review by daithi’
In Scudder Parker’s first published book, Safe as Lightning, there is a looking back as a way to embellish and celebrate the past. But with his second book, some things change with time. The ache that we feel is honed to a longing not quite spoken as we age.Unlike fond recollections of our youth, there is an edge of loss mixed with regret. Loss as we grow older is a peculiar keepsake as our surroundings, friends, and families slip away from us. It is this sense of mortality–as we grow older–that sharpens our perceptions of the world in which we live and from which we will part. In fact, our very sense of being perishable heightens our appreciation of others and our perceptions of the world at large. Parker’s poetry, in The Poem of the World, his second published collection, holds a prescient ache throughout. The narrator has morphed from being a reporter of the past in his first book to being a vessel of change himself in the second collection. It is that longing beyond belonging.
Consider the five sections within the poet’s second collection. Scudder chooses to bunch poems in such a way to signal to the reader to see how we use memory to both remember, cherish, and perhaps change ourselves in the process. The first section, Early Learning, dwells upon memories that are predominantly about his father, while the second part, We Try So Hard, highlights human tendencies to make the world better through our feeble attempts.
By the time we arrive at the third section, A Strange Grace, we arrive at a place of wonder and strangeness, where the poet declares that he was “cruel in my need.” While fixing up buildings, he confesses that “the buildings possess me.” He speaks of his “own black shadow” in partnership with a crow or asking whether “joy’s needle has ever pierced my managed heart.” He reflects about two rivers that remain–one flooded and one staying within its bed. Both occupying his memory in place as if they simultaneously exist–which can only occur in the mirrors of recall. And, while visiting a fragile wetlands, we are asked ” how can a place this frail be so deft in the art of permanence?” It is the mystery of the world that intrigues us even as we try to define its certainty.
Should we be surprised by the fourth section, Nothing is Safe? to begin to mingle occasional regret with the passage of time. Just the mention of a few titles of Parker’s poems should cast its spell: “Keeping Things Together.” “Consequence.” Or “Last Visit.” Then there is the practice of when “it was ordinary to enjoy things made together with our many skills from materials at hand,” mentioned in his delightful prose piece, “The Table from Montpelier. “
And what are we to make of his poem, “Anthropocene” and its final stanza?
You know how it is the endless chatter
but beneath the hard rock of denial.
Spending the children’s vast inheritance–
inevitable–takes just a little while.
Which leads us to the fifth division of Scudder’s poems under the final umbrella of Attention. To me, this set offers the reader the possibility of reconciliation with the world and its inherit worth. It is not surprising, as the arc of longing was forecast in the opening poem, which shares the title of the collection, The Poem of the World. By the time we approach this section, there is a shift from human regret and recollection to one of acceptance of being vulnerable in a world of other beings and plants.
We are invited to join the poet as he visits a pasture, to listen to the chorus of wood frogs, to feel the coarse stubble of a peony, and to revel in the appearance of two loons on a pond. We are encouraged to experience the “unmanaged joy” that often escapes us when we focus only upon ourselves and the social fabric that holds us. Scudder reveals a different approach.
... Feel it!
If we hold each other tenderly
not banishing or numbing grief welcoming
our own each other’s tears—
courageous open-hearted
together making music from our pain—
this brokenness will be parent of our joy.
Let the forests the waters the vast open places
and the billions upon billions of our company
past present future
and their great communion gather us.
Our bodies
and our good green home joined
in a vast shared breathing.
("It's Time")
This arc of longing beyond belonging parallels the trajectory of the five stages of grief, but is markedly different. In this selection of poems, we move from fond recollections to attempts to rectify our mistakes. From a hidden wonder followed by our acknowledgment of havoc wreaked. And if we return to part of nature’s larger fold, we can embrace an acceptance of the larger world, filled with innocence, joy, and surrender to its ephemeral state.
Note: Scudder Parker’s The Poem of the World, was published in late March, by Kelsay Books. It
is available at local bookstores (though it may take a while to get them). You can order them on
his website at scudderparker.net or on Amazon. Subscribe here to Scudder Parker’s Substack.