Never : Poems

Rating:
Summary: The Emperor's New Clothes
Review: Her work is unreadable. It's too bad she abandoned what she had accomplished with Erosion so many years ago. She is good at convincing people of her importance and so no one will tell the truth about her work. If someone does, that person risks being thought of as a bad reader. But there is nothing to nourish the soul in her poems. Nothing to contemplate. They are not even interesting technically. The passionate defenses she generates always make me think of "protesting too much." Her work is like reading impenetrable critical essays. And even critical essays can be written for pleasurable reading, with ease and style. American poetry has gone down a wrong road by following her example.

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: I can sing this poetry--Jorie Graham is the best at what she does.

Rating:
Summary: The Time It Takes To Say
Review: I have been trying to write something resembling a review of this book for a long time - during which time I have been living with and trying to absorb everything in NEVER, which is so much, and I still find it promising more even, than what I have from it already. The most immediate moment that presents itself in "Prayer" is the "here" of the now that is ghostly, yet audible somehow, still speakable, "posed," even on the lips. This "here" is just behind us as we read, and while it is lost in its instantiation as a moment of the most distinct pre-eminence, it is released in its passing into the visual current of the poem, and thus rendered palpable in different form. The persistence of this "spot of time" in light of what I would call its never-more-ness (and nevertheless still-being-ness) is what is at stake in the book, among many other things, among them, the difference between eternality (in part or whole, and as whom?) and immortality (in the sense of a Keatsian steadfastness of the bright star) and the idea of time as gravity, allowing for the possibility of being bound, itself the condition of freedom. The self does not save, and is not "saved" in its sameness, but in its being constantly sifted through time. And yet the "never" is next to the "here" and felt as such, as existing in intimate relation to it, neither by design nor choice, and not without the pathos of mute distance between them. In other words, I could not disagree more with the view expressed by Sven Birkerts (in his comment on NEVER in the New York Times) that "the disappearance of the perceived thing or the felt experience into the inconclusive enactments of process points to a dead end in Graham's art." It is precisely the tension between the perceiver and the thing perceived, the "here" of experience and the undertow in which it is swallowed up and released in new form that Graham addresses, with seriousness and the grave beauty of patient attention. I should also add that being in her class was a great joy for me. She is a generous and brilliant teacher and the care with which she reads poems is a moral statement, as well as a pleasure to behold.

Rating:
Summary: The Emperor's New Clothes
Review: In my judgment, Never could be one of Jorie Graham's most important books. It's amazing how she can write this way -- immediately accessible & still syntactically, linguistically, poetically, wholly innovative. Everything she writes by now is controversial, but never doubt her mastery. She revises her poems so many times people would be appalled, making sure that every bit of the music of her poems is exactly as she wants & that she has said & laid out everything she wants to say exactly. These poems are bursts of physical substance, love, passion, & barrages of insight. They move just like universes exploding out of universes. They don't whizz by in a blur, but catch all over. This is a collection of instances that adhere to true devotion, starting with a prayer.

I hope this review has been helpful to you.

Rating:
Summary: again, vision only Jorie Graham could pull off
Review: In my judgment, Never could be one of Jorie Graham's most important books. It's amazing how she can write this way -- immediately accessible & still syntactically, linguistically, poetically, wholly innovative. Everything she writes by now is controversial, but never doubt her mastery. She revises her poems so many times people would be appalled, making sure that every bit of the music of her poems is exactly as she wants & that she has said & laid out everything she wants to say exactly. These poems are bursts of physical substance, love, passion, & barrages of insight. They move just like universes exploding out of universes. They don't whizz by in a blur, but catch all over. This is a collection of instances that adhere to true devotion, starting with a prayer.

I hope this review has been helpful to you.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: Never is a great work of poetry. It is painstaking, original, gorgeously written, brave, and yes, at times difficult. Yes, some great poetry is difficult. It really helps if one reads Graham's previous books -- in particular The End of Beauty, Region of Unlikeness, Materialism, The Errancy, and Swarm. She has been examining our belief structures, our ways of seeing ourselves and making ourselves accountable, through history, myth, autobiography and, now, in this stunning book, the natural world, for quite some time. One needs, perhaps, to follow the journey, to watch the vocabulary and the style develop. There is little to be gained by picking one work over another, one period of Graham's inquiry ovevr another. It is all of a piece, and the thrill is in watching it evolve, as well as in the sheer brilliance and beauty of the individual poems. The structure of each book is, too, quite an act of genius. Watching NEVER, unfold towards its extraordinary final section is a great reading experience, one I haven't had in a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Uh-oh.
Review: This is unreadable. Go find someting else. Quickly. Notice how the people who review this book are directly polarized - they love it or hate it. If you love Graham's stuff, go for it, you won't be disappointed. But if you're not a Graham fan stay away. If you're looking to read her for the first time, try Swarm, it's cleaner and more accessible.

Rating:
Summary: Uh-oh.
Review: This is unreadable. Go find someting else. Quickly. Notice how the people who review this book are directly polarized - they love it or hate it. If you love Graham's stuff, go for it, you won't be disappointed. But if you're not a Graham fan stay away. If you're looking to read her for the first time, try Swarm, it's cleaner and more accessible.