Review of Al Maginnes' "Greatest Hits"

REVIEW
by Scott Owens
First Published in The Pilot and Wild Goose Poetry Review

AL MAGINNES: GREATEST HITS
by Al Maginnes
Pudding House, 2010
ISBN: 1589989317

I admire Al Maginnes, his optimism, his zest for life and passion for all things human, his empathy, his lyricism, his long but still seamless and uncluttered lines, his fluid syntax, his spot-on metaphors and conceits, his ability to tell a good story and reveal the significance of it with a subtlety that lets the reader experience the poem’s cathartic and epiphanous moment as if it were their own, and now his ability to be his own best editor. In his new book of poems, Al Maginnes: Greatest Hits, Maginnes selects from 23 years worth of poetry only 12 to be included as “greatest hits.” I’ve written half as long as Maginnes and don’t think I could do that. Somehow I’m sure all the poems I didn’t select would turn against me. The amazing thing about Maginnes’ selections, however, is that he got it right. I’ve read most of Maginnes’ work over the years, and if I had to choose just 12 to keep, it would be these.

Another of the more admirable qualities of Maginnes’ poems is their ability to capture the full sense of some vital human abstraction -- to be the kind of poem that leaves a reader nodding his head, if not saying, “Ah, yes,” in recognition and appreciation. It seems almost silly to single out poems from a collection of only 12, but singling out poems as illustration of one’s points is what a reviewer does. So, four poems in particular from this collection stand out for their embodiment of longing, regret, and perspective.

The first of these is “Sharks in Kansas,” a remarkable poem of romantic longing that imaginatively revisits the road not taken. The speaker of the poem tells us:

. . . For two years, she
and I tracked each other’s moves,
both of us in love with other people

and happy most days, but curious
about the quick flame of sun
on water we had seen in each other.

and later

When she said “Florida. Paleontology,”
I did not move to wrap her in the thoughtless hug

I might have offered someone else, but said
“Arkansas” and “poetry.” When she asked, “So, when
will I see you again?” we both knew the answer.

And all of this buried longing is sparked through a wonderful associative logic brought about by a news story concerning the discovery of fossilized shark remains in Kansas, which the speaker describes in a delightful conceit for that longing:

There are sharks, sharks in Kansas, still
swimming in water that has turned to stone,
bent in the memory of tides

to the exact angle I once saw her arm bend
across her lover’s shoulder . . . .

Another poem rich in associative logic is “Elegy with Clifford Brown Playing Trumpet.” This beautiful revelation of perspective about the importance of the “white space” or “negative space,” the absences, loss, and ultimately, mortality that give meaning to all human endeavor begins with a mystery the speaker is reading and ends in greater appreciation of the contributions of both musician Clifford Brown and poet Larry Levis and in a deepened understanding of the limitation as motivation. My favorite moment in the poem is the breathless unfolding of something as unimaginable to us all as death. The speaker tells us that somewhere in the laments of Larry Levis

lurked the hand that will come one day to touch us,
perhaps right when we are in the middle of things,

& lead us into a puzzle of streets
that we only understand slowly we will not
find our way out of, although that matters

less & less as the blacktop buckles and thins
to cobblestones, then to dirt, as we walk out of our shoes
until we are walking on nothing and then

we are not walking at all & the way back
to all we have left undone is forgotten.

The third truly remarkable poem is one of Maginnes’ best narrative reflections, and it also about perspective. In fact, “To the One Who Stole My Lawnmower” might be called a parable of perspective. The speaker of the poem reveals that not only has his lawnmower been stolen but that he knows the person who has stolen it and is aware of that person’s situation as well. The reader follows the speaker through all the usual stages: anger, guilt, blame-shifting, acceptance, and understanding to conclude:

. . . the truth is
the loss of my lawnmower has become a story
and, like most stories, gets told for laughs.
But I can laugh even when, like today,
I sweat like a rented mule, forcing
the motorless contraption I use to cut grass now
through high weeds, because my life is not yours.

The final poem that stands out for me differs from most of Maginnes’ work in that the lines are shorter and essentially syllabic, as opposed to his usual predominately tetrameter or pentameter lines, but “Legend” retains Maginnes’ characteristic syntactical mastery and his knack for embodying a common and vital human emotion--specifically, in this case, regret. The poem is about a lost opportunity to see and hear the folk singer Carolyn Hester in person, and the speaker concludes

Even if all she had done
was chant the famous names
of her dead husband or her
new god, even if she denied
completely or insisted
upon being defined by
her past, even if time has
done to her what it has done
to all of us, I should have gone.

In typical Al Maginnes fashion, the poems collected in his Greatest Hits achieve what is poetry’s most important task, the deepening of our experience of the world as human beings. This thin volume is a wonderful introduction to Maginnes’ lifework for those who have only now discovered it. It is also a perfectly representative selection of all that makes Maginnes’ work important for those who have been fans for years. Ultimately, it should be a standard part of any poetry lover’s bookshelf.

Now for a Little Self Promotion

Only two weeks remain for Advance Orders of "Paternity," my new book from Main Street Rag. Advance Orders qualify for a discounted price of just $9 plus $1 shipping. The regular price, effective after February 1, will be $14 (plus shipping where applicable). Orders can be placed online at http://www.mainstreetrag.com/SOwens_2.html.

