Perhaps this belongs more in "Discerning Eye"--but I am curious to know what people who have read <u>Shells</u>, Craig Arnold's Yale Younger winning volume (controversial, partly because Merwin chose no manuscript the year before; this was his debut as judge), think of it. I am also curious why poets like Arnold don't seem to get lumped in with other formalists--is it a matter of not publishing in formal journals? For he is definitely a formalist of sorts--whether neo, retro, what have you.

I find some of the book quite strong (and I admit to coming to it with something of a bias), but perhaps some of the longer things in prosy, slant-rimed-couplets seem to be padding it out. I think all of the poems are in the first person, which strikes me as a limitation (of course, then, there are plenty of great poets who held to that approach--Emily Dickinson, I believe, for one).

There is also some posturing--a hipper-than-thou-I'm-in-a-band kind of attitude. The book also feels a bit as though it was written to win an award--the "shells" metaphor throughout is almost too tidy.

Some of the poems, though, seem to me rather fine, very contemporary, energetic as well as elegant. Well, I'll post a small assortment, and see what folks think.

The poems tend to look freer on the page than they actually are. "Artichoke" is a double sonnet:

Artichoke


Baffling flower, barely edible,
camouflaged in a GI's olive drab
--out loud you wonder Whos's it trying to fool?

It is a nymph that some god tries to grap
and have his way with, I explain. She scorns
his lust, and when he sees he's met his match,
he turns her into a flower, covered with thorns,
to keep her other lovers out of reach.

You say You made that up. You say That's sick.
You say The things men think of are so cruel.

Under the bamboo steamer there's a slick
of emerald-green water. I watch you pull
the petals off, each with a warm knot
of paler flesh left hanging at the root.

A "loves me, loves me not" sort of endeavor,
I say, but you don't laugh. It hasn't been
so long since like me for being clever
stopped being enough for you. Sly pangolin,
endearingly nearsighted, belly rolled
up in a spiky ball--that's how I keep
my wits about me. I notice how you've polled
the petal-points an inch, how you scrape
each leaf with your incisors, the two
small grooves they leave. It makes me sick to watch.

You're awfully quiet today. What's wrong with you?

I want to tell you what . . . but there's a catch,
deep in my throat, that stops me, makes me choke
the words back, crack another pointless joke.

I'd also recommend his poem, "Hot," which is too long, I think, for me to post here. It was in one of the Best American POetries--99, I think.

Here is his poem, "Locker room etiquette", written in something approaching Sapphics (at least in the adonic colon)--but not adhereing to any syllable count, that I can figure. The long lines tend to just be loose pentameters:

Locker room etiquette

Please refrain from frankly ogling your neighbor's
penis or buttocks. This goes without saying--
bear in mind, however, that the simplest
courtesy often

is the first forgotten. Likewise, the appraising
sidelong gaze, however surreptitious,
seldom fails to offend when it is noticed.
Wandering eyes are

best averted. The small talk that in other
awkward situations would ease the moment
here you should avoid addressing to strangers,
even familiar

faces, who often find it quite disarming.
This is neither the time nor place for idle
chitchat, or to broach uncertain topics--
keep to the distance

run, the merits of this or that equipment,
warm-ups, weights, reps, heart rates, soreness of muscles.
Comments, however, on your own or your fellows'
sweaty aroma

rarely are welcomed. Modesty and its over-
balance, in this respect, are equal, drawing
too much attention. Take, as an example,
running the guantlet

locker to shower, a source of so much worry.
Should one promenade the flower of manhood
fearlessly down the hall, or wear one's towel
prudishly knotted

over the flanks, only to find it twirling
down to the ankles, forcing one to postures
neither becoming nor graceful to retrieve it?
Strive for a balance:

walk at a steady clip, the towel loosely
draped over the shoulder. If necessary,
practice in front of a mirror. Where nakedness makes you
shy as a hermit

crab between shells, or a snail who hides his
tremulous horns at the first smell of danger,
summon about yourself an impenetrable
aura, an armor,

over which the playful spray of the shower
spatters harmlessly. Spare the soap, and lather
only as much as may fulfill the barest
dictates of hygiene

lingering nowhere long, except the armpits,
also in drying, with an unspecific
sweep over crotch, the peach-crease of the buttocks.
Carry your person

stiffly, as if each limb required a heroic
effort of will to flex--your head should never
drop below the armpit, or only briefly
tying your laces.

Handle yourself at all times with distateful
resignation, as one regards an oyster
slick on the half-shell. Maybe it is better
not to imagine

oysters, or snails. Those were bad examples.
Try to forget them. Reticence in thought as
well as speech will keep your attention focused
here in the moment,

far away from the boy on the bench directly
opposite--yes, the one that you've been sitting
naked silently beside in teh suana--
look at your toenails,

stretch your hamstrings, think of how you are lifting
more each day, soon you'll be pressing sixty,
seventy, eighty pounds, up to the weight of
nobody watching.

Those are pretty darn good. He's a master at setting a mood and setting a scene. The gym poem is very witty yet the awkwardness he describes, and that furtive peeking, point to the eternal fascination we have for bodies, ours and other people's. (I've taken up this subject too, many times.) There's a certain sadness in the artichoke poem for the couple is so mismatched; you get the feeling they will disappoint each other eternally. He's the poet mind, she's the pragmatic mind; the gap between them is unbridgeable.

Intriguing, Kate. A nod to Marianne Moore (no ancestor) might be in order, as her pangolin was a 'near artichoke'!
Margaret.

He has mastered the “look-how-shallow-and-cool-I-am” style.

With certainty I can say that he is not fit to shine your poetic shoes, Alicia.

I hope this guy didn’t win the same year that you were a runner-up?