{"id":731,"date":"2021-09-01T18:04:34","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T22:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=731"},"modified":"2021-09-01T18:04:34","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T22:04:34","slug":"review-of-the-honey-of-earth-by-david-graham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=731","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Honey of Earth by David Graham"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>David Graham. The Honey of Earth. <\/em>Terrapin Books, 2019. 81 pgs. $16.00.<\/p>\n

David Graham\u2019s poems celebrate\u2014or commemorate, really\u2014the ordinary. Ordinary objects, people, places\u2014though what, really is <\/em>ordinary? Isn\u2019t every memento, every person, every living creature somehow extraordinary, each in its own way? In The Honey of Earth, <\/em>Graham\u2019s third full-length collection, he answers that question with a decided yet unobtrusive yes. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cVinegar and Fizz\u201d consists of two parts, the first a page long and the second only 19 lines. Though both sections describe the speaker\u2019s mother, their most significant difference is in tone, and it is that tonal difference that helps the poem achieve its greatest effect. Although the title comes from the second section, the speaker shows just how fully characterized by \u201cvinegar and fizz\u201d his mother is in the first section:<\/p>\n

My mother could not be trusted
\nto tell it straight. She adored welshing
\non a bet, spinning tales, splashing
\nin hyperbole\u2019s lake.<\/p>\n

The first line-break sets the tone for this entire section, as its misleading suggestion reproduces the mother\u2019s own narrative habits. The language becomes increasingly playful and original\u2014most readers, I imagine, will long to listen in while the mother is \u201csplashing \/ in hyperbole\u2019s lake.\u201d Already by line four, we realize that it\u2019s the story we can\u2019t trust. The storyteller\u2014well, we can certainly trust her to tell a good story. The speaker continues with his own mischievous language, until he recalls an astonishing moment:<\/p>\n

\u2026.Did she
\nplace a single peanut on my pudgy
\npalm for the elephant to lift with its
\ntrunk? Of course. A touch still zapping
\nme sixty years later. My mother would
\nnever turn away from any elephant,
\njuggler, parade, song, or barker
\nbeating his drum of gorgeous lies.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the poem, I envied the speaker because his mother must have been so frequently entertaining. Here at the end of the first section, I envy him that experience feeding an elephant, that \u201ctouch still zapping\u201d him. I think I\u2019m engaged by the content alone, until I look more closely at Graham\u2019s language.<\/p>\n

The alliteration in the second and third lines above is especially effective: \u201cplace\u2026peanut\u2026pudgy \/ palm.\u201d Interestingly, and probably coincidentally, the syllables beginning with \u201cp\u201d in the first quoted line are each separated by three syllables. The alliteration is pronounced, therefore, without becoming too insistent. \u201cPudgy,\u201d itself an amusing word, becomes more amusing beside a description of an elephant. Here at the conclusion of this first section, we discover that the mother enjoys hearing a good story, the barker\u2019s \u201cgorgeous lies,\u201d as much as she enjoys telling one.<\/p>\n

Had it ended here, the poem would have been satisfying and memorable. In section two, however, the comedy becomes tinged with tragedy, or at least sadness, and the tone more poignant. Years have passed apparently, and the mother is being evaluated for dementia. A doctor asks her her name, which she can\u2019t reveal, though she relies on her wit to deflect the question. Even as her future is becoming clear to her son, the doctor, and the reader, she refuses to surrender:<\/p>\n

\u2026then he inquires if she can say
\nwhat season. She looks around the ward
\ncraftily: decorated tree, tinsel, cartoon snowflakes
\nstuck to the windows. \u201cIt\u2019s almost Christmas.
\nWhat are you getting me?\u201d Next he wonders
\nif she knows the year. She glares into his face,
\nallows a sullen pause\u2026.Then, \u201c1937,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The line breaks in this stanza reinforce the content: \u201cShe looks around the ward \/ craftily\u201d and \u201c\u2019It\u2019s almost Christmas. \/ What are you getting me?\u2019 Next he wonders \/ if she knows the year\u201d all emphasize the meanings that are deferred through the break. Again, these choices don\u2019t call attention to themselves, instead achieving their effects through subtlety.<\/p>\n

The poem could end here also, but it continues for one more stanza, as the speaker imagines what life was like for his mother in 1937:<\/p>\n

And so it is. She\u2019s going on sixteen, a girl
\nready to burn and roam, nobody\u2019s fool,
\na spitfire, all vinegar and fizz.<\/p>\n

Her life with all of its dreams, expectations, hopes, and yes, sorrows, lies ahead of her, beckoning. She seems ready for anything, determined to take full advantage of this one life she has. And then the poem does end, enfolding the mother\u2019s entire life with a statement that could refer to the girl\u2019s attitude in 1937 and the woman\u2019s so much later in the present:<\/p>\n

The train is about to leave the station
\nfor the one and only time. She\u2019ll be damned
\nif she won\u2019t be on it, and ride far from home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read few poems that so genuinely appreciate a parent\u2019s quirky personality and also retain such admirable warmth as that personality threatens to disappear.<\/p>\n

The title poem, which references lines by Wallace Stevens and which is the final poem in the collection, also achieves much of its effect through Graham\u2019s attention to sound. \u201cWe wake to winter blaze on our windows\u2014 \/ the world whitened while we slept,\u201d the poem begins. The next several lines describe the landscape outside and a frosted window, one of winter\u2019s features so familiar to those of us who live in cold climates. Midway through the poem, the speaker reveals the precise date: \u201cIf this isn\u2019t our valentine, what is?\u201d Creation has sent him and his audience a love note, and will continue sending it throughout the season. Then about two-thirds of the way through the poem, it turns, as so many good poems do:<\/p>\n

Beneath the tumble and flutter of snow
\nlie bulbs stored in ice-lock, ready to burn
\nand shudder upward from their own decay,
\nthe honey of earth immemorial.
\nSo I send you this valentine, though it comes
\nand goes at once, though it kites
\nlike a snowflake up and down, over and out.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cSo\u201d beginning the final sentence is particularly telling. It establishes a relationship of cause and effect between the existence of the frozen but not dead flower bulbs, whose future blossoms literally emerge from their past foliage, and the valentine the speaker offers to his listener. The \u201cyou\u201d is both the individual listener, of course, and the book\u2019s audience. We readers close the book, having received these last lovely words that are as much invitation as farewell.<\/p>\n

Throughout The Honey of Earth, <\/em>Graham has fun with language, but he utilizes this language to reveal some of life\u2019s more significant meanings. He muses. He contemplates. He responds. Readers, too, can\u2019t help but respond to these poems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Graham. The Honey of Earth. Terrapin Books, 2019. 81 pgs. $16.00. David Graham\u2019s poems celebrate\u2014or commemorate, really\u2014the ordinary. Ordinary objects, people, places\u2014though what, really is ordinary? Isn\u2019t every memento, every person, every living creature somehow extraordinary, each in its own way? In The Honey of Earth, Graham\u2019s third full-length collection, he answers that question […]<\/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":[55,56],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek","tag-david-graham","tag-the-honey-of-earth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","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=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}