Poems tell of the intersections of the present, the long past, and the recent past

Poems tell of the intersections of the present, the long past, and the recent past

By MIKE WALKER

Disclamor
by G. C. Waldrep
Rocehster, NY: Boa Editions, Ltd.,
$16.00, paperback

It is odd for me to review two books of poetry in one week and also odd for the most recent book I've been sent by a publisher for review to make its way to the very front of the line to be reviewed. Yet these events have happened this week, for aside from David Hinton's "Classical Chinese Poetry", I am also reviewing G.C. Waldrep's new collection of poems, "Disclamor". Waldrep, a professor of English at Bucknell University who holds graduate degrees in both history and in creative writing, takes on in this collection of poems the expansive nature of the American physical and social landscape in the wake of the Cold War and other military actions. Drawing greatly from personal experience in walking around the abandoned defensive batteries and bunkers of Marin County, California, Waldrep muses on the meaning of these former measures to ensure American security. The sturdy concrete walls and abandoned locations for large guns form a strong impression on the poet in contrast to the stark and rustic nature of the Marin headlands themselves. From pre-World War I camps to the big guns of the World War II era designed to prevent Axis bombings of San Francisco to Cold War Nike missile sites, the military efforts to secure the Bay Area have been mighty and extensive, displaying both advances in military technology and in changes in threats to America. While one might not think of such man-made, spartan, creations as the most ready inspiration for poetry, for Waldrep these elements of military power speak on many levels.

While the SF Bay Area is full of various examples of outdated and oft abandoned military hardware and former bases (the vast wasteland of Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard comes to mind), the batteries of Marin County are unique in their defensive function, a service and mission that on both actual and metaphorical levels brings forth images of the most basic level of what the military does for us: it protects us. The fact that these former installations now are mostly open to the public and that their somber walls have various tags, the names of lover's, and nonsense sayings carved and written upon them also is a comment on the nature of not only defense but of all of our technological contemporary society and this is not lost on Waldrep at all. As a historian, he must have a great feeling for the legacy of these installations but as a poet he brings forth their unique charm and deep meaning in his wordcraft. When you read Waldrep with care, you realize you are reading a craftsman of the English language akin to T.S. Eliot or Jorie Graham in his complex, sincere, application of words. Though dealing with an aspect of the landscape now abandoned and left much to chance, in his own words Waldrep leaves nothing to chance.

The poem "Every Apple, Every Dreamer, Every Prime" is a tour through the very small and the very grand, the microeconomics and macroeconomics of both language and life. How much is an "every"? How can electricity sound like blood? Here, it all comes together with questions that are obtuse and even silly but make perfect sense in the context of the perfect time Waldrep introduces them to us. Like the aforementioned Ms. Graham, Waldrep uses language to make us think, to guide and direct us through a place, and in the best poems of this short collection the feeling of moving through a certain geography is very strong. In "Titus at Lystra" and "Bishopville" we encounter places in name and form, but also a wide sweep of concepts. "Disclamor" is about our place in time, but also about our history and it finds its stride in the intersections of the present, the long past, and the recent past. It's international, intellectual in its mention of Rome here and the sundry philosopher there, but in the grounding of the Marin County landscape it is tangible and personal all the same. At times, yes, "Disclamor", or rather I should say the poems found between its covers, is difficult reading but always very rewarding.

Other reviews I have read of "Disclamor" point out that it is a "political" book, but then what books of poetry are not in some capacity? (I try to not read reviews of books I myself are reviewing but the world of poetry is small enough you trip over other reviews here and there for a book and poet of this caliber: it cannot be avoided.) In any event this is a book that stands plenipotentiary before us regardless of its political trajectory, it comes to us to speak for our nation but not as much as a social body as a document historical, and that is where great poetry of this day and age should lead us.

MIKE WALKER is a writer who reviews books for this and other publications and writes also about ecology, natural, and social history. He is also a poet, with his most recent publication being in the Fall 2008 edition of the Tipton Poetry Journal. He lives in Gainesville, Florida. Mike can be reached via email at: cloudrace@prontomail.com