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Khaled Mattawa Khaled Mattawa's Zodiac of Echoes suffers from imprecision
and insincerity; language, emotion and information are muddled throughout
until all I sensed occurring on its pages was a vague approximation of
current tendencies in contemporary poetry, but very little in actual poetic
work or accomplishment. Vagueness occurs where mystery appears to
be the aim. Here is the opening to "Echo & Elixir 4":
The chain inside my chest winds itself up again. There seems to be so much straining after effect that the result is a vaguely poetic mood, but without enough information to allow entry into the scene: the chain image of the opening line is immediately abandoned to inform us where the speaker stands—but not only is he uncertain where the blessing is, but we are unsure what the blessing is (perhaps it's in James Wright's poem by that name?). The scents (of what?) that were held by the air somehow have now fallen, and enter the ground—and it's strange that we're told precisely where the dirt is ("beneath my feet") when that is one piece of information that could be withheld without confusion. Anyway, my point is: exposition is indeed important to many narrative poems, but here it doesn't seem to provide necessary info. This would be more than forgivable if the language itself was compelling; I don't believe it is. It seems airbrushed into a fuzzy prettiness that is ultimately uninteresting. I would argue that the poems in this book don't take their own details or lines seriously—instead of moving from one perception to the next, or exploring the significance of the various details and/or pronouncements, the poems seem to run in place, even as the words change. That is, the same effects seem to be aimed at throughout, with new materials and situations entering into the process, all producing roughly the same result. I don't sense that Mattawa actually believes in what he's saying. There seems to be a certain type of lyricism he's aiming at. However sincere Mattawa's lyrical intentions are, the writing is some of the most insincere, and uninteresting, I've read lately. Here's an example: Mattawa describes watching television in a down-home setting in "Tuned":
Then eventually someone
I just don't know if the poems (and the implications that arise from making the world a poetic one) are thought through in this book. Once upon a time, I had a teacher tell the class to "throw in more metaphors and similes" into our poems, because editors like striking similes. Needless to say, it was terrible advice, and conveys a cynical and/or unthinking acceptance of whatever poetic currencies are currently in favor. I mean, it's a fairly profound thing to say x is y, or that x is even like y, as opposed to just saying x is x. That's a worldview right there, and this teacher was content to speed on by it. I believe Mattawa has a similar approach. In one section of the eighteen page "Vicinity (a sequence)", the writing begins with journalistic flatness and clarity:
School officials apologize to a boy Next the poem inserts what may be a quotation: The issue is artifice-coincidences arranged/to connect what cannot be connected . . . Then it describes an alleged murderer who was "raped, tortured, burned, and cut" among other childhood traumas and tragedies, and how he later "slashed a distinctive signature/on the girls/who were on their way/to a neighborhood bakery." So we have three pieces of information to juggle: the boy wearing the wrong jersey, a quote on coincidence and its joineries, and information about an abused child who becomes an alleged vicious killer. Perhaps enough information for pages of exploration; if one is to present vicious, violent material, I think one should commit to it, deal with its seriousness. I'm thinking of Charles Reznikoff. Or one could deal with it like Gabriel Gudding does, in a darkly comic light, having the violence occur in an unexpected manner, making for physically impacting (and serious) poetry. In "Vicinity", Mattawa goes directly to an easy "closure": After
2 hours, the boy, And that's it. Nineteen lines. It's not actual closure, of course; it just approximates a popular current poetic idea about closure: bring back the opening of the poem, but alter it in some way. It seems irresponsible to me in this example, a kind of poetic sensationalism. Earlier in the book, Mattawa discusses a couple's harassment by the INS, of having to prove that the husband is actually the father of their children.
A brief desolation. Undeniable Undeniable, but how hard is it to take off your shoe and get rid of the stone? The simile reduces the couple's situation to an inconvenience, something that common sense could fix in a moment's time. Perhaps the poem is intended as a subtle send-up and critique of how a poet's anxiousness to turn to more and more similes, metaphors and other poetic devices (like the "closure" of the boy in the Indians t-shirt) can reduce literal suffering (and beauty) to trite poetry. But I don't get that feeling. My feeling is that the stone in a shoe simile is a symptom of the insincerity I was mentioning earlier, an unwillingness to look at the world, or at language, as something other than grist for the lyrical mill. -Tony Tost |