THE PLANT WATERER by KATHRYN RANTALA
EILEEN TABIOS Reviews
The Plant Waterer and other things in common by Kathryn Rantala(Ravenna Press, Edmonds, WA, 2006)I've read quite a few poetry collections where interconnectedness is--as I read them--an underlying poetics. Kathryn Rantala's
The Plant Waterer makes it
fresh--by creating her own garden from this seed (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). Witness:
Once when I was unlocking the car, the air blew up and surprised me so that I dropped my keys. When I bent to pick them up I was surprised again. An amusing, conversational air. One day when I could think of nothing to say, it ventured out in front of me in a breezy sort of way.
I feel good to be elaborated this way. As old as I become I will always shudder at the cruelty of fans.
Next week I am planning a trip that will take me aloft. I wonder if the winds above are of the same temperament. How many varieties will be there? Maybe the parents of this gentle breeze? I imagine their pride when they held this little zephyr in their hands. I hope they hold my plane in the same protective way; that I will be sustained by the casual buoyancies of the sky.
--from "The Air"
"Casual" is a good, albeit deceptive, summation of the collection's overall tone. There's an equanimity throughout -- a lack of straining:
Day 1:
"Pointing Figure" is the wooden portrait of a man wearing a hat, made sometime between 1890 and 1900 for a group of the Raven Clan. An earlier Pointing Figure was set up on Cat Island by ancestors of the same group for a deceased relative.
Andy Moses helped with the carving of this memorial but never inquired into the story behind it since he was a young man and, like many young men, uninterested in such matters.
--from "Alaska Day Tours"
But that equanimity is hardly simple. Part of the book's charm is how the poise seems effortless. Artless, indeed:
the cars just swarm onto the deck of a
ferry as if they know where they fit best
--from "Sometimes"
The overall effect is quite pleasurable, and enhanced by the intimate drawings throughout the book. I assume the poet is also the visual artist since there's no information to the contrary. And, if so, it's nice to see the book's equilibrium also manifested through the drawings' delicate deftness.
One drawing is even a visual ars poetica--the first drawing is of a tree whose trunk ends in a lighbulb, set amid full leafy hair (with a bit of a halo effect). After all, without light, one would not recognize the interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated matter--from a "porous toothpick" to the Borealis to potato soup to The Mohs scale to a "theoretical, joking wind". Without light, we wouldn't see what "things in common," as the collection's title offers, are shared. As the very apt opening poem offers (in its entirety here):
Last night
in a movie something suddenly was made quite clear.
It had to do with the idea that forms of speech held in common are not arbitrary. Or are; I forget which. Last night it was all so suddenly, you know, clear.
*****
Eileen Tabios HEARTS wine,
dogs and
Thou.
ISSUE NO. 5
February 14, 2007
[N.B. You can scroll down for all articles or click on highlighted names or titles to go directly to referenced article. Since this is a large issue, if it takes too long to upload the entire issue, you also can click on the individual links below to more quickly get to a review that interests you.]CONTENTS:EDITOR'S INTRODUCTIONFrom Eileen TabiosNEW REVIEWSRon Silliman reviews
HAVING BEEN BLUE FOR CHARITY by kari edwards
Mark Young reviews
HAVING BEEN BLUE FOR CHARITY by kari edwards
Guillermo Parra reviews
Micah Ballard’s poems in 6x6 #5; BETTINA COFFIN; ABSINTHIAN JOURNAL; SCENES FROM THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT; UNFORESEEN; DEATH RACE V.S.O.P.; EVANGELINE DOWNS; and NEGATIVE CAPABILITY IN THE VERSE OF JOHN WIENERS Julie R. Enszer reviews
