• B.H. Fairchild, Early Occult Memory Systems…
• Robert Wrigley, In The Bank Of Beautiful Sins
• Gregory Orr, Concerning the Book that is the Body…
• Renate Wood, The Patience Of Ice
• Li-Young Lee, The Winged Seed
• Louise Glück, Ararat
• Dorianne Laux, What We Carry
• Joseph Millar, Fortune
• Joan Aleshire, This Far

As well as a number of books (at least one each) from faculty members with whose work I am less familiar. I strongly suspect I will really like those books as well, but the ones above are an even stronger suspicion based on previous experience with the author.

So, given that list, what else would you recommend? Or do you think some other book by one of the above authors is stronger, or more in line with the rest? Or, if you’ve been following my blog for awhile and think you know what I like, what else might you recommend that has nothing to do with the above list, but still is something you think would inform my study of poetry? Or what do you like, that doesn’t have anything to do with what I might like, that you still think I just have to read?

More importantly, the thing should not be rendered in a vacuum if it is to be sincere. The poet must exist, and her relationship to the object (or objects) must also exist in some form within the work. Otherwise we are talking about realism–the object rendered whole without the artist anywhere in sight. Because the relationship must exist, the tools for rendering sincerity are always in danger of slipping in to sentiment. Yet the ultimate goal of sincerity could guide the hand of the writer to steadiness. If, indeed, this were the kind of sincerity espoused by this movement.

Yet in the work I have perused so far of some poets who have taken up this badge, there is very little sense of carefulness about what is being described. So far, the only poet I have seen that approaches something uniquely sincere and also new is Joseph Massey. Others are quite the opposite–espousing a deliberate casualness, I dare say flippant, a kind of fast-talking ones way into delirium as a means of transcendence. This is itself a kind of irony, a kind of plainspoken relation to ones thoughts and senses that is deliberately fast and loose and therefore nothing like “sincere craftsmanship”. In fact, if there is any object to be carefully rendered, it is the thought. In this way, this reaction to postmodernism and post-language-poetry has failed to shake off its fundamental influences.

The beats, and the ensuing flurry of postmodernism and decentralization has had the unfortunate effect of demoting some poetry to wordplay. I have found that some of the most common criticism of poems in intermediate writers’ workshops (besides overuse of adjectives or abstract language) is that it is sentimental. Yet rarely, despite the deluge of clever but ultimately unimportant poetry being produced today, does anyone say, “yes–that’s interesting–but what’s the point? What does it meant to you and make you feel?” That such a risk is, in fact, a risk, we owe to a relatively short period of artistic agnosticism in which we currently reside; remarkably short, in fact, relative to the centuries of writers who have wholeheartedly, unabashedly and sincerely endeavored to say something that matters.

Perhaps, with the very existence of a new sincerity movement, we are seeing glimpses of the end of an age.

What is so great about this poet is that he demonstrates masterful observation and insight in to the poetic musicality of mundane subjects. What is so great about this poem is that it is an excellent demonstration of Fairchild’s gift–usually applied to blue collar work–in this case applied to basketball.

Fairchild chooses moments from the language of basketball: “pick and roll”, “fake and drive” as well as shows precise details about the “old men” from the VFW that in themselves give insight into their character without having to explain much: “army fatigues”, “house shoes”, memories of drive-in theaters. This is one of the great paradoxes of art: that specificity creates universality.

This holds true, for example, in drawing, where a precise study of what is renders the most realistic result–we train the eye to see and sketch, rather than to simply produce symbols of things (a sun in the corner, a stick man, a tree with a balloon of foliage). Likewise, Fairchild’s poetic “eye” in this poem demonstrates the ability to pick out highly poetic moments and express them through detail.

Fairchild also demonstrates an excellent understanding of timing, and capitalizes well on the momentum that builds in this poem. One of the most poetic moments in the poem comes toward the end:

A glass wand /
of autumn light breaks over the backboard.

This line plays on numerous simultaneous associations in our mind, pleasing us and adding energy to the poem: glass breaking, backboards breaking, “light breaks”–a common phrase in so many other poems, as is “autumn light”–so many meanings are rolled in to this ending, it builds energy. Thanks to this energy, the opportunity opens up for a moment of magical realism:

Boys rise up in old men, wings begin to sprout / at their backs.

Here the detailed realism of the poem finds itself confronted with fantasy, as wings sprout like angels or gods, representing the lift of youthfulness as well as the act of going up for the basket when taking a shot.

Then final line can then continue with a complete suspension of time, just as in a fantasy of the glamorous basketball player self–the suspended animation of glory, the “time standing still” effect finally beautifully unleashed, capturing the essential power of the timeless youthful spirit in these old men: “The ball turns in the darkening air.”

This is a remarkable poem, one which transcends ordinary circumstances through keen, keen observation and brilliant poetic language and timing. The entire book, The Art Of The Lathe is like this: strong poem after strong poem–precise, brilliant, transcending–making Fairchild one of my heroes.