海角大神

Barbara Kingsolver is best known for her novels, including 鈥淭he Bean Trees鈥� and 鈥淭he Poisonwood Bible,鈥� and her essay collections, such as 鈥淪mall Wonder鈥� and 鈥淗igh Tide in Tucson.鈥� She鈥檚 not as well known for her poetry, though she should be. 鈥淗ow to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)鈥� collects her best poems from the past few years. It鈥檚 a tonic for these pandemic times, reminding us of Robert Frost鈥檚 definition of poetry as a 鈥渕omentary stay against confusion.鈥� Kingsolver鈥檚 poems are like that, though their clarity is less a matter of sudden revelation than the slowly ripening insight of age. The title poem, with its ironic parenthetical promise that we can learn to soar after 鈥渢en thousand easy lessons,鈥� sounds a winking dissent from all those how-to bestsellers that offer quick mastery of life鈥檚 essentials in a handful of effortless steps.

That note of rebuttal runs through more than a dozen other 鈥渉ow-to鈥� poems in the book, including 鈥淗ow to Have a Child,鈥� 鈥淗ow to Get a Divorce,鈥� and 鈥淗ow to Be Married.鈥� Perhaps the most memorable of these wry tutorials is 鈥淗ow to Lose That Stubborn Weight,鈥� in which the narrator, seasoned by a certain number of birthdays, suggests putting all those catalogs and magazines 鈥� and their grueling expectations of body image 鈥� on the bathroom scale instead.

鈥淟eave them there for sixteen weeks,鈥� we鈥檙e told. 鈥淪ee how the weight melts away / from the craven core.鈥�

As such poems make clear, Kingsolver鈥檚 subversive humor, which occasionally sharpens her fiction and essays, informs her poetry, too. Her quirky sensibility often recalls Billy Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate whose puckish eye for the comically absurd is an abiding reminder that poetry needn鈥檛 always be a somber exercise.

That kind of playfulness is especially vivid in 鈥淗ow to Do Absolutely Nothing,鈥� a poem shaped like a narrowing triangle. The lines slowly dwindle to a single word at the end 鈥� suggesting, in the spirit of Henry Thoreau, that the key to doing less is having less.

Here鈥檚 how it starts:

聽 聽 聽Rent a house near the beach, or a cabin
聽 聽 聽but: Do not take your walking shoes.
聽 聽 聽Don鈥檛 take any clothes you鈥檇 wear
聽 聽 聽anyplace anyone would see you.
聽 聽 聽Don鈥檛 take your rechargeables.
聽 聽 聽Take Scrabble if you have to,
聽 聽 聽but not a dictionary and no
聽 聽 聽pencils for keeping score.聽聽

In 鈥淗ow to Knit A Sweater (a Realist鈥檚 Prayer),鈥� the narrator prays as she knits, hinting that real spirituality grows from deeds as well as thoughts. Moving hands are a motif of sorts for this collection 鈥� and, indeed, for the broader body of Kingsolver鈥檚 work. In these poems, as in her novels and essays, she argues for a tangible daily connection with the natural world as the most reliable antidote to despair.

In 鈥淗ow to Shear a Sheep,鈥� Kingsolver plants her tongue firmly in cheek and suggests talking sheep into shedding their precious coats. 鈥淎sk them to come, / lay down their wool / for love,鈥� she writes. 鈥淭hat should work. / It doesn鈥檛.鈥�

The poem underlines a simple reality 鈥� namely, that a meaningful engagement with animals, plants, and the life of the earth can鈥檛 be a mere matter of sentiment. Instead, it requires us to get our hands dirty.

That work, though sometimes difficult, has rewards of its own, Kingsolver suggests in 鈥淲ill.鈥� It鈥檚 about her 90-year-old mother-in-law鈥檚 willingness to help with canning tomatoes, the shared labor often a time of shared stories, too.聽聽

鈥淧ellegrinaggio,鈥� another set of poems in the book, chronicles the travels of Kingsolver鈥檚 family in Italy as they take her mother-in-law to her ancestral home. In one of those poems, 鈥淥n the Train to Sicily,鈥� Kingsolver almost audibly sighs on the page as she describes a sullen fellow passenger: 鈥渁 girl. Deep blue hair / drawn low across her brow like a wartime / blackout curtain.鈥�

The girl brightens, though, when she answers her cell phone and finds her mother on the other end.

Family figures into 鈥淗ow to Fly鈥� as a complicated but ultimately redemptive presence. 鈥淭his is How They Come Back to Us,鈥� another series of poems in the collection, considers departed loved ones and their enduring legacy. In one of the poems, 鈥淢y Great-Grandmother鈥檚 Plate,鈥� Kingsolver marvels that a piece of dinnerware once offered as a spanking-new wedding present is now a venerated heirloom, time working its wonders on Kingsolver, too. She, not her great-grandmother, is now the matriarch charged with passing on the wisdom of experience.

These poems 鈥� sometimes funny, often tender, and always deeply expressed 鈥� are a worthy answer to that calling.聽