{"id":682,"date":"2020-07-11T13:08:14","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T17:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=682"},"modified":"2020-07-11T13:08:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T17:08:14","slug":"review-of-night-angler-by-geffrey-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=682","title":{"rendered":"Review of Night Angler by Geffrey Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Geffrey Davis. Night Angler. <\/em>BOA Editions. 2019. 96 pgs. $17.00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geffrey Davis\u2019 Night Angler <\/em>is a collection that is both absolutely timely and perfectly timeless, though its timelessness is unfortunate, or perhaps I\u2019m pessimistic in calling it so. Many of the poems address the speaker\u2019s challenges being a Black man in America, a Black father of a Black son. The poems are honest and clear-eyed, and they are also gentle. They explore the awe of fatherhood as well as its worries. The collection is successful for two primary reasons: the trustworthiness of the speaker, and the range of poetic styles and forms. Davis, in other words, has something to say and the skill to say it artfully.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the most intriguing pieces here is the multi-part poem, \u201c3: 16,\u201d a reference to the Biblical passage from the Gospel of John, \u201cFor God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.\u201d Each section of this long poem takes its title from a word or phrase of this verse. Rather than use it as a weapon, as we so often experience in contemporary popular culture, Davis explores his associations with the words, taking the ideas seriously, as things to be understood, accepted or rejected, in terms of his own life, rather than as ideas so long received that they can reveal no new knowledge. The first section, \u201cWhosoever,\u201d <\/em>is a ghazal, though there is so much else going on in the poem that the form becomes almost a counter-melody rather than an overly insistent beat that can sometimes occur in forms that rely on repetition. Here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the restaurant bar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I smile & watch my only begotten sway
before the old musician\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 who mirrors my only begotten\u2019s sway<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& strains to lift his bearded voice above the dining-room din\u2014
they\u2019ve paid him to play below conversation\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but my only begotten sways<\/p>\n\n\n\n

two feet away from his blue guitar\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the grace of it giving him permission to push
his song out above the evening chatter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in fact\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 my only begotten\u2019s sway<\/p>\n\n\n\n

commands all eyes: the customers & young waitresses & old man fixed
even the purposeful darkness of the joint seems lit by my only begotten\u2019s sway<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so strange–: how open to perish we have become\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 how freed from
first intent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 how surrendered to believeth only as my begotten sways<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davis takes some liberties with the ghazal\u2014not every couplet is complete in itself, subject to rearrangement without obliterating the sense, and the repetend is not preceded by a rhyme. Davis\u2019 revision of the form\u2019s requirements, however, permit him to incorporate other strategies. I hear echoes of Langston Hughes (\u201cHe did a lazy sway\u2026 \/ To the tune o\u2019 those Weary Blues\u201d) and see perhaps an allusion to Picasso\u2019s \u201cold musician\u201d playing a \u201cblue guitar.\u201d This section also includes several other words from John 3: 16, \u201cperish\u201d and \u201cbelieveth.\u201d And the dancing boy facilitates \u201cgrace,\u201d both the musician and the diners experiencing themselves and the world anew: \u201chow open to perish we have become     how freed from \/  first intent    how surrendered to believeth\u2026\u201d Davis doesn\u2019t specify what exactly these people believe now\u2014the poem is not doctrinal, not insistent on literalness, but mystical. He admits the strangeness of the experience, something that could neither be intended nor reproduced. Readers, too, if they are paying attention, will experience this poem\u2019s mystery, for we are not directed what to feel or think but invited into the physicality of the music and the dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSelf-Portrait as a Dead Black Boy,\u201d another poem consisting of multiple sections, several of them reminiscent of sonnets, adopts an entirely different tone, though it, too, is informed by the speaker\u2019s identity as father. The poem references the Black boys and men whose names\u2014Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and others\u2014became known to Americans through their murders; one of its most discouraging effects is how long ago their deaths seem, not because they were long ago but because so many other Black people have been killed since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem is thematically complex, opening with the speaker\u2019s memories of shooting \u201cminor things that wandered into yard\u201d with a pellet gun. The first stanza ends with this line: \u201cI could track     if I had two surprised seconds,\u201d while the second stanza begins, \u201cto explain the meaning of my hands     my instincts \/ would have been to show you the weapon \/ to turn     hoping you could see gentleness.\u201d Then it introduces Tamir Rice. The lineation here is especially effective, linking the speaker\u2019s skill tracking small animals to the implicit quick reactions of someone who would, seeing the pellet gun rather than the young boy, mistaking Rice\u2019s toy gun for deadly force, shoot back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In section III of this sequence, the speaker himself, a father now, buys a gun, initially thinking it will protect him and his family. He realizes, though, that the gun is more likely to get him killed, directly or indirectly, than it is to save him. We\u2019re not told what he does with the gun. Instead, we see him doing the only thing he believes he can do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026on my knees
I\u2019m preparing my heart to receive the next shots
until a new divinity forbids one more black body<\/p>\n\n\n\n

be burned down\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change will come only when \u201ca new divinity\u201d makes itself known, or, more accurately, when people recognize this \u201cnew divinity,\u201d new, perhaps, not because it hasn\u2019t existed but because it hasn\u2019t been recognized. What is humbling here for white readers such as myself is that the speaker is \u201cpreparing my heart to receive the next shots,\u201d preparing himself emotionally and spiritually for a most extreme injustice, rather than preparing himself for vengeance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look for the day when poems like this won\u2019t be necessary. Right now, though, these poems are absolutely necessary, and I\u2019m grateful that we have writers like Geffrey Davis to bring them to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geffrey Davis. Night Angler. BOA Editions. 2019. 96 pgs. $17.00. Geffrey Davis\u2019 Night Angler is a collection that is both absolutely timely and perfectly timeless, though its timelessness is unfortunate, or perhaps I\u2019m pessimistic in calling it so. Many of the poems address the speaker\u2019s challenges being a Black man in America, a Black father […]<\/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":[39,40],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek","tag-geffrey-davis","tag-night-angler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","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=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}