|
| Tree of Heaven
ISBN: 9781587291500
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Iowa Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Language & Literature;
A co-winner of the 1994 Iowa Poetry Prize, much of this wriggling, writhing collection swarms with animalsfireflies, cockroaches, dogs, pigs, magpies, a pelican, a sow bearwhose activities intersect and merge with human life. When McKean anthropomorphizes (``canaries that sing for all/ they cannot have'') and, less frequently employs its opposite number, theriomorphism, ascribing animal qualities to humans, he seems to suggest that the animals have something profound to say about humans, as in the first poem, ``Fireflies,'' which concludes ``How/like us to... wander/ our whole lives, dragging a lamp/ that gives us away.'' In these poems, grouped mainly in the first section, McKean seems to attach a specific significance to the creatures, as though they were fortune cookies. More direct and crisper are the poems in the latter two parts, where human figures, often parents and children, take pride of place, e.g.,``Splitting Wood,'' ``Fire Line'' and ``Silver Thaw.'' Given such clear points of focus, McKean's mostly short lines offer up images that illuminate the human condition from within. These poems are simple, complex and moving. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
James McKean teaches English and creative writing at Mount mercy College. He is a former All-Coast basketball center from Washington State University. His poems have appeared in the Atlantic , Kenyon Review , Missouri Review , Quarterly West , and many other magazines; his first book is titled Headlong . |