Thanks to all those who have already ordered a copy. The book is due for release on Feb. 15.

In case you need more information, I'm pasting in a few comments from my pre-publication readers. You can also see a couple of poems from the book by following the Main Street Rag link in the first paragraph.

I have about 2 dozen readings scheduled across NC, SC, and GA, this spring, including Catawba College, Mitchell Community College, Wayne Community College, Charleston County Public Library, Burke County Library, Alexander County Library, Gaston County Library, Wake Tech Community College, Durham Tech Community College, Wilkes Community College, Malaprops, Osondu Booksellers, Green Rice Gallery, Phillips and Lloyd, Caldwell County Library, and McIntyre's. Once I firm up a few dates, I'll post the complete list here. I hope you'll make it to one of the readings so I can thank you for your support in person. I still have a few dates open, so if you know of a place you'd like me to read, let me know.

Here are the comments I promised. I think all three of these readers got the book just right.

Poems of aching tenderness. PATERNITY explores with a discerning, clear-eyed sensitivity the daily small delights, frustrations, and purely unexpected miracles that, taken together, make up the building blocks of one father's personal salvation.

--Joanna Catherine Scott, author of Night Huntress and Fainting at the Uffizi



In Scott Owens' lovely book of poems, PATERNITY, we have a remarkable account of how his very special relationship with his young daughter, Sawyer, has saved him from the darkness of his own childhood. The poems are engaging in the deepest sense--funny, touching, and full of the kind of wisdom we all need as parents and family members to sustain the balance of daily life. How can anyone resist a girl who makes up the word, "effluctress," to describe what only a four-year old can see.

--Anthony S. Abbott, author of The Man Who.

I’ve never been this strong before/ can only hope I’ll hold this joy, writes Scott Owens in “Naming.” Poem by poem, Paternity builds a father’s world—its fears and joys, its vows, which are too often and too easily broken. Looming over the lives of his children is the childhood of the man who speaks these poems, memories which make the poet grateful for the days I am not my father. It is this ability to feel the weight of the past on his present life and the work of resisting that past even as he builds the present his children live in that makes Paternity a book that should be read not only by parents but by anyone interested in poems that can disturb and console in the same breath.

--Al Maginnes, author of Ghost Alphabet

Something to Learn in Ruin

Musings for May 28
Something to Learn in Ruin

We all know the world is not perfect. The question is what do we do with that knowledge. In the case of poet Al Maginnes, the answer is we make art; we make life; we make poetry. Maginnes tells us in the final line of his new collection of poetry, Ghost Alphabet, that “there is something to learn in ruin.”
Maginnes has been learning from ruin and sharing his learnings by making poetry for the better part of two decades, culminating in six collections of poetry. In the title poem of his new collection, Maginnes uses the image of a theater marquee missing letters as a metaphor for ruin and the creative acts engendered by ruin: “The white space shining between / the remaining letters is pages unwritten, / titles and plots of films never made.” Maginnes reminds us that in all creating, there is negative space, what the artist uses by exclusion to make the created stand out or to invite the viewer’s or reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks with personally relevant material, with memory or reflection.
Maginnes’ poetry is quite simply a joy to read but a joy that carries with it seemingly surprising revelations. His lines combine close observation and intricate knowledge with an uncommonly comfortable and complete syntax to create seamless moments of reflection that always conclude with illumination. The logic and tone of his lines and the clarity of his details are so straightforward that the reader first expects nothing new to happen. Then when the poem ends with an ironic insight, the reader feels they have experienced an epiphany. Finally, upon further reflection, one begins to believe they knew this all along but Maginnes has reminded them of what they have not attended to and brought greater clarity along with it.
You’d think explaining how Maginnes achieves such clarity would be easy. Clarity, one would imagine, by definition would be clear. And if Maginnes’ poetry merely made a clear statement, it would be easy to explain. But good poetry doesn’t believe people are changed by being told what to think, how to feel, what is really going on. Instead, good poetry attempts to recreate the thought/emotion/event complex such that the reader experiences as if it were their own. That’s not easy to explain. The best way to get an understanding of it is to read Maginnes’ work oneself, or better yet to attend his reading at Poetry Hickory on June 9.
As a primer, I’m including one of his new poems below.

Firefly Gospel

Because we have made them the intermediaries
of the stars and, by extension, the planets,

we endow them with an existence larger
than the glimmer of one night

or one season, their summer bloom and flicker
one constant of our time-fogged span.

We know or believe we know how brief
a firefly’s span, since they die

so easily once captured, but the fire hovering
green-gold and planetary

in the emptiness between trees might be
the same glow that cast its lamps

over a back yard in Alabama forty years ago,
glow I ran through the dark to capture.

Each morning the bodies were shriveled and smelled
of dead copper, but the hot, burning dimes

of stars always surfaced and were echoed by
the weaving ballet of fireflies, more light

than anyone could capture. Now I have learned
those lights, like human voices, are signals,

go-betweens for bodies tired of being told
they will die, a beckoning

to the oldest orbit bodies know, but I see them
exactly as I have always wished to see them,

small, stark missionaries descended
to deliver night’s gospel of fire.