{"id":317,"date":"2015-03-26T22:29:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T02:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=317"},"modified":"2015-03-26T22:29:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T02:29:35","slug":"review-of-albedo-by-kathleen-jesme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"Review of Albedo by Kathleen Jesme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jesme<\/a>Kathleen Jesme. Albedo. <\/em>Ahsahta Press, 2014. 105 pgs. $18.00<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lynn Domina<\/p>\n

I have been a fan of Kathleen Jesme\u2019s work since I stumbled across her Motherhouse <\/em>a few years ago. Her style is unique\u2014spare and elliptical yet also direct and inviting. Her poems suggest that there\u2019s more below the surface, that if we sit patiently, even meditatively with them, deeper meanings and fuller pleasures will reveal themselves. Albedo, <\/em>her newest collection, has already received a widespread positive response (it\u2019s currently a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award), but I would like to look at it here also, to mull over some of her strategies, to think about why her poems appeal to me so much.<\/p>\n

Albedo <\/em>is divided into three sections, with the first, \u201cAlbedo,\u201d consisting of two long multi-part poems and the others, \u201cOrdinary Work\u201d and \u201cCoastline,\u201d composed of many more generally shorter poems. Throughout the collection, Jesme exploits the white space of the page as effectively as she chooses her imagery, figurative language, and form. It\u2019s almost as if, especially given the collection\u2019s attention to light and darkness, the whiteness itself becomes an image.<\/p>\n

The title of this collection is risky simply because \u201calbedo\u201d is a word few of us will know (ok, maybe your vocabulary is more comprehensive than mine), but its meaning is perfect for the collection. I would have picked up this book regardless of its title because I want to follow Jesme\u2019s work as long as she keeps writing, and I would also have been drawn to its beautiful cover image, a photograph of the trunks of hundreds of birch trees, reinforcing the prevailing imagery of light and darkness in the book. I hope readers new to Jesme\u2019s work will be intrigued enough by the title and cover to pick it up. Here is a link to Jesme reading<\/a> three of the poems.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlbedo\u201d is a technical term in both meteorology and astronomy and relates to the ratio of light reflected, say by the earth\u2019s surface, to that received. The word appears in a section of the long poem \u201cThe Mythology We Have Now\u201d:<\/p>\n

A pine forest in winter has among the lowest albedo
\nof any land environment
\nthis is due partly
\nto the color of the pines
\nand partly to multiple scattering of sunlight within the trees<\/p>\n

Although these sentences explain a concept, what lasts for the reader is the image, the darkness of the pine\u2019s green shading to near black set against the \u201cscattering of sunlight.\u201d This poem, \u201cThe Mythology We Have Now\u201d is an extended elegy for the speaker\u2019s father. It\u2019s an experiment in language, an attempt to discover how we can connect, through language or through other elements we describe with language, to those who exist now only in our memories. Here is the section from which the title comes:<\/p>\n

In the mythology we have now the entire universe exploded
\nfrom a marble-sized nugget<\/p>\n

in a trillionth
\nof a second<\/p>\n

light is the fossil
\nof that great scattering of matter and dark energy:
\nhow like us our little universe\u2014<\/p>\n

but I have discovered
\nmy love of shadows:<\/p>\n

things visible only in the absent
\npart of sun<\/p>\n

Many part of this section are intriguing\u2014the understanding of physics and astronomy as mythological systems, the metaphor of light as a fossil followed by the simile comparing human beings to \u201cour little universe.\u201d Because of the strength of its imagery and the turn it takes in the penultimate stanza, this section could stand alone as an independent poem, but it becomes geometrically more resonant in its context within the longer poem. The section that precedes it relies on language and imagery similar to the \u201clowest albedo\u201d section I quoted above, but it also incorporates a direct description of the deceased father\u2019s communication:<\/p>\n

We no longer speak together as we once did
\non the contrary<\/p>\n

his voice in particular is much changed \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and I can\u2019t
\nhear it in the same way<\/p>\n

I am not opposed\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to this alteration
\nbut only to the way the light
\nis drawn<\/p>\n

in such a dark place
\nand to my own absorption in it<\/p>\n

The imagery in this section works thematically to connect sections that precede and follow it. The direct meaning of a given section deepens through content revealed in other sections but related imagistically from one section to the next. \u201cI have discovered \/ my love of shadows\u201d is more resonant because it follows \u201cthe way the light \/ is drawn \/\/ in such a dark place \/ and to my own absorption in it.\u201d Yet the language remains mysterious, or maybe mystical\u2014it\u2019s not as if one section of the poem simply explains another section. Instead, we follow the speaker experiencing loss but not complete loss, attempting to understand the nature of this life that is both finite and infinite, just as the universe seems to be.<\/p>\n

Albedo <\/em>is the type of collection that presents an unfair challenge to a reviewer, for it\u2019s extraordinarily difficult to excerpt lines or stanzas; though short passages may illustrate Jesme\u2019s tone or style, they don\u2019t adequately convey the effect of the book. The only adequate review of this book would be a complete reproduction of it. Instead of reading such a reproduction, readers will be much more gratified if they pick up the real thing. As poetry goes, Albedo <\/em>is the real thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathleen Jesme. Albedo. Ahsahta Press, 2014. 105 pgs. $18.00 Reviewed by Lynn Domina I have been a fan of Kathleen Jesme\u2019s work since I stumbled across her Motherhouse a few years ago. Her style is unique\u2014spare and elliptical yet also direct and inviting. Her poems suggest that there\u2019s more below the surface, that if we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","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=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}