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<\/a>Jo Pitkin. Rendering. <\/em>Salmon Poetry, 2017. 80 pgs. $21.00.<\/p>\nJo Pitkin\u2019s most recent collection, Rendering, <\/em>will challenge some readers\u2014at least it did me\u2014not because its references are unduly obscure or because its style is irritatingly inaccessible under the guise of experimentation, for neither of these qualities is true of the book, but because of some ethical choices the speaker makes. The poems in Rendering <\/em>examine a love affair between the speaker and a married man. As a reader, my initial response to this fact was judgment rather than sympathy, yet Pitkin\u2019s exploration of the relationship is so honest and full and avoidant of self-pity that I became increasingly sympathetic with the speaker, even though this relationship between a single woman and a married man ended just as many similar ones do. For the speaker, the operative word in the phrase \u201clove affair\u201d is \u201clove,\u201d and the relationship retains a permanent effect, as evidenced by the book\u2019s arrangement into sections: \u201cBefore\u201d (by far the shortest), \u201cDuring,\u201d \u201cDuring,\u201d \u201cAfter,\u201d \u201cAfter,\u201d \u201cAfter,\u201d \u201cAfter.\u201d<\/p>\n Most often for me, the success of a collection of poetry depends less on its content than on its craft. Most often, when I am additionally attracted to poetry because of its content, it\u2019s because I already share an allegiance with or interest in the content. I am already, therefore, part of the author\u2019s intended audience. Not so here\u2014Pitkin needed to overcome my resistance to her content through her skill with craft, and that she did.<\/p>\n Here is \u201cIn Love,\u201d the opening poem in the first \u201cDuring\u201d section, in its entirety:<\/p>\n Everything, everything\u2014our afternoons, This poem is reminiscent of a sonnet (if, like me, you define \u201csonnet\u201d narrowly) and exploits several of the opportunities a sonnet provides. Many of the lines are almost yet not quite iambic and almost yet not quite pentameter. True rhyme occurs only with that absolute last click of the final couplet, but many of the other words occurring at the ends of the lines subtly echo each other. This choice is often the better one in contemporary American poetry, when regular true rhyme can so quickly become heavy-handed. We hear the muted echo of \u201cafternoons,\u201d for example, in both \u201cbureau\u201d and \u201cview\u201d and of \u201cbridge\u201d in \u201cRegister.\u201d <\/em>The meaning of \u201cafternoons\u201d is somewhat wittily contradicted by \u201cnightstand\u201d in the next line. Slight alliteration, assonance, and consonance occur throughout the poem, with \u201cclock ticking, \u2026 key,\u201d \u201cborrowed \u2026beige\u2026bridge,\u201d \u201cbeige drapes,\u201d \u201ctorn corner,\u201d \u201cmug marked,\u201d \u201ccoffee\u2026clotted,\u201d and other instances. The sonnet\u2019s classic turn begins in line nine, as Pitkin begins to rely on the much harder consonant sounds and a more insistent monosyllabic rhythm than had occurred in the first eight lines. In terms of meaning, the turn takes full hold in line eleven, after the list of objects populating the room has concluded. Line eleven begins as did line one, with \u201ceverything,\u201d and it concludes by describing the room as a \u201cgallery,\u201d not a place where events occur but where objects are displayed and observed. The next line contradicts readers\u2019 expectations by manipulating a clich\u00e9. The more common description of lovers, especially when they marry, is two become one. Here, however, \u201cwe were never two but always three.\u201d The two never have absolute privacy because of their constant awareness that their love forms a triangle, the third one perhaps excluded but never absent. The knowledge of the end of the relationship is never quite absent either, for even here at the beginning of \u201cDuring,\u201d everything becomes dust.<\/p>\n Two poems earlier, the speaker says that \u201cLow dust devils skitter by. \/ Something sharp catches in my blue eye.\u201d That uncomfortable sense is repeated here in \u201cIn Love,\u201d though it is only the \u201cmind\u2019s eye\u201d that perceives the dust. Yet the memory \u201cquivers and pulses\u201d as if still alive. This poem, accessible as its language is, is nevertheless dense with meaning. It succeeds on multiple levels, from individual word choice to theme.<\/p>\n Many of these poems demonstrate Pitkin\u2019s skill with craft, and particularly her skill using and adapting received forms. She has clearly trained her ear as well as her eye. She understands the value of received forms as well as free verse, not simply well enough to compose in a variety of forms, but deeply enough to borrow some of a form\u2019s expectations without bowing to their encumbrances through thoughtless obeisance. These poems benefit from Pitkin\u2019s knowledge of the long tradition of received forms in English poetry, the increasingly long tradition of free verse, and the practice of inventing new forms by poets of every century. Throughout the late 20th<\/sup> century, \u201cformal\u201d and \u201cfree\u201d were considered opposing terms, and most poets skilled in one tradition were inept in the other. We\u2019ve passed through that moment. In the integration of these traditions lies the future, I suspect, of much American poetry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jo Pitkin. Rendering. Salmon Poetry, 2017. 80 pgs. $21.00. Jo Pitkin\u2019s most recent collection, Rendering, will challenge some readers\u2014at least it did me\u2014not because its references are unduly obscure or because its style is irritatingly inaccessible under the guise of experimentation, for neither of these qualities is true of the book, but because of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","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=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":516,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe awful clock ticking on a nightstand,
\nthe key to a room with its mirror and bureau,
\nthe borrowed sheets, the beige drapes framing a view
\n<\/span>of the thin river and the arched bridge,
\nthe torn corner of the Daily Register,
\n<\/em>the open copy of The End of the Affair,
\n<\/em>the radio playing a Brahms piano trio,
\nthe coffee mug marked with its copper ring,
\nthe squat water glass clotted with red wine\u2014
\neverything kept in that room\u2019s narrow gallery
\nwhere we were never two but always three
\nhas now resolved to dust and in motes flown by
\nyet quivers and pulses always in the mind\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n