Quick Review

My Poets by Maureen N. McLane

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


It is a mark of just what an interesting writer poet Maureen McLane is that when I agree with her, I want to quote her, in and out of context, as here, in her essay "My Marianne Moore": "... Moore stands alongside (albeit more decorously) D. H. Lawrence..." which made me laugh aloud, or here, from the dazzling entry titled "My Impasses: On Not Being Able to Read Poetry," just the very last word on the subject, and something I want printed on a T-shirt:

"Q: How to read?
A: ALOUD."

Now, that same essay that provides me with the above, and that also made me smile nearly throughout at the portrait of the poet's younger self, earnestly parsing Olsen & O'Hara, etc., also came to not a few conclusions as to the value of what she calls her "impasses" at which I simply shake my head and envy her her optimism, and her faith, for want of a more strictly reasoned, or persuasive argument.

Throughout this book there are discernments -- many of them tossed off as easily, as conversationally as the poet might make among friends -- that have changed and already enhanced my reading of even quite familiar poems, and poets, (Moore and Bishop, specially,) and made me want to read more of others less familiar (H. D.) or new to me entirely (Fanny Howe.) What better could one want from a poet writing about poetry?

McLane's book can also be a bit maddening, again because of the conversational, almost gabby structure and sometimes tryingly, relentlessly subjective tone. As with even the most accomplished monologist, there are arguments not so much made as begun, and free-floating opinions, and the occasional assumption made about the reader's level of familiarity with composition and form that for me proved not to be true. Mostly though, it is McLane's sudden drops into poetry, or at least out of prose into things other than, that can make the head spin, and not always in a good way, even acknowledging the fun of to be had, and the excitement generated by watching her pull most of these improvisations off. What's exciting can also, on more sober consideration, just be sound silly; "For a Gothic ecstasy is not to be gainsaid" or, just two lines on, both banal and, well, wrong: "For Romeo and Juliet are paradigms" -- of what? youth? murder/suicide? the Renaissance? Romantic clichés? Oh, please.

Still, poets writing about poetry and other poets is so rarely, in my experience an exciting experience rather than a duty or a job, that a poet bringing this kind of intelligence and enthusiasm to the task is a welcome event. Any regular reader of poetry who's picked up the criticism of even great poets will appreciate how rarely those efforts rise to even the level of their least poems. (Yeats, for one example, in most of his books other than poetry is unreadable, as he pursues his own preoccupations, crochets and crankiness far up his own fundament, arrogantly expecting the reader, presumably, to just follow behind, gathering wisdom.) I still can't speak to McLane as a poet, but here at least as an enthusiast and knowledgeable practitioner, she has provided a very entertaining and even thrilling lot of often very smart talk.

Glad to hear it.



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