Summer slips away, leaving room for Fall. The first order of the day is to talk for a moment about a friend’s book of poems, Selene by Michael Odom.
Don’t turn your back on her
I see this book as a reflection of an obsession. A woman. A sorceress. A corpse. An eternal ambivalence, love and hate. The cover uncovers, revealing the darkness within. It is not an easy read. But then, poetry can be unsettling. A way of seeing that slices through the dailiness to a core that may be exquisitely ugly. But it is real, and we cannot turn our guilty gaze away from the disaster. Just the opposite. We hope to understand more about our own lives the longer we stare at the ruins of others’.
The opening poem lets the reader know that men will not get off easily in this book:
“The simple strength of men who never know,
Their muscle-coats, their steel, their robotic wars,
Their Scantron lives lesson-planned in their brains,
The blows they give and take to the head, sports,
Their races to finish lines, walks to start,
Ready-go guns, their disciplined controlled
Resilience, their climbing grasps, like primates,
For leafier nests, prettier mates, shinier cars,
And Power, the lying god, their angry work
Ethics with long old ages dreaming TV
And beaches and golf, their nearby balls-of-dust
Planets they reach for and prayers to a ghost,
Big man boasts…I know a boy much smaller
Who carries in his pocket a collapsed sun.”
Jilanne Hoffmann 
It’s lovely to find a post from you in my reader, Jilanne – I have missed them!
Hmm. I wonder how that poem feels, for the mothers of sons. And for the young sons themselves. I feel less comfortable these days excoriating ‘men’. There are certainly individual men (and women) for whom excoriation is the only appropriate response. BUT I feel leery when whole swathes of the human race are singled out for universal blame.
Whatever is conferred by biology on men, and on women, will have certain advantages for us, as a species, and also bring certain challenges. And though the weight of historical power has in the main, been held by males, and though power can exacerbate, and make clear, our fault lines, power, and the usage of it, also brings blessings to the community as well as its shadows. And women too can abuse power, and be hungry for it
You see how I have missed you, bringing posts that made me chew on my reactions, thinkings, feelings
And I have missed you! What you say is quite true. I try not to excoriate entire swathes of a single gender in life and in my work. But these poems take a pretty harsh look at both genders. And it just so happens that the first poem focuses on men (or a man).
As the mother of a son, I’m trying to give him every opportunity to grow in ways that are sensitive to others and their feelings. Right now, he’s a bit of a bull in a china shop, but that’s to be expected at age 12. When he’s 30, it would be nice for him to be able to dance around the china without destroying entire place settings. 😀
I agree with LF – lovely to see you!
I agree with LF – I get concerned about the about of man-bashing women seem to indulge in.
I agree with LF – women can be horrible too.
However, there’s still The Goldfinch…
Oh, FF, I will go to my grave being haunted by that specter!
Jilanne doll! Missed you. Love that little “collapsed sun in the pocket” ditty…amazing. 🙂
Great, isn’t it? I missed you, too! Enjoy Venice!
This doesn’t sound like a children’s book, which is what I usually associate with you. Sending this on to Mitchell, as it feels like it is right up his alley…
No, it is definitely NOT a children’s book. My focus for the past couple of years is writing and promoting children’s books, but I still write for adults and have many writer friends who write solely for adults. Hope Mitchell likes it!