{"id":436,"date":"2016-11-15T21:46:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T02:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=436"},"modified":"2016-11-15T21:46:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T02:46:48","slug":"review-of-field-work-by-sarah-estes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=436","title":{"rendered":"Review of Field Work by Sarah Estes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"estes-cover\"<\/a>Sarah Estes. Field Work. <\/em>Cider Press, 2015. 68 pgs. $17.95.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lynn Domina<\/p>\n

Sarah Estes\u2019 Field Work <\/em>had been sitting in my to-be-read stack for several months, and every once in a while, I\u2019d sort through the pile and think, \u201cI should read that.\u201d Now that I have, I wish I\u2019d read it much sooner, for it is a thoughtful and thought-provoking collection of lyric poems, grounded in wisdom and informed by struggle. The poems acknowledge grief and loss, but they strive toward acceptance of these experiences as components of the life we are given to live.<\/p>\n

The opening lines of the opening poem, \u201cThe Fall,\u201d encapsulate one of the book\u2019s major themes: \u201cThis is what God is. Water. \/ This is what survival is. Swimming.\u201d The title, of course, evokes a foundational Christian teaching about human nature, that we are inherently disobedient, sinful, unwilling to accept limits. The poem, though, never again refers overtly to that Biblical story, and its exploration of human XXX is much more gentle. Here are the first three stanzas:<\/p>\n

This is what God is. Water.
\nThis is what survival is. Swimming.
\nYou don\u2019t realize until entirely immersed.
\nUntil your suit is a purple skin.
\nUntil the lines of yourself
\nhave begun to slip<\/p>\n

from meaning.
\nAnd you see your hand
\nplunging you forward, the way a fish
\njumps into what it was not made for.<\/p>\n

When it is your own hands pulling you
\nthrough the water, you begin to think you
\nare strong. That strength is something
\nlike loving the air, but not the air you
\nbreathe into your own lungs.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the poem suggests, it is when the boundaries separating ourselves from the rest of creation dissolve that we most believe ourselves in control of our circumstances. Theologians and psychologists have asserted similar ideas, but, for me, the abstractions of theology are never as pleasurable as the metaphor of poetry. The ideas Estes explores in \u201cThe Fall\u201d are interesting, but the poem is successful because its language is vivid. The extended metaphor is so effective that readers forget they\u2019re immersed in metaphor until we reach the end of the poem, pause, and return to its beginning.<\/p>\n

How does Estes seduce her readers into interpreting figurative language as realistic, accurate description? This poem demonstrates Estes\u2019 mastery of craft. Its effect on the reader reproduces the water\u2019s effect on the \u201cyou\u201d: \u201cYou don\u2019t realize until you\u2019re entirely immersed,\u201d in water or in language, what it is that surrounds you. Both the sounds of the words and the appearance of the lines on the page reinforce the imagery, for whether this water is river, lake, or ocean, its rhythm is recognizable. The relationship between end-stopped and enjambed lines illustrates how Estes exploits craft to develop her theme. The first four lines are end-stopped, and the first two also contain definite caesuras; the rhythm of these lines is abrupt, just as their content is stated directly. After line four, however, the next two lines are enjambed, with end-stopped lines occurring further and further apart.\u00a0 The rhythm, that is, becomes smoother and softer as the \u201cyou,\u201d the reader, imagines herself more and more fully immersed. Where the lines are enjambed is as important as that they are enjambed, for meaning resides at least as much in the line as in the sentence. In stanza three, for example, the meaning would shift subtly if a line broke at \u201cstrong\u201d or \u201cstrength\u201d rather than at \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cyou\u201d and \u201csomething.\u201d Estes places \u201cstrength\u201d close to \u201cstrong,\u201d so that the synonyms themselves increase their strength, but not nearly as much as they would if they\u2019d been placed at the ends of lines. Their placement in the middle of the line instead subtly undercuts their strength. Estes also relies on assonance and alliteration to both vary the rhythm of the poem and reproduce the rhythm of water. Because so much is going on in this poem and because its elements so enhance each other, the pleasure of \u201cThe Fall\u201d increases with each reading.<\/p>\n

Clearly, \u201cThe Fall\u201d explores the relationship of the self with the divine. Other poems expand Estes\u2019 exploration of relationship, incorporating the self and family, the self and strangers\u2014often much less privileged strangers\u2014into this primary relationship. Or perhaps a better way of saying this is that the collection is organized to reproduce a speaker\u2019s emergent understanding of her place in the world. The last section of Field Work <\/em>consists of several poems set in southeast Asia. In these poems, close relationships among members of the speaker\u2019s family merge with encounters with others. Although poems that depend on foreign locales for their content often drift into superficial presentations of exotic sites and sights, Estes is as committed to accuracy and understanding here as she is in poems set in middle America.<\/p>\n

Field Work <\/em>contains poems that vary in form as well as content. Estes is particularly adept at exploring the nature of the line, not only where to break it as I discussed above, but also whether it ought to begin flush left, how far to extend it or how radically to trim it, what its relationship is with the sentence and with the stanza. The voice, though, is consistent throughout\u2014thoughtful, serious though not solemn, quietly inviting. It is a voice that, I hope, will have much more to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Estes. Field Work. Cider Press, 2015. 68 pgs. $17.95. Reviewed by Lynn Domina Sarah Estes\u2019 Field Work had been sitting in my to-be-read stack for several months, and every once in a while, I\u2019d sort through the pile and think, \u201cI should read that.\u201d Now that I have, I wish I\u2019d read it much […]<\/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-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","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=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}