BALANCING ACTS by Rochelle Ratner
Ernesto Priego reviews
THE ANIMAL HUSBAND by Christine Hamm
Nicholas Manning reviews
NIGHT SEASON by Mark Lamoureux
Eileen Tabios reviews
FIRST ADVENTURES OF COL AND SEM by Dan Waber
J.O. LeClerc reviews
BOWERY WOMEN: POEMS, Ed. by Marjorie Tesser & Bob Holman
Ivy Alvarez presents a Chap Roundup reviewing
MY LIGHTWEIGHT INTENTIONS by Pam Brown; SURFACE TENSION by Mackenzie Carignan and Scott Glassman; TRANSLATIONS FROM AFTER by Joel Chace; OH MISS MARY by Jim McCrary; DOVEY & ME by Strongin; and THE NAME POEMS by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright Julie R. Enszer reviews
A HALF-RED SEA by Evie Shockley
Nicholas Manning reviews
TRACT by Jon Leon
Mary Jo Malo reviews
BLOOD AND SALSA / PAINTING RUST by Jonathan Penton
Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor reviews
THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR by Bino Realuyo
Eileen Tabios reviews
THE ALLEGREZZA FICCIONES by Mark Young
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews
NAVIGATE, AMELIA EARHART'S LETTERS HOME by Rebecca Loudon
Nicholas Downing reviews
CIVILIZATION by Elizabeth Arnold
William Allegrezza reviews
KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista
John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews
UNPROTECTED TEXTS: SELECTED POEMS 1978-2006 by Tom Beckett
Tom Beckett reviews
A READING, 18-20 by Beverly Dahlen
Eileen Tabios reviews
WIND IS WIND AND RAIN IS RAIN by Brynne
Allen Bramhall reviews
DOWN SPOOKY by Shanna Compton
Lynn Strongin reviews
SHOT WITH EROS: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS and SEED PODS, both by Glenna Luschei
William Allegrezza reviews
I OF THE STORM by Bill Lavender
Richard Lopez reviews
OH MISS MARY by Jim McCrary
Craig Santos Perez reviews
THE TIME AT THE END OF THIS and 60 LV BO(E)MBS, both by Paolo Javier
Anne Haines presents reviews
RADISH KING by Rebecca Loudon; LIVING THINGS by Charles Jensen; and MORTAL by Ivy AlvarezLynn Strongin reviews
THIRST by Mary Oliver
Mario E. Mireles reviews excerpts from
NOT EVEN DOGS by Ernesto Priego; Matsuo Bash’s “The Narrow Road of the Interior" in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Ed. Maynard Mack; and Octavio Paz’s "The Tradition of the Haiku" in Convergences: Essays on Art and Literatur.William Allegrezza reviews
ELAPSING SPEEDWAY ORGANISM by Bruce Covey
Laurel Johnson reviews
CALLS FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD by Robert Hershon
Eileen Tabios reviews
BODY OF CRIMSON LEAVES by Celia Homesley
Eileen Tabios reviews
THE PLANT WATERER AND OTHER THINGS IN COMMON by Kathryn Rantala
Julie R. Enszer reviews
OSIP MANDELSTAM: NEW TRANSLATIONS, Ed. by Ilya Bernstein
Hugh Fox reviews
SEEDPODS by Glenna Luschei
Marjorie Light reviews
COMING FULL CIRCLE: THE PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION AMONG POST-1975 FILIPINO AMERICANS and A BOOK OF HER OWN: WORDS AND IMAGES TO HONOR THE BABAYLAN, both by Leny M. Strobel
Mark Young reviews
SONNET by Matt Hart
Eileen Tabios reviews
THE GRACES by Elizabeth Treadwell and SONNET by Matt HartFROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE: REPRINTED REVIEWSAndrew Joron reviews
ULTRA VIOLET by Laura Moriarty
Britta Ameel reviews
ALASKAPHRENIA by Christine Hume
Sharon Mesmer reviews
OPPOSABLE THUMB by Joe Elliot
Eileen Tabios reviews
OBEYED DILEMMA by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
Alfred Yuson reviews
BELIEVE & BETRAY by Cirilo F. Bautista
Alfred Yuson reviews
MATADORA by Sarah Gambito
Alfred Yuson reviews
FAULTY ELECTRICAL WIRING: POEMS by Ruel S. De Vera, A FEAST OR ORIGINS by Dinah Roma and ELSE IT WAS PURELY GIRLS by Angelo SuarezBACK COVERWhat it Means to be
Missy WinePoetics’ Dawgs
