{"id":213,"date":"2014-06-23T16:11:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T20:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=213"},"modified":"2014-06-23T16:11:31","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T20:11:31","slug":"review-of-st-peters-b-list-edited-by-mary-ann-b-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":"Review of St. Peter’s B-List, edited by Mary Ann B. Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Miller<\/a><\/p>\n

Mary Ann B. Miller, ed. St. Peter\u2019s B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints. <\/i>Ave Maria Press, 2014. 261 pgs. $15.95.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lynn Domina<\/p>\n

I particularly enjoy anthologies that are conceived because of the editor\u2019s interest in a topic, so when I saw a reference to St. Peter\u2019s B-List <\/i>before it was submitted to me for review, I was intrigued\u2014for there are so many saints to choose from after all, and so many potential attitudes to express. It is one of those anthologies that\u2019s just fun to pick up and browse through. Contributors include the well-known (e.g. Kate Daniels, James Tate, Jim Daniels, Dana Gioia) and poets who were new to me, though looking at their contributors\u2019 notes, I wonder how I could have missed them until now. That\u2019s a virtue of anthologies, of course, how they introduce us to poets we\u2019ll come to love. There\u2019s an equal range among the saints considered, from beloved St. Francis of Assisi, his companion St. Clare of Assisi, his contemporary St. Dominic, to the equally if differently beloved St. Patrick and St. Nicholas, from the Biblical St. Mary Magdalene and St. Joseph to the legendary St. Christopher, from the recently canonized St. Kateri Tekakwitha to the not-yet canonized Dorothy Day, from the famous St. Joan of Arc to the obscure St. Magnus of F\u00fcssen and St. Spyridon. Lest the obscurity of some of the saints intimidate readers, Mary Ann B. Miller has provided a helpful summary of each saint\u2019s life, in addition to an introduction and contributor bios. The anthology is arranged in three sections, \u201cFamily and Friends,\u201d Faith and Worship,\u201d and \u201cSickness and Death.\u201d Although many of the poems are interesting and memorable, I\u2019ll limit my discussion here to one poem from each section.<\/p>\n

The book opens with a Credo poem by Martha Silano, \u201cPoor Banished Children of Eve.\u201d It begins conventionally enough, \u201cI believe,\u201d and then develops through loose allusion to the Apostle\u2019s and Nicene Creeds, <\/b>though its content quickly becomes, shall we say, unorthodox. Yet it is also highly reverent, spoken in the voice of someone who recognizes a blessing when she receives one. The poem is written in tercets without punctuation, and Silano exploits this form to surprise the reader, to create layers of meaning through the juxtaposition of anticipation against the unexpected. Here\u2019s something of what I mean\u2014the poem begins with this stanza: \u201cI believe in the dish in the sink \/ not bickering about the dish in the sink \/ though I believe the creator.\u201d Unlike any canonical Christian creed, this poem focuses immediately upon the concrete material world, as if to suggest that she remains unconvinced of an abstract, invisible, ineffable world. Yet she immediately mentions a \u201ccreator,\u201d admittedly lowercase, but perhaps the missing capital letter corresponds to the absent punctuation. But no\u2014the sentence is interrupted with a stanza break, and the subordinate clause that has begun at the end of stanza one is completed\u00a0 in stanza two: \u201cthough I believe the creator \/\/ of the mess in the living room \/ cleans up the mess in the living room.\u201d The poem continues this way, mentioning purgatory and hell, father and son, martyrs and saints, glory and mercy, but returning always to her immediate family, their modest inconveniences and immense blessing. Its last two lines are nearly transcendent: \u201cgrant us eternal grant us merciful \/ o clement o loving o sweet.\u201d The poem is skillful and imaginative. In gesturing toward doctrine, it becomes so much more substantive than rote recitation; it ends as the prayer of a believer, one who surpasses orthodoxy to express profound gratitude.<\/p>\n

Not all of the poems in this book express such a convincingly present faith, but many of the most moving ones do. Nicholas Samaras\u2019 \u201cApocalypse Island\u201d is filled with humor and hope. It is a list poem, structured in couplets, that describes a day from the speaker\u2019s youth. Each of the first six couplets contains the clause \u201cI remember\u201d or a close synonym followed by a concrete image\u2014though only the first two couplets actually begin with these repeated words. Samaras introduces enough variety in the length and structure of his sentences so that the repetition of \u201cI remember\u201d becomes resonant rather than monotonous. Then, exactly mid-way through the poem, we come to two couplets that interrupt the pattern: \u201cHalfway up the mountain path, we came to a sign \/ nailed to an olive tree, a white sign in the rough \/\/ shape of an arrow, inscribing \u2018this way to the Apocalypse.\u2019 And my stunned translation, hysterical with laughter.\u201d Five more couplets follow, two of which include \u201cI remember.\u201d The pacing of this poem is masterful, as is Samaras\u2019 superimposition of his own individual future upon that revealed by St. John and the simplicity of what follows: \u201cI remember the coolness of the air as we entered \/\/ the chapel of his Cave\u2014Saint John of the Revelation. \/ All of my future was ahead of me. I framed \/\/ the twine of flowers around the ancient gold icon \/ and walked back into light, both empty and full.\u201d The speaker\u2019s future is presumably no long all ahead of him, yet we sense that this experience opened a future that will not close.<\/p>\n

As might be expected, many of the poems in the final section are more somber than those earlier in the book. \u201cRose-Flavored Ice Cream with Tart Cherries\u201d by Karen Kovacik, for example, is poignant and wistful. The poem begins evocatively, \u201cThe June air\u2019s woozy with unshed rain,\u201d and develops through concrete imagery, addressing a \u201cyou\u201d by the end of the first stanza, a \u201cyou\u201d whose favorite saint was Thomas, the doubter, or as the speaker says, \u201cyour favorite saint, who had \/ to touch the wound of light to believe.\u201d The speaker orders the ice cream of the title, so exotic as to seem almost impossible, \u201ccrisp as a chilled corsage, \/ fragrant then tart.\u201d Only with the subsequent line are we certain the addressee is absent, and only in the third and final stanza do we realize why\u2014the speaker is a widow, recalling the attentive erotic care of her deceased spouse. The poem concludes with an imagined gesture reminiscent of the first stanza: \u201cI can almost feel, a continent away, \/ the flutter of your impatient hands.\u201d It was Thomas\u2019 hand, after all, that convinced him that Jesus was alive, just as a lover\u2019s hands often convince us that we too are alive. Like many of the poems in this anthology, \u201cRose-Flavored Ice Cream with Tart Cherries\u201d doesn\u2019t examine the life of a saint so much as it achieves understanding of the speaker\u2019s life through reference to the saint.<\/p>\n

The poems in St. Peter\u2019s B-List <\/i>vary in length and form; although many are written in free verse, the anthology also includes several written in received forms. Most, however\u2014and this is my only complaint\u2014are stylistically similar; the personal lyric dominates the collection, perhaps through the editor\u2019s preference or perhaps because contemporary poems incorporating references to saints are most often written in this lyrical scenic mode. If the latter is true, let it also be a challenge\u2014what can we poets do next, exploring our relationship with the saints and their influence on us, to make it new?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Ann B. Miller, ed. St. Peter\u2019s B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints. Ave Maria Press, 2014. 261 pgs. $15.95. Reviewed by Lynn Domina I particularly enjoy anthologies that are conceived because of the editor\u2019s interest in a topic, so when I saw a reference to St. Peter\u2019s B-List before it was submitted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}