriptions through twisting, turning, moving, mutable descriptors:
She's driven you out here with her taunting, pushed you out to the
extremities of town where the dust coils in the wind and your own
parched throat rasps. Go on, missy, jump, but the land's straight and flat,
and the prefab arsenal by the side of the road bears unbankable walls.
Jump. (p. 35)
But it is in the third part, "The Split," where Wheeler's talent for imagery and expression shine fullest:
Spangled like showgirls in the gleam of our fears,
shiny Christians in chain mail, with our faux-lizard shingling,
whores limping to West Street from the Bank Street piers, (p. 39)
There are few duds in Meme. Even the relatively weaker segments contain a warmth of characters and a vividness in metaphor and image that makes reading and re-reading the poems a delight. Wheeler's expert use of language creates poems that even in simple actions, something profound is being expressed:
I am tired. Today
I moved a book from its shelf
to the bed. The span
of its moving was vast. (p. 83)
Out of the five poetry finalists that I have read, Meme perhaps will be the one that lingers longest for me. This is not to say the others are not good or excellent in their own right, but Meme is the work that connects closest with the wild, weird vastness of human life and emotions and Wheeler's ability to stretch metaphor to cover this broad emotional expanse is impressive.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Reviews of the 2012 National Book Award finalists (Poetry, YA, Non-Fiction, Fiction)
12/11/2012 08:39:13 PM
- 881 Views
Young People's Literature
12/11/2012 08:58:44 PM
- 575 Views
Steve Sheinkin, Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
12/11/2012 09:07:32 PM
- 767 Views
Sounds very interesting. I may give it a go
18/11/2012 11:19:19 AM
- 825 Views
It's a good primer read, but I suspect there are more in-depth studies of the Manhattan Project
18/11/2012 08:44:09 PM
- 736 Views
Non-Fiction
12/11/2012 09:16:35 PM
- 684 Views
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
12/11/2012 09:23:30 PM
- 790 Views
Anthony Shadid, House of Stone: Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
12/11/2012 09:27:07 PM
- 605 Views
Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1945-1956
12/11/2012 09:29:59 PM
- 724 Views
Fiction
12/11/2012 09:34:43 PM
- 510 Views
Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King
12/11/2012 09:37:02 PM
- 690 Views
I like him, and I want to read this. *NM*
15/11/2012 04:17:18 PM
- 386 Views
I've read all but one of his novels and this one is near the bottom in terms of interest/quality
18/11/2012 08:45:17 PM
- 844 Views
Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
13/11/2012 07:45:53 AM
- 709 Views
I loved it.
13/11/2012 05:16:13 PM
- 598 Views
I got to meet Fountain last month in Nashville at the Southern Festival of Books
13/11/2012 10:56:43 PM
- 707 Views
Junot Díaz, This is How You Lose Her
14/11/2012 01:47:31 PM
- 707 Views