{"id":410,"date":"2016-07-21T18:34:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T22:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=410"},"modified":"2016-07-21T18:34:47","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T22:34:47","slug":"review-of-lifeboat-by-kristine-ong-muslim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=410","title":{"rendered":"Review of Lifeboat by Kristine Ong Muslim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Muslim<\/a>Kristine Ong Muslim. Lifeboat. <\/em>University of Santo Thomas Publishing House, 2015. 109 pgs. $18.00<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lynn Domina<\/p>\n

The poems in Lifeboat <\/em>feel haunted. Although the syntax and vocabulary are exceptionally straightforward, the imagery and tone leave the reader unsettled. Things are not as they seem\u2014the poems describe horses \u201cthat thump the oceans flat,\u201d spiders as \u201cthe stuff made of time,\u201d companions disguised by fog. Deceptively accessible, the language of the poems hovers above a\u00a0\u00a0 suggestive depth of meaning. Word by word, readers understand the sentences, but poetic language is nothing if not figurative, and the metaphors here disconcert. The poems are memorable, therefore, not only through their striking imagery but also through the emotional resonance.<\/p>\n

Here, for example, is \u201cFirst Day of September\u201d:<\/p>\n

The house crouches,
\nan angular juggernaut
\nof gray, brown, and green
\nagainst an infinity of white.
\nInside, even Mahler cannot
\ndrown the hush. This time
\nof the year, we are all wolves
\ndrunk with stealth, misled by
\nthe stillness of the dirt road
\nthat leads to the ranch,
\nand we understand that
\nthe horses are the whole world,
\nremember the half-light striking
\nthe water in the trough where
\nthe cows drink\u2014their thirst
\na ripple on the water\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the title seems simply descriptive, a phrase to anchor the poem that will follow. (Muslim\u2019s titles are most often direct and minimalist\u2014\u201cHorses,\u201d \u201cThe Pilot,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSpiders\u201d\u2014though occasionally they are more unusual\u2014\u201cThe One Called Sunday,\u201d \u201cThe Discovery of Laughter,\u201d \u201cHe Ate Himself to Death.\u201d) By the time we finish the poem, however, and return to the title, we realize its significance, for \u201cThis time \/ of year,\u201d when summer is fading into autumn (at least in the northern hemisphere) and the year is veering toward its conclusion, caution does increase, in contrast to carefree spring.<\/p>\n

Initially, the house in the poem seems abandoned and its setting, \u201can infinity of white,\u201d desolate. If Mahler plays inside, though, even if only in the speaker\u2019s imagination, the house is inhabited by at least one consciousness. Muslim\u2019s word choice, \u201chush,\u201d is evocative, suggesting a soft restful quiet rather than, for example, a fearful silence. Yet fear is exactly what emerges in the next sentence as \u201cwe are all wolves \/ drunk with stealth.\u201d Such a line suggests that stealth is much more than the caution that distinguishes predator from prey, for we are \u201cdrunk\u201d with it. We are overcome, our judgment dissipated. Overwhelming our self-control, our stealth exerts control over us. Then the sentence, at its midpoint, makes an odd turn: \u201cwe understand that \/ the horses are the whole world.\u201d Maybe the horses are prey, for to an intent predator, prey can form \u201cthe whole world\u201d of attention. I think there\u2019s more going on in this poem though. I think this line captures the speaker\u2019s epiphany, that each moment comprises the entire universe, that every creature is here now, and that here now is the center of all life.<\/p>\n

If such a statement seems too mystical, let me support it with some discussion of craft. The speaker\u2019s insight, \u201cthe horses are the whole world,\u201d occurs on line twelve of sixteen, at exactly the three-quarter point. Effective lyrics often adopt the strategy of a sonnet, with a turn occurring somewhere between the two-thirds and three-quarter mark. In this line, a subordinate clause\u2014for it actually begins with \u201cthat\u201d on the previous line\u2014is treated as an independent clause so that the line sounds like a sentence. That is, through Muslim\u2019s use of the line, \u201cthe horses are the whole world\u201d reads as if it stands alone. The verb \u201care\u201d conveys presence without action or movement, so nothing is changing in the line; the moment extends into eternity. As the sentence continues, the speaker moves from the present into memory, conveyed through image, such that the horses remain in the continuous present:<\/p>\n

\u2026the half-light striking
\nthe water in the trough where
\nthe cows drink\u2014their thirst
\na ripple on the water\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

The speaker\u2019s vision of the horses evokes through association her memory of a trough and the image of \u201chalf-light striking\u201d the water. The speaker has been attentive to detail, noticing how elements of nature interact. Her habit of attention has prepared her for the epiphany she describes in the poem. Although the individual sections\u2014the house, the stealthy wolves, the horses, the cows drinking water\u2014could seem disparate, they all eventually serve the poem\u2019s purpose and contribute to its meaning.<\/p>\n

Many of Muslim\u2019s poems open out like this, into mystery. The final poem in the collection, \u201cHunger Strike,\u201d explores presence and absence, layering human physicality with emotional weight. It begins with a statement that is strange in what it finds strange:<\/p>\n

Strange how we do not alter ourselves
\nto fit the dimensions of this room
\nin order to fill it completely.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible, isn\u2019t it, to alter ourselves that much, or to fill a room completely\u2014unless, of course, the poem isn\u2019t talking about simple bodies. The poem explores the location of childhood, its tone midway between sinister and nostalgic. It concludes with a description of the past infusing the present:<\/p>\n

Upstairs, we hold hands with the
\nversions of ourselves, the dead girls
\nwho will live and live and live.<\/p>\n

Read in isolation, the last line of this poem and the book would indicate that the collection is extraordinarily optimistic. But the last line cannot be read in isolation; \u201cthe dead girls\u201d echo through it. Muslim exploits language this way throughout Lifeboat. <\/em>Her sentence structure most often illustrates English at its most basic: subject, verb, object. Her word choice is most often monosyllabic. Yet her patterns of imagery and thematic concerns are deeply complex. One closes the book the first time, and the second time, strangely puzzled, as if comprehension waits just out of sight, not to be grasped at but to be patiently awaited.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Kristine Ong Muslim. Lifeboat. University of Santo Thomas Publishing House, 2015. 109 pgs. $18.00 Reviewed by Lynn Domina The poems in Lifeboat feel haunted. Although the syntax and vocabulary are exceptionally straightforward, the imagery and tone leave the reader unsettled. Things are not as they seem\u2014the poems describe horses \u201cthat thump the oceans flat,\u201d spiders […]<\/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-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","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=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}