Layers of meaning and feelings by a writer who makes it look easy.
Images iridescent as seahorses sometimes found among the smells
and clumps of ancient seaweeds washed up on beaches after storms.
Savitt's writng is essentially about love, its pleasures and pain.
karl gallagher.
“6 Meditations Toward an Appreciation of Lynne Savitt”
A recent review by poet and translator Art Beck
"As the
poem progressed, its language seemed to slow and double back on itself. It
forced me to pick up each word like a pebble in a trail, something familiar
leading me forward in the work. This was poetry as well as sentiment; language
coming alive and talking back to her . . . :
…say
it wasn’t all
bad those black, humid
nights we traveled to
the planetariums in our
heads exploded with
dirty release & it wasn’t
shame
our last meeting
didn’t go as soft as the
day you asked me to
marry a man who
wasn’t a good father
is something I just
couldn’t we meet some
where dreams touch
& you wake in a sweat
of recognition for something
lost goodbye, michael
at last the tears
3 a.m. months later.
bad those black, humid
nights we traveled to
the planetariums in our
heads exploded with
dirty release & it wasn’t
shame
our last meeting
didn’t go as soft as the
day you asked me to
marry a man who
wasn’t a good father
is something I just
couldn’t we meet some
where dreams touch
& you wake in a sweat
of recognition for something
lost goodbye, michael
at last the tears
3 a.m. months later.
This level of subterranean dialogue . . . [I]ts opacities were still too clear and its emotions too upfront for
LangPo or academia. Its metrics were too quirky and un-retro for the
Formalists. You could call it Confessional—but there’s a level of control in
its wildness, a sense of comfort with its own skin . . .
“One
thing that Savitt brings to the discussion of lust is female freedom. Desire
and bodily fluids are there for the sharing, but ownership is off the table.
Savitt is no stranger to marriage and many of her poems reflect day-to-day
domestic life. There are sincere, filial dialogues with parents, children,
grandchildren. There are poems about care-giving, illness, accidents, death,
and dementia. Savitt is a loyal daughter, and a fiercely loving mother. But
domesticity as an institution is viewed guardedly, sardonically:
the
tiny lump you discover
under your right breast
while powdering
the perfume line
he’ll nuzzle moments before
the plunge…
under your right breast
while powdering
the perfume line
he’ll nuzzle moments before
the plunge…
Savitt’s romantic forays take place in excursions away from the
marriage bed.”
The full review can be found here: http://criticalflame.org/
Relics of Lust
New and Selected Poems
|
|
264 Pages, 5½
x 8½
ISBN: 978-1-935520-82-5 Publication Date: 02/14/2014 Cover Art: Reflections by Noelle Crough
CASUALTIES
talking
about college, him
coming from kansas, ex-wives, husbands, the kids, the time we’d spent in l.a. & he asked “what happened to your first husband?”
“a
marine, “ i answered, “he died
in vietnam in ’66”
he
started to shake & blacked
out, saliva gathering in his mouth,
i turned his head to keep him from choking, he babbled twenty minutes about vietnam horrors & when he came to, said, “i’m sorry, i’d better go.”
i took
his hand & led him
to my bedroom where the wars had ended
and a
flag lay folded in the drawer.
BLONDE BACKLIT BY THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
at 7:03 saturday morning
yr wife called to tell me
you’re dying to see me
unfinished business haven’t spoken in six teen years ago you stole my heart forgot yr voice
once made me crumble
like bleu cheese yr smell
captured me like a piratei couldn’t escape my husband yr wife called to tell me you’re dying to see me cry at the sight of you hooked up to intravenous tubes yr eyes half closed you whisper “blonde i can’t forget you backlit by the brooklyn bridge’’ i take yr hand & yr fingers grasp mine the way an infant does instinctively i want to tell you it wasn’t me by the bridge but you smile teeth missing trouble breathing say again, ‘’blonde i’ll never forget,’’ oh how i adored you broke my heart remembers who do you have me confused with my name say it i say in my head but not out loud living & you are going quietly yr wife enters the room tells me you’re tired unfinished business remains i hear you mutter ‘’backlit blonde’’ as i leave sunday night 11:14 yr wife calls, ‘’he’s dead, ‘’ she says it’s finished but now not for me on my last afternoon of breathing i will remember you glistening on yr norton atlas teeth white as supermodel chicklets forearms like a popeye cartoon you are backlit in bayville it was you, wasn’t it? i will say yr name
PRISON POEM #32
‘’To love without role, without power plays,
is revolution.’’–Rita Mae Brown you shower, put on your clean clothes & wait for us to arrive with books, sometimes vegetables, depending on what we can afford this month other women who work to keep home together long hours raise children strong as the bars in this cold prison the four electric gates our men will enter one at a time we’ll be blossoms soft and perfumed and bring them coffee, honey, sandwiches they will warm the food, set the table i touch you touch she rubs he sighs robbing smells textures to last until the next visit in my breasts you find comfort me in your arms all is well no roles all the pins have been pulled from the grenades no matter how long we must wait we will continue the revolution
♣ ♣ ♣
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/relics-of-lust?store=book&keyword=relics+of+lusthttp://www.amazon.com/Relics-Lust-New-Selected-Poems/dp/1935520822/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&keywords=9781935520825 &linkCode=ur2&qid =1392182664&sr=8-1&tag=poetscraftcom-20  On this site: http://fitzroydreaming.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Lynne%20Savitt |
