I recently reviewed John Talbot's <u>The Well-Tempered Tantrum</u> for the Classical Outlook. When--or even if--the review will appear is anyone's guess. So I thought I'd go ahead and plug the book here too. It is one of the David Robert Series. It is an excellent book, intelligent, accomlished and deeply felt, that has received far less attention than it deserves. I urge people here to seek it out.
John Talbot is a classicist, with a PhD from Boston University. He teaches at Brigham Young University. He writes fascinating and astute articles on the classics and English poetry--you can catch a recent example in the current issue of Arion on Ted Hughes.
His poems are informed by form, and of course by ancient literature, but can not be pinned down to a school. He is metrically deft but not dogmatic.
The opening poem:
Kindling
You gone, I thought to look
for warmth in the pith of trees
so I went to the chopping-block,
brought axe's edge to kiss
soft, knotty-hearted pine
whose sinews might warm mine.
Matchstick's rasp, blue chuff:
the fine-shaved kindling caught,
curled into twenty fists
that cupped their fingers shut,
till fire fastened to the wood
and wooed it close and hot,
and soon the room was warm enough
but I was not.
from The School of Mastery
i. The Master Class
Hurtful music. Yes, I love it, but
wince beneath its justice. Semiquavers'
falgstaffs tilting in martial accord; vox
inhumana promising that above
my foundering could rise soemthing true and plumb.
What torture, when the fingers along the flute
find their stops. Or when fretted cords relax
into freedom, and I feel it, smoldering
in what is shrewdly called the perfect pitch,
which knows its cadences and fall through them
into the garden of its innocence.
the closing poem:
Late Manner
Something expired. At the turning
A spirit was gone. That which was
Turned to sepia: high collars, punting,
Waxed mustaches, parasols.
From bridges, children stared in the river
And felt themselves, also, halved.
Old manners were patently over.
New manners had not yet arrived.
The old, without waiting to speak
Their parting lines in the act,
Learned to exit the way of pipe-smoke.
Uttered nothing. Utter tact.
Steamy ghosts rose from the horses'
Maws as they champed at their bits.
The ladies reached for their purses.
The gentlemen tipped their hats.
|