{"id":676,"date":"2020-06-18T22:23:21","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T02:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=676"},"modified":"2020-06-18T22:23:21","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T02:23:21","slug":"review-of-because-what-else-could-i-do-by-martha-collins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":"Review of Because What Else Could I Do by Martha Collins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Martha Collins. Because What Else Could I Do. <\/em>University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. 55 pgs. $17.00. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martha Collins\u2019 Because What Else Could I Do <\/em>is a moving and effective collection written in response to her husband\u2019s death. The poems are filled with grief, of course, which is never a linear experience, and these poems portray the speaker\u2019s confusion, her attempts to make sense of something that can never be understood. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

None of the poems are titled, for titles would make them seem finished, would situate them as art, when in some ways they are more like fragments of something that can never be made whole. Stylistically, the poems are disjointed, ungrammatical, and often spare\u2014as thinking is in the midst of grief. Although she did not originally intend to publish this work, Collins\u2019 great success here lies in her ability to convey the grief-stricken mind as well as the grief-stricken heart while also providing enough narrative detail for the reader. Nothing is revealed all at once, and some things aren\u2019t entirely revealed at all, yet the speaker still seems trustworthy, and readers will sense that enough will eventually be made clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is one placed toward the beginning of the collection, as the speaker tries to reconcile herself with facts by obsessively recalling moments she\u2019d change if only she could:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

back I go back and do over it\u2019s
7:30 I drop the papers and put
my arms around you and tell you\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

back I go back it\u2019s the week before
I put my arms around you and say<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will never let you go if those
people come to take you away I
will not let you go I say I\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The speaker\u2019s husband had been receiving scam calls from individuals claiming to represent the IRS\u2014\u201cthose people\u201d in the third stanza\u2014and threatening him with arrest; these calls literally drove him to his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, the speaker\u2019s thinking is obsessive, \u201cback I go back and do over,\u201d and so are her actions. When we reach the final stanza, we realize that she is not only assuring her husband that she will \u201cnever let you go,\u201d but she is insisting on their continued connection to herself, insisting almost that he cannot actually be gone, and to her readers. Like the other poems in the collection, this one uses very little punctuation, relying only on two dashes, one of which occurs at the end of the final line. So the final line isn\u2019t final, but it doesn\u2019t simply drift off, as it would if Collins had used ellipses, or even if she had ended without any punctuation, as most of the poems do; instead, the line and thought are interrupted. The last line consists of eight monosyllabic words, establishing an insistent yet irregular rhythm. This poem creates its emotional effect primarily through its repetition, but there\u2019s more to craft than simply the evocation of emotion. Collins\u2019 smartest craft choice is that final dash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is another of the poems, later in the collection, in which the speaker\u2019s grief is less raw:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the winding road
the bare trees<\/p>\n\n\n\n

through bare trees
the gray pond<\/p>\n\n\n\n

beside the pond
the bench where you sat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the empty bench
the still pond<\/p>\n\n\n\n

across the pond
the two white chairs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the chairs reflected
where I would swim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and when I\u2019d swum
almost back in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you\u2019d get in the water
and meet me there<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This poem is in some ways more conventional, with its reliance on concrete imagery and on the revelation in the final couplet. Yet here, too, the speaker repeats herself, the word \u201cpond\u201d used in each of the first four couplets, along with \u201cthe bench,\u201d \u201cthe empty bench,\u201d and \u201cthe two white chairs,\u201d \u201cthe chairs\u201d\u2014the turn in the poem occurring between those two instances of \u201cchairs.\u201d So many of the external markers remain the same, though everything for the speaker has changed. She is less adrift in this poem, though, as the final couplet suggests that her husband will still meet her as she arrives on shore. He is gone from this world, and yet, the poem suggests, his presence is more than simply memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couplets and the short lines suit this poem well, not only because they establish a sense, accurately or not, of order, but also because they emphasize the significance of the concrete objects the poem describes. Grief peels away everything that is extraneous. There are other human states that benefit from an accumulation of language, but grief is spare. It is eventually, as Emily Dickinson so famously stated, \u201ca formal feeling.\u201d Here, it is restrained. The poem is also almost reassuring; it concludes not with the speaker swimming away, toward the opposite shore, nor with her returning to an empty shore, but to the place where her husband met her so many times. Even the grammatical mood here, the conditional \u201cwould,\u201d suggests reassurance, in contrast to the finality of a simple past tense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t exactly say I enjoyed this collection, for it is so sad, and it describes a situation that went so wrong, but I am grateful to have read it. It tells the truth, which is, perhaps, poetry\u2019s greatest responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martha Collins. Because What Else Could I Do. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. 55 pgs. $17.00. Martha Collins\u2019 Because What Else Could I Do is a moving and effective collection written in response to her husband\u2019s death. The poems are filled with grief, of course, which is never a linear experience, and these poems portray […]<\/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":[37,38,36],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek","tag-because-what-else-could-i-do","tag-grief","tag-martha-collins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","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=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}