A Year of Morning Thanks
Gabriel Spera
So I'm preparing for class yesterday, when I check through the poems in the anthology I'm using, and find two very, very powerful poems by some guy name Gabriel Spera, a poet I've never heard of (not that I know them all). These poems knock me out, really--they're perfectly well done; not only thoughtful but absolutely stunning.
Who is this guy? I ask myself, and I google his name and turn up a few more really interesting poems from the net. This one, "In a Field Outside of Town," is too long to reprint here, but have a look sometime. It's an amazing poem--http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0499/poem_29739.html --about mass murder in what seems Bosnia.
I discover Mr. Spera has won at least one important award, the 2004 Pen Center Award for Poetry for his only book, The Standing Wave. So I go to the Pen Center website, where I read this:
Gabriel Spera’s first collection of poems, The Standing Wave, moves effortlessly from old questions about the nature of God and the devil to
contemporary concerns to personal meditations on time and loss. “The book demanded our attention for the emotional range of the poems and for the maturity of craft exhibited there,” said the judges. “In short, this book is extraordinary.” Not only does Spera ask the big questions, he does so
“brilliantly” and exhibits a willingness to provide answers to serious and troubling issues of the day, especially in the unforgettable and essential “The Suicide Bombers” and “In a Field Outside the Town.” The poems are “so packed with metaphor we seem in 2004 almost to have forgotten how to read them,” add the judges. “Reading this book we remember that we love metaphor, love the old ways of speaking, not only in an individual voice but in the collective voice of our conscience.”
Okay, I probably buy far too many books for someone who swears he's got to get rid of them and thereby lighten the load on the road toward retirement; but I don't often buy books of poetry, and besides, this guy had me slack-jawed.
On to Amazon. I type in his name, find the award winner, and discover it's out of print. Not terribly surprising, of course, poetry as important to our culture as, say, blacksmithing. But I can buy it used. Click.
Get this. It cost me a penny. Okay, a couple bucks shipping, but I can buy this guy's poetry, a prize-winning collection of stunning poems from just four years ago, for one red cent. Flypaper costs more.
I'm not sure how much our retirement accounts lost yesterday when the stock market tanked once more. I don't want to know. I've no idea how much we're paying to try to steady the financial ship of state, not really; I mean, I can probably dig up the numbers, but does anyone really have an idea of how much loot that it, of what else could be done with it?
The air is full of billions and trillions as of late; an additional digit on the national debt meant the number exceeded the space it's been given on some neon sign in NYC. I can't possible fathom that kind of money.
And yet here's the story--yesterday, I met a poet who knocked my socks off with brilliant language and arresting, transcendent ideas; a half-hour later, from the comfort of my study, I bought his book, an award winner, for a penny.
I just don't know what to say about that. Maybe I should be thankful. But I'm not. For eleventy-seven reasons, I'm sad.
But I've got the poems. And that's reason enough to be thankful this morning.
6 comments:
Hi. I've been thinking of you recently because you're coming to my neighbourhood soon, and, POOF! I find you online. I'll say, "Hi," in person if I get the chance.
Your post reminded me of Bradbury's F.451 (perhaps a sign I've been teaching high school too long? Nah.) At the end of the novel, after the bombs drop, Montag has no words of his own to express his feelings or comfort his fellows, so he turns to the biblical poet. He uses someone else's words. He needs someone else's words.
And don't we all. Eleventy-seven reasons to be sad, indeed, but don't despair. The measure of the treasure you bought isn't in the price tag; the weight of the words can't be determined by UPS. As long as people live and die, love and hate, we will need the words of others. We will need poetry.
I need poetry and have grown to love and appreciate it thanks to a community of generous people that includes you. Thank you.
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day.
My retirement account isn't going anywhere.
The poetry... indescribable. Words such as "Great Poetry" comes from someone who doesn't know poetry. Stunning comes closer. The greatest poets allow their blood to seep into your own veins. There's no other way to explain where they were when the story was born. And even then, stunning is all I got...at any price I would imagine.
Living in Dutch West Michigan, and having not escaped Dutchness in my own genes, I can say Wow! You got a great deal!
Jim:
Thanks for the tip on this poet, since I had not previously heard of him. I was dumbstruck by Spera's evocation of horror and salvaging of a slender thread of hope in his poem "In a Field Outside of Town". "The Mission Olive" was a feast of images, and showcased his pithy wisdom:
"But though they've stuffed themselves with sweet sun, still they taste foul as bile -- the faithless man would surely chuck them. But the patient man knows every bitterness has its cure." Good words for this particular time.
Dan
Damn I was going to buy a new Hummer in late 2012 and drive around the country for a vacation, Now I am going to have to shave my head and join the Hari.s, Muslims, Jews, Jehovah s, Mormons, Christians, and a few other wing nut groups just to cover all my bases.
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He's been part of Philly's landscape, part of us for so long, reflecting both our stubborn spirit and our embarrassments that he's become something of a cliché we haul out on occasion and sheepishly hide the rest of the time.
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