Who knows what the stuff means? Who cares? And how about those hopelessly bohemian poets? They drink themselves to death, sell their grandmothers down the river, commit suicide, live immoral lives, etc.
I have long believed that most Americans harbor the above thoughts when, if ever, they consider buying a book of poetry by a contemporary poet. And I have, over the last 30 years, evolved a simple theory as to why we find poetry so frustrating.
To wit: our economic system, broken down to its lowest common denominator, works in this way: I want to get as much from you as I possibly can while giving you as little as possible in return. The poet, however, operates on the opposite principle: I want to give you as much as I possibly can while expecting very little in return.
Not that Americans are toting the above abstractions around in their cerebrums, but they’re no doubt perplexed as to why a person is writing poetry when he doesn’t get any money for his labors? It’s a darn good question, one that elicits not a little suspicion.
So when a book of poetry crosses my desk, especially one entitled “Echoes of Love from Heavens Above,” I have to wonder why I would bother to review it. Certainly this isn’t a publication from a serious press. And isn’t a bad review of a book of poetry like flailing a dead horse?
Then I read the cover blurb: “Lotte’s [a character in the cycle of poems] saga celebrates the golden truth that love can never die…in fact, it flows constantly from the realms beyond. Her life and story demonstrate that spirituality surpasses materialism; true forgiveness cleanses the soul; good ultimately triumphs over evil; and that we all are God’s cherished children…. Spanning from the most terrifying period of human history, to the glitz and glamour of show business, this book is a shining testament to the power of love and faith.”
Who could resist? So I plowed through the 245 pages of so-called poetry, and came to this conclusion — sometimes there exits a book that is so bad, so incredibly inane, that even readers who hate the genre should be forewarned.
Thus it is with Mickey Nivelli’s recent book of poetry, a collection of silliness that surpasses even the breathtaking volume “Jimmy Stewart and His Poetry,” which was, fortunately, bereft of even a disingenuous charm.
Before you poetry haters accept this sad appraisal of Nivelli’s rhymes as a possible recommendation for purchase, here’s an excerpt from one of her better poems:
A Trail of Tears
Auschwitz, the camp all prisoners hated,
Was very hastily evacuated.
To cover up evidence of their endeavor.
In desperation, they became even meaner.
The prisoners prayed for a Russian victory
To escape their misery and be free.
The Nazis leveraged their ruthless will.
Thus the prisoners’ dreams amounted to nil.
I’m not suggesting that the holocaust can’t be the subject of verse, but at the very least it ought to be good verse. Oh gods of the wildness of poetry, spare us this crap.
Stephen Smith’s most recent book is “The (More) Complete Bushnell Hamp Poems.” Smith is a professor at Sandhills Community College. He can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.
