THE GRAPEVINE by RICHARD LOPEZ

EILEEN TABIOS Engages

THE GRAPEVINE by Richard Lopez

(24^th street irregular press, Sacramento, CA 2003)

 

The Kansas- and Yucatan-based poet jim mccrary recently gifted me with a small box of small publications.  He was trying to give a second “life out there” to sections from his immense library of books.  Gratefully, I was going through the various small books, chaps and one Book-on-A-Chair (thank you, jim!) and hot damn if I came across one pub that just compelled me to write this review.  What’s interesting is that I already had a copy of, and had read, this chap—but it wasn’t until this more recent read that I felt I was able to see to the heart of its poems.  A comment on subjectivity, sure—the poems were always the same but I had changed.  I’m glad I’ve matured towards them. Anyway…

I sure wasn’t expecting to find myself reviewing this small but BIG-HEARTED chap!  And the reason I’m so ecstatically bowled over by Richard Lopez’s THE GRAPEVINE is its immense presence.  Presence as verb, that is, the poet is a human being quite attuned to—very alive in his—environment.  Hence, you can have a poem such as the chap’s title poem:

 THE GRAPEVINE

We pushed the little Ford Festiva

through flat brown California

—dry vistas of nowhere

Places we could neither fathom

Nor work up much enthusiasm

—where were we—could have been

the final question on a philosophy midterm

—we could only move forward

the car had no reverse –the AM radio

gave such sound you would think

reality is random strings of dots

corroded loops

maybe it is for all we know

—we had no where to go

so forward –we made

the summit just after nightfall

we found the city lit up like a brick of firecrackers

—air sort and deep purple like a plum

but clear and above the city passenger

jets stacked eight high above LAX

—pinwheels of light

 That last line, italicized

—pinwheels of light

so resonates with its double-take seeing effect.

Then there’s  this wonderful poem, a fabulous meditation, too, on ars poetica:

To the Shade of William Everson

for Jim Powell

Old hippie brother who trusted the wild

Impracticality of exuberance

—poetry made you push the mop at Cal

go into woods and out to sea

find yourself beached at Santa Cruz

—I read you

—I see you now:

thick black eyeglasses long hair and beard

grey from days and nights solitary in woods

walking the downtown streets of the city

I walk with my hands

thrust deep in pockets under the hot August sun

                                                Yes, I knew

a woman when I was a boy

with dark eyes and hands chapped from

cooking tortillas who spoke a language

I still work towards.

The poems in this collection became great because their poet sees so clearly.  I am compelled to share yet another fine example:

Reykjavik

There is something like the pleasure

a father feels when he gives, for no good reason,

a few dollar bills to his boy

Or it could be like an ecstasy

the junkie creates when he boils his fix

in a spoon. Anticipation becomes

a prix fixe when the needle

hits the vain. Something like the calm rush

of a slow winter descent into Keflavik

after a rough flight, when the night

turns to night but the sun is a sliver

on the lip of the horizon. When the city

is the base for what looks to be

the crabbed face of the Sea of Tranquility.

There are poems, too, hearkening the poet’s punk past and they provide a welcome saltiness.  For example, “Camel” and this:

Punk Music

There were the bands that I loved,

Black Flag, T.S.O.L., Fear, D.O.A.

Names as caustic as their music,

like the dyes I used to color my hair.

And it was the smells: clove, crumpled leather,

taste of sweat. I recall corrosive guitar chords,

steady bass, noise from the crowd.

After that stage-dive I came upon a girl

who seemed to materialize from nowhere.

with short beige skirt, black fishnet stockings,

combat boots to shape her legs.

Her skirt brushed against my thigh

when she moved past me for the bathroom,

and I forgot where I was, who I am.

I’m “reviewing” mostly by posting poems in their totality because I think that’s the best way to share the marvels of THE GRAPEVINE.  And if you read the poet’s blog Really Bad Movies,  you will discern this poet’s immense powers of observation.  THE GRAPEVINE, a March 2003 publication, indicates how long the poet has trained his eye.  And that’s all that a great poet needs, at times—not an interesting or unusual life, but the ability to see what’s not usual in everyday details.  It seems fitting to end with Presence:

Presence

Between cars rushing early winter morning,

the dawn haze so thick you could almost see,

hanging in air, crystals, as if

light had frozen and fractured. The struggle

to rise every morning, put on clothes as each

of us must. To bend to our daily work,

the ordinary, remarkable will

to live.

I don’t just love this poetry collection.  I fell in love with it.  What a feat, Richard Lopez.  What. A. Feat.

*****

Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by Galatea Resurrects because she's its editor. An exception is made for the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA as that was co-written with another author, j/j hastain--and it is reviewed by T.C. Marshall in this GR #20 issue.  She is also pleased to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her books.  Her 2013 book, THE AWAKENING was reviewed by Tom Beckett at L'Amour Fou; by Amazon Hall of Famer Reviewer Grady Harp on Amazon and elsewhere; by Joey Madia at Literary Aficionado; by Edric Mesmer at Yellow Field; by Zvi Sesling at Boston Area Small Press & Poetry Scene; and by jim mccrary and his cat Iris at Babaylan Poetics.  Her 2007 book, SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS, was also recently reviewed by Nicholas T. Spatafora in Litter Magazine.