(This is how the Krisak review appears in The Alsop Review, as of August 12, 2003)
Even As We Speak By Len Krisak
The University of Evansville Press
ISBN 0-930982-53-3
"Itıs 1946. Do you know where your wives / have been?"
So opens Len Krisakıs poem, "On The Blue Dahlia." And doesnıt that witty line break say something about jealousy? Could there be a better place to pause in that sentence; isnıt it almost an absurdly early catastasis, or the foreshadowing of catastasis?
And the stereotypical plots of our movies rush in, in iambic pentameter, with a kaleidoscopic view. "A lot of edgy talk before that cesspool brew / comes clean," says Krisak. But in his case, the edgy talk is all wit.
The send-ups of his old teachers are alone worth the purchase price. "Mr. Friel" ends, "Like notes God passed, but none could figure out." Itıs a real-life game of Go to the Head of the Class crossed with Chutes and Ladders, as it was played for keeps. Another teacher was "as crimped and banged as Mamie." Another sonnet, about a fellow student ("fellow" being a euphemism), opens, "He said he came from Mars." And Krisak proves it. He proves said student came from Mars. (You will smile the smile of recognition.)
Where love is concerned, Krisak is no laggard. But it takes the form, in one poem, of fond admiration for the "chain gang's toddler-crooks" "in spaced-out, crooked file": in other words, "Day-Schoolers on a Walk." Bemused, and bemusing. I havenıt been this charmed to revisit my school days since the last time I taught six-year-olds. Iım even more charmed the volume got what it deserved: the Richard Wilbur Award for 2000.
With understanding, comes wit. At least in this poetıs case. See how his "A Version of Akhmatova" wryly plumbs the depths of another poetıs mind, a womanıs mind. There are also translations of Horace, Johnson (from the Latin) and Asclepiades "at once both guileless and unbending," as the poet says, with opposite meaning, in one Horace translation.
"Rumination" is one of the shortest poems in this collection, and as focused and focusing as a meditation:
They say the Sufis say that God's like fire;
That first you hear the roar, then see the flame,
And at the last, get burned.
But all I've ever learned
From whirling like a dervish with Desire
Is that her name and his are not the same.
These are exhilarating formalist poems, beautifully natural in tone and diction, evoking pale remembrance and high spirits. Even As We Speak places Len Krisak distinctly among the most original and vibrant poets writing today.
Reviewed by Terese Coe
[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited March 11, 2004).]
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