Robin RobertsonSwithering
Harcourt Inc.
www.HarcourtBooks.com
swither v. chiefly British: to doubt, to waver
In spite of its title, Swithering, the latest compilation of poetry from Scottish poet Robin Robertson, is quite sanguine. To be sure, doubts and hindsight are recurrent themes in Swithering; however, the poetry itself is anything but. In fact, Swithering is tied together by Robertson's empirical observations on life and nature, anchored by imagery that is tangible and precise. Swithering finds Robertson drawing inspiration from such lyrical luminaries as Ovid, Eugenio Montale, and Pablo Neruda, as well as locales ranging from New York and London to Italian villas and the small Scottish towns of his youth. It is Robertson's takes on Ovid's Metamorphoses, however, that are central to this collection. "The Death of Actaeon," a retelling of Actaeon's death at the hands of Artemis, is palpable and sensual, with Robertson affording the reader a glimpse into both the physiology and psychology of violent death from the victim's point of view. In the end, of course, it is Actaeon's moment of indecision, his swithering, that is his undoing. Robertson's take on "Actaeon: The Early Years" is a modernization of sorts, this time with Actaeon transformed into a plodding, hapless British schoolboy with an abusive mother. Swithering also finds Robertson contemplating more personal phenomena. In "To My Daughters, Asleep," for example, he struggles with his children growing less dependent on him, while "New York Spring" finds Robertson mourning lost loves and fateful decisions. "I think of all my loves and how I lost them, / walking the only path / allowed to me / from all the roads I chose," he meditates. Swithering is full of such insightful reflections on worldly phenomena, from lusty sexual liaisons to pristine lakeside dusks, ravaging black and white ocean waves to vibrant spring days – each of which elucidates a universal truth about the human condition.
Tomaz Salamun
The Book For My Brother
Harcourt Inc.
www.HarcourtBooks.com
Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun’s latest collection, The Book For My Brother, is a study in angst and irreverence, in poignancy and clarity. A scant ninety-three pages long, The Book For My Brother is a series of first person narratives that cover everything from lust to spirituality, from familial relationships to writing poetry. Salamun’s poetry takes many forms in this collection – the three-line simplicity of “Not the Murder” balances the four-page epic love/hate poem “Ballad for Metka Krasovic.” Nowhere is this more evident, however, than in Salamun’s two poems on the nature of writing, “The Writing” and “Little Fears.” The former is a study in directness and incisiveness, while the latter showcases Salamun’s propensity for extravagant imagery. “Language is the savior of love, of flowers, / of mankind and the instrument of God himself,” he writes in “Little Fears.” It is the first and final poems of The Book For My Brother, however, that truly grab the reader. In the first, “To Have a Friend,” Salamun anthropomorphizes the devil and finds him longing for many of the same things modern human beings crave – innocence, companionship, and, ironically, solitude. “I have a feeling that his hands ache, that he is tender / and absorbed in thoughts,” Salamun muses. The concluding poem, “Again the Roads are Silent,” is a contemplation on dusk, a poem, again, imbued with loneliness and yearning. “Again the roads are silent, dark peace / again there are bees, honey, silent green fields / willows by the rivers, stones at the bottoms of the valleys / hills in the eyes, sleep in the animals,” Salamun begins. By and large, The Book For My Brother is a study in poetic extremes, in lavishness and austerity, that is at once sentimental and cerebral.
– Tracy M. Rogers 