PRE-POSTHUMOUS POEMS

by Lawrence E. Hussman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2021

Hussman’s poems meditate on the natural world and the nature of loss.

In his second book of poetry, Hussman—a professor emeritus of American literature at Wright State University—devotes the first part of the book to pieces that reflect his northern Oregon environment: landscape, weather, birds, and beasts. Several poems are set during a walk along the beach. “Encounter,” like other poems in the collection, moves from thoughtful and observational to epiphanic and universal. The speaker describes a heavy fog that disguises his surroundings and makes them feel unreal. He guesses that a large shape ahead is a fallen tree until it barks, revealing itself as a sea lion that’s hauled out on the shore. Retracing his steps, “the real restored,” the poet thanks the animal “for proof that death still / waited a ways away, and life again / was willing with its wonder.” These lines illustrate Hussman’s characteristic prosody, which employs a fairly regular iambic rhythm and plenty of alliteration; here, six words begin with or contain the letter W in just two lines. Though well crafted, these elements—together with an old-fashioned linguistic style—can give the collection a stodgy or artificial feel. In “Anomaly,” for example, the speaker is driving down a country road at dusk and sees a stag elk among a herd of cows. After wondering how the animal came to be there, the poet concludes by asking, “Or had he quit his herd for this little while, / gone wandering to see what other beings’ / lives were like, discovered what self-seeking / men so seldom do, that Nature’s many makings / share a single, mortal soul?” Combined with the solemn iambs, this rather self-conscious poetic diction feels stale.

While many pieces in Part 1 include reflections on loss, the often elegiac poems in the second part focus more directly on yearning, mortality, and suffering. In “A Gift Withdrawn,” for example, the poet gets to know another visiting professor in Poland. She is also a poet, possessing a “subtle mind” of depth and feeling. She regrets “her failure / over fifty years to mate her spirit to another” and weeps over a poignant gravestone in a World War II cemetery engraved “Soldier, Fourteen.” After her sudden illness and death, the poet is too bitter to attend her funeral, concluding “Damn the clichés of preachers and priests, / liars of a ‘loving’ god.” While undeniably heartfelt, these final lines don’t engage thoughtfully with the theological question of suffering, and it reads as if the speaker lacks the subtlety he praises in his friend. Some poems, however, provide a welcome touch of humor or wryness, as in “Impossible.” The speaker wishes all his life for a soul mate but wants a bundle of contradictions; she must be “elfin though shapely, bosom slight and still / decided, blond brunette with red / straight frizzy tresses.” The lighter touch here appeals, in contrast with other poems’ tendency toward making stately pronouncements.

Sensitive, deliberately crafted poems that suffer from a stilted voice.

Pub Date: June 3, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-64388-661-9

Page Count: 58

Publisher: Luminare Press

Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2021

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

SHORT STORIES | GENERAL FICTION