This past week I posted a list of my most recent favorite reviewed poetry books. Almost to a person every person who left a comment said they don't read poetry or don't understand poetry. Even I, a person who reads a lot of poetry, understands that comment about not understanding poetry. Sometimes poems can be so obtuse to make them almost incomprehensible. I liken it to the Facebook user who makes a post without any context. Something like, "I'm doing a little better now." What the heck am I supposed to do with that? Better than when? What is wrong? How have things improved? These two poetry books left me with similar feeling, scratching my head, what did I just read?
The first of the two poetry books beyond my reach was Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong. I knew from the book notes that Vuong's mother had recently died and this collection of poems was his reaction to that death and created out of a place of deep grief. The problem for me was I couldn't find what I thought I would find in th poems. I found a very depressed person, understandable. And I found a few references to the mother, though I couldn't tell if she was dead or just not available. Unfortunately some of the poems made me feel all creepy/crawly. Was that a poem about being raped? I wasn't sure. Was that a homoerotic poem? Once again, unclear. As I set the book aside I reminded myself that others may be able to find beauty and answers in these poems that I did not. That's okay. They just weren't for me.
After reading Time is a Mother I sought out Vuong's wiki page and I learned there was a lot of generational trauma in his family. His grandfather was a GI during the Vietnam conflict from Michigan. He married his grandmother, a simple peasant, and had three daughters with her before he had to return to the States without them. As the war was coming to an end, his grandmother, in a panic, placed the three girls in three orphanages, hoping to save their lives. After the war they were reunited but Vuong's mother, by then 18, had to escape Vietnam with her son Ocean because she was mixed race. Eventually they ended up in Connecticut, living in a one-room apartment with seven others. Vuong's father abandoned the family soon after. Vuong was the first in his family to learn to read and he didn't learn until age eleven. As I read about all this trauma it felt like I had misinterpreted many of the poems. Vuong's poems weren't just about his mother and his grief, they were about this trauma. He may not have lived all this trauma personally, but he lived it vicariously through their shared history/experiences.
My rating: 2.5 stars
The second poetry book I describe as 'not-for-me' was A Year of Last Things by Michael Ondaatje. Unlike Vuong, who is at the beginning of his writing career, Ondaatje has been around publishing for a long time, beginning in 1967. I think of him as primarily a novel writer but he has published 13 volumes of poetry, so perhaps I should think of him the other way around, as a poet who has written a few novels. Either way you look at it, this is my first stab at reading his poetry. Most of the poems I found extremely beautiful but I had no idea what was happening. One thing I really liked was how he pulled phrases from other poems/poets and reacted to those phrases in his poems. The first poem, "Lock" gives us a clue about how the poet likes to save favorite lines...
Reading the lines he loveshe slips them into a pocket,wishes to die with his clothesfull of torn-free stanzasand the telephone numbersof his children in far cities
The poems were lovely. Just lovely. I may not have understood all parts of them, but I loved the music in them. That said, I wasn't as crazy about the few essays in the collection. I guess they didn't evoke any music inside me. Ha!
Ondaatje, now living in Canada, was born in Sri Lanka. Many of the poems seemed to be set in that region of the world with unrecognizable to me geography references and names of individuals I felt like the poet thought I should know, but I don't. Setting that aside, I also wondered at the title and veiled references to someone the poet met later in life who was precious to him. Was that person a lover or just a dear friend? Not sure. It doesn't matter. But I was left with the impression that this person's life was over and the poet was thinking back over the last things they did/saw/felt together. Whereas Vuong's collection left me feeling a bit creeped out, this collection made me feel sad or melancholy. But I'm not even sure if I got the details right. That is what I find frustrating about some poetry reading. As a reader of novels I always want to know the details, the plot, what is happening to the characters. I know that is not what poetry is about but I can't seem to keep myself from wondering. I also have to remind myself that each poem is NOT autobiographical.
As I read through a few comments on Goodreads one gal said she enjoyed listening to Ondaatje read his own poems on audiobooks. Hmm. Why hadn't I thought of that? Poetry is meant to be spoken/heard. When I am challenged by a collection next time I will look around for its audiobook.
My rating: 3.5