Review: Susan Yuzna's Pale Bird, Spouting Fire |
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Susan Yuzna, Pale Bird,
Spouting Fire, University of Akron Press, 2000 Susan Yuzna, author of Her Slender Dress, which won the Akron Poetry Prize and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, had the awesome task of succeeding her first book with a new collection of poems, Pale Bird, Spouting Fire. When youve hit it big with an extraordinary first bookthe heat is onas far as expectation is concerned. No doubt about it, Her Slender Dress earned the prestigious Norma Farber First Book Award. So how do you follow that act as they say in the biz? Although Pale Bird, Spouting Fire could be viewed as a continuation of Yuznas firstit is uniquely different from Her Slender Dress and just as fascinating on its own merits. Yuznas poems remind me of Billie Holidays improvisational moods of passion and grief. The cover of Pale Bird, Spouting Fire, which depicts a dove hovering through an open window above a winding stairway, and beyond the window, a stark sky of winter trees, characterizes this poets sensibilities. Metaphorically speaking, stairways can go both up and down; like Billie Holiday, Yuzna has taken the high and hard road. Shes experienced turbulent and frustrating love affairs, suffered periods of depression, drug addiction, but in spite of all thisor perhaps because of itshes developed a deeply compassionate and humorous style, coupled with a wit for irony. Yuzna is not your typical, armchair philosopher-poet. Shes not a detached observer of life. Experience has been the giver of epiphanies; hardships have forced her to see reality as it is, not as it ought to be in the abstract. She is both defiant and reflective, blasting forbidden lines. She's a rebel at heart, a bad girl, holding her own. In fact, if I had to think of a theme song for Yuzna, it would be Jaggers Sympathy for the Devil or Nietzsches declaration to live dangerously! But dont be deceived by her defiance. My guess is that shes just the kind of person who would give you the last shirt off her back if you needed it. If Yuzna identifies with Blake, I would argue that Los, the spiritual revolutionist, whose son Orc is outward revolution, symbolizes her rebellious attitude. In The Way the Body Yuzna reflects on her childhood Catholic schooling. In Catholic school, we were all obsessed / with the body, not the soul. For Yuzna, the body is the passion of life. It is the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is also the source of Hell. Tell me if it isnt true for all of us! The Way the Body I In Catholic school, we were all obsessed repeated endlessly: At the Second age will we be? It would make each nun, each At your best age, in the prime of your life. old, and creep up the steps as those folks at run again, play ball with the best of them.
But I always suspected the nuns lied. As Nietzsche put it, I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existedas the greatest and most impious lie Christianity denies the Will to Power, the Will to Passion, the Sacred Body. To deny its being is to deny an essential part of the soul. In these lines, Yuzna is simply observing the rite of trading in the aging body for a youthful one. Its what Nietzsche meant by turning our direction to the make-believe Other instead of celebrating this life, this reality, the world of becoming. For Yuzna, worshiping the soul at the expense of bodily pleasures, at the expense of experience, is an act of blaspheme. II I suppose that's why; in my dream of death, middle-aged. I was walking down a long, I opened it very slowly, trying The room was filled with music, like nothing like liquid gold, like honey slipping off by men sitting cross-legged on a large, in body but black, also, stood behind, One turned, smiled at me, and said, Where you been, girl? pinned to her hair, the voiceit was Billie, Hers was the voice behind the beat, playing in perfect control of itself, at last. III The way the body will follow the mind: down the long, narrow hallway of my new into shock from a massive loss of blood. fainter by the minute, but my mind is is the dream. I must be going to die. But the sound of my son, weeping, pulls me The way the bodies of strangers will fit my son: Dont worry. Your moms gonna be before? You can sit
up front with me. The way the bodies of strangers come close, we so desperately need.
I love this dream segment in Part II. Yuzna also identifies with the down & outthose whove been oppressed and abused in our society. Liquid gold is a wonderful way of describing Holidays voice and horns being played. This is more than just down-home southern comfort. It is a spiritual dream of finding wholeness, integrity, peace. Holiday is the landlady of this place. And at last, she can sing without the burdens of injustice and inequality weighing her down. Hers was the voice behind the beat, playing / around with it, and hers was the voice / in perfect control of itself, at last. I also find the vision of hearing her voice behind the beat intriguing. Its open to various levels of interpretation. The beat as in turf, heart, body, world, but primarily, Holidays voice is an all-embracing presence that is mystical and inviting, which goes beyond the temporary beat of daily life. In Part III, Yuzna describes what must have been a painful experience of hemorrhaging from the womb. The body goes into shock and she feels as if she is dying, but her son pulls her back to the needful world. Blake wrote, Contrarieties are equally True. The body has its limitations. Matter has its limitations. When the body breaks down, we are forced to feel our way out of fear of the unknown. In some way, we are all looking for that soulful dream, that perfect state of balance or reconciliation. And just as Yuzna returned to her son, sensing his need, the mans act of kindness is a gesture of reconciliation, of giving back to the needful world. The theme of reconciliation is evident in her opening poem, The Cage. The poet would like her father to finally acknowledge her now that he is part of the spirit world. What he could not seem to do in his physical lifetimemay be possible under the full moon. With the death of her father comes the birth of her son. The full moon is an image of life making its full circle. And, of course, being released from the cage of burdensome troubles, seeking freedom, are also recurring themes in Yuznas work. The Cage My father was named for St. Francis of Assisi, But my father heard only the noise people make. I have come back To the Big Horn Mountains, where there are And a moon so full, the mountains seem to ooh, ooh, ooh, what a little moonlight can do A moon so full, the cage is visible. Quietly, the animal spirits laugh. My father is also here, cradled by the moon. Can he see me now? Can he hear me at last? The animal spirits announce an arabesque. So it is written. In the lexicon of coyote, eagle, bear, egret, bison, Tomorrow, my son will be born. One of my favorite poems in this collection is Autumn in Ohio, Thinking of James and Another. I have flown . Yuzna likens her poems to pale birds spouting fire, tiny
dragon-birds. The imagery in this
stanza is almost Eastern in its tone and simplicity.
The experience of reading poetry, of leaving an impression on her
listenersis almost like falling in love in the sense that the poet is giving
something that is uniquely her own to those who've come to appreciate her work.
I was much too tired
Jacqueline Marcus, Editor of ForPoetry.com Click here to
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