The Turn That Tightens Jude Deason (2019)
In a world of speed and brevity where some presidents communicate via Twitter and don’t even bother with proper spelling, reviewing Deason’s poetry becomes challenging. One can easily spend a few hours discussing or teaching two poems alone. If you are the type of reader who assumes the detective role and trace a poet’s life from her/his creations, you’ve got a lot to cover here: Family stories across generations (grandchildren, husband, parents, siblings…) and naked feelings that accompany them, the cities, the ranch, the towns that Deason lived, moved in and out, traveled to and from. If you prefer the persona analysis rather than taking in the colorful details, purity, and brutality of some references to one’s life at their face value, you will have a different experience. Maybe, you will be less affected by the art of acuteness and honesty in the poems (“Honesty? You ask/Yes. Honesty.” p.45). Sign a “soul contract” (p.68) with the poet, and see where the paths will take you: To a Peggy Lee song, to Nebraska or the Disney World?
Deason doesn’t reveal her style in one particular way. There are long poems (one full page + 4-5 lines on the next) set in tones that might provide clues on her background ( “the woman who cleans our house”) or references to the Church and Christianity. There are also short poems, deceptively simple, nature-focused pieces (‘Bark Beetle’, ‘Mud’, ‘Morning’), which are as effective as the others. The collection reminds me of wild grapes in different colors and sizes picked from deep forests of JD’s universe, and each poem makes any reader wonder what is next in the book. I agree with Tom Crawford’s analysis that one gets the impression that “the poet is only marginally in charge” and the poems come at times shockingly “undressed and fearless”. But not always. I have also observed and enjoyed JD’s tongue-in-cheek playfulness in several poems where I can see the poet smiling: “Let’s see what they do with this one?” but it can be my imagination only.
A wild range of topics and fragments picked from the different stages of life (childhood to fiftieth anniversary plans), both mundane (DMV, a nursing home, or Uncle Chris) and exotic (Tulum, Kundalini energy or Omar in Havana) are harvested before pressed into poetry like grapes into wine. Mind the aftertaste of some darkness and bitterness of this very tasty wine though since JD herself rebels against the workings of her mind and memory (p.35).
Rich imageries allow the collection wide open for multiple interpretations and taking different paths, which appeal to my criteria of what good quality literature offers. Christian Fuenfhausen elegantly dressed the poems up by his beautiful cover design with its velvety texture and colors.
An appetizer for the blog readers:
You Would Dive In (For Tom Crawford)
A rabbit, a crow, a beautiful woman.
When one is one, it is believed
it is not the other.
Not so.
I will illustrate.
The rabbit, at the outdoor wedding reception,
panics/runs across the lawn
flees into the hotel swimming pool.
You leap from your chair
to fish it out.
You would dive in, if need be.
A crow calls from overhead,
lands on top of the post
in the parking lot of the coffee house,
and all you want to know is
what is that crow thinking about?
What?
A woman in a beautiful dress,
stands in the doorway to the restaurant
blocking your entry/talking on her cell phone.
her hair is blacker than than black, her black dress
with flowers, you can't get past.
***
Refugee Encounters at the Turkish-Syrian Border:
Antakya at the Crossroads by Şule Can (2019)
When an academic-researcher chooses not to hide her/his human side (emotions and personal reflections) in her `serious` publications, she wins my heart and mind rather quick and for long-term, like my colleague and friend Dr. Can. The pride and pleasure I feel in writing about a friend's work becomes unique in that I can visualize the person on the site, with her recorder and notebook, water bottle, all wrapped in compassion toward the respondents and all species. I can feel proud that a conscientious social scientist is at work and the academic world will soon become a more humane space once the book gets published.
Refugee Encounters is more than an ethnographic research on the most recent encounters between Syrian refugees, Alawite citizens of Antakya, and the state agents. It analyzes ethnoreligious boundaries and includes displacement narratives of Syrian refugees from a humanistic angle. It holds up a critical mirror to the long-promoted image of Antakya/Antioch as the “cradle of civilizations” by extensively discussing its current daily situation in the context of politicized history, that is, post-2011. It demonstrates the complexity of vulnerable and ever-changing negotiations of ethnic and religious identity (“fragile diversities” in Can’s words), politics, and state along with the everyday oppression that refugees suffer from in their new own urban space(s). I highly recommend this book particularly due to its approachable language and length, and remain thankful to the author for enhancing my current knowledge and research in the area too.
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