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Ghost Poems
Dec. 11th, 2024 04:25 pmSchweitzer, Darrell, 2008, Ghosts of past and future: selected poetry, The Borgo Press, an imprint of Wildside Press, www.wildsidepress.com, perfect bound. Cover by Thierry Vivies. 125 p, ISBN 978-1-4344-8204-4.
Poems in this book were first published between the years 1992 and 2008. A quick glance through the five pages of acknowledgments indicates that at least two of these poems are first published here. The original appearances of the remainder cover a lot of territory, ranging from Weird Tales to Asimov's, and many lesser-known venues. The book ends with explanatory notes about some of the poems. In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I first published a few of these in Dreams and Nightmares.
I love the way the book is organized into thematic sections. By far the longest is called "Intimations beyond mortality." This is followed by "The matter of Britain," "Post-Homerica," and "Yesterday's tomorrows." All of these sound intriguing, don't they? They do if you are at all familiar with Darrell's work.
These are powerful poems. In each we find the personal immediacy of the best mainstream poetry, but in the context of our boundary-pushing literature. And who doesn't prefer a gripping and thought-provoking poem about death, and what comes after, to a similar poem about cracks in the sidewalk or spring flowers?
"We outnumber the living, you know.
For all you desperately try to outbreed us,
the fruits of your loins inevitably
switch sides in the end."
That is the beginning of "We dead outnumber the living, you know." Nothing we haven't heard before, but the poem takes off from there like a fighter jet from an aircraft carrier. By the time you get to the end, the aircraft carrier is at the bottom of the sea, if you will allow such a ridiculous metaphor.
From "Song of a forgotten god"
"With Moon-pale hair and beard grown dark,
I rage and run with the beasts,
the perilous father of all that I meet,
dancing, dancing against the Sun."
Many of these poems are imbued with the qualities of legend, even those that are not explicitly about the stuff of legend, as this one is.
From "Is their survivor's guilt in heaven?":
"a parent, with just one bad habit,
a little careless at the end,
now screaming in flames forever
while we, the lucky ones,
are supposed to sit back, strum our harps,
and enjoy ourselves?"
Do you suppose the entrance requirements are really as strict as we have been told?
I want to particularly mention the section about Britain, which is really about King Arthur. Schweitzer has been worrying at the question of Arthur like a dog with a very large bone. He has attacked the question of just what is the Arthurian legend all about from several different directions, and for all I know he's not done with it yet. Arthur has inspired a lot of writers and there is plenty to share. Still, there is insight here, worth reading even if you have read tons of what has been written before.
Moving past Arthur, perhaps our most famous legendary hero, Schweitzer is hard on heroes in general. This includes space opera heroes as well as legendary ones. It even includes those who make heroes. From "Near the end of the epic":
"the villainous bards,
who turned this enterprise into an epic,
left that part out, not deigning to mention
the thousands of lives washed away like ashes"
Schweitzer is good at seeing beyond the surfaces of the old stories. He turns them over and shows us the underbellies, moldy and raddled by bugs, that we should have known were there. But we didn't know, because we didn't think about it. Now it will be hard to forget.
You know, I really can't do justice to this book by quoting a few lines from this poem and a few lines from that poem. And it doesn't help to make the review longer. They are all so good I want to give them all to you. But that wouldn't be fair to the poet or the publisher. So, for the moment you have to make do with a few snippets. I suggest you visit Wildside on the web and limber up your PayPal account. You won't regret it.
Why hasn't Schweitzer ever won a Rhysling award? I could answer this question, but most likely all of my answers would be wrong, or at best half-truths. But he must get a winner someday. Quick! Buy this book and read it, so you can say you knew his work way back when.
Poems in this book were first published between the years 1992 and 2008. A quick glance through the five pages of acknowledgments indicates that at least two of these poems are first published here. The original appearances of the remainder cover a lot of territory, ranging from Weird Tales to Asimov's, and many lesser-known venues. The book ends with explanatory notes about some of the poems. In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I first published a few of these in Dreams and Nightmares.
I love the way the book is organized into thematic sections. By far the longest is called "Intimations beyond mortality." This is followed by "The matter of Britain," "Post-Homerica," and "Yesterday's tomorrows." All of these sound intriguing, don't they? They do if you are at all familiar with Darrell's work.
These are powerful poems. In each we find the personal immediacy of the best mainstream poetry, but in the context of our boundary-pushing literature. And who doesn't prefer a gripping and thought-provoking poem about death, and what comes after, to a similar poem about cracks in the sidewalk or spring flowers?
"We outnumber the living, you know.
For all you desperately try to outbreed us,
the fruits of your loins inevitably
switch sides in the end."
That is the beginning of "We dead outnumber the living, you know." Nothing we haven't heard before, but the poem takes off from there like a fighter jet from an aircraft carrier. By the time you get to the end, the aircraft carrier is at the bottom of the sea, if you will allow such a ridiculous metaphor.
From "Song of a forgotten god"
"With Moon-pale hair and beard grown dark,
I rage and run with the beasts,
the perilous father of all that I meet,
dancing, dancing against the Sun."
Many of these poems are imbued with the qualities of legend, even those that are not explicitly about the stuff of legend, as this one is.
From "Is their survivor's guilt in heaven?":
"a parent, with just one bad habit,
a little careless at the end,
now screaming in flames forever
while we, the lucky ones,
are supposed to sit back, strum our harps,
and enjoy ourselves?"
Do you suppose the entrance requirements are really as strict as we have been told?
I want to particularly mention the section about Britain, which is really about King Arthur. Schweitzer has been worrying at the question of Arthur like a dog with a very large bone. He has attacked the question of just what is the Arthurian legend all about from several different directions, and for all I know he's not done with it yet. Arthur has inspired a lot of writers and there is plenty to share. Still, there is insight here, worth reading even if you have read tons of what has been written before.
Moving past Arthur, perhaps our most famous legendary hero, Schweitzer is hard on heroes in general. This includes space opera heroes as well as legendary ones. It even includes those who make heroes. From "Near the end of the epic":
"the villainous bards,
who turned this enterprise into an epic,
left that part out, not deigning to mention
the thousands of lives washed away like ashes"
Schweitzer is good at seeing beyond the surfaces of the old stories. He turns them over and shows us the underbellies, moldy and raddled by bugs, that we should have known were there. But we didn't know, because we didn't think about it. Now it will be hard to forget.
You know, I really can't do justice to this book by quoting a few lines from this poem and a few lines from that poem. And it doesn't help to make the review longer. They are all so good I want to give them all to you. But that wouldn't be fair to the poet or the publisher. So, for the moment you have to make do with a few snippets. I suggest you visit Wildside on the web and limber up your PayPal account. You won't regret it.
Why hasn't Schweitzer ever won a Rhysling award? I could answer this question, but most likely all of my answers would be wrong, or at best half-truths. But he must get a winner someday. Quick! Buy this book and read it, so you can say you knew his work way back when.
