Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature #10/thyla10f-ghbook
AUSTRALIAN POETRY BOOK REVIEWS
Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Gershon Holtz
(Post Pressed, Flaxton, QLD, Australia, 2002, ISBN: 1-876682-36-1, $20.00)
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Poetry is a good medium for baring the soul, but for the reader, the intensity and inward focus of the confessional style poem can often make for a dark, and occasionally dismal experience. On the other hand, poetry that errs on the side of the trite: rhyming singsong limericks, may be worth little more than a momentary chuckle. Gershon Holtz's Nights in the Garden of Spain presents the perfect balance. The poems are thematic, fun and clever, without ever becoming overly mired in tragedy or invective, but they are also profound, and at times, seriously moving. |
The book is divided into four parts. The first, "Objects of Desire", explores the sensual nature of such things as chocolate, coffee, salt, roses, an apple and an orange. These poems are beautifully written, and look at a single item from multiple perspectives. If you thought that an orange wasn't sexy, think again:
How will you be swallowed up? In
this grove of scented timbers,
the afternoon sun has left leaves
shimmering, the air soft with
evening. Your eyelids flutter, your
limbs branches, your fingers leaves,
watching, watching the peel turn.("Orange")
This chapter provides an enticing, accessible concept which would be a good basis for an entire book. As it is, these seven poems transcend the limitations of the objects on which they are based, and through extensive metaphor, rhythmic surrealistic combinations, and a simultaneously broad and close examination, conjoin history and a pure sensual beauty to produce surprisingly powerful imagery.
The next section, "Needle in your Eye - Postcards from Paris," takes a tourist's perspective of the City of Lights, visiting a number of well known destinations, from the Eiffel Tower which provides the title for the section, to the Ile St Louis. Again, there is enough humour and depth in these pieces to sustain a complete book, and the reader is able to experience the "sights" along with the poet, who always places what he sees into both an historical and sensual context. There are the well known sights such as Notre-Dame, the Louvre, or Musee Rodin, and less well known places, such as an Irish Bar (where Guiness becomes a James Joyce inspired black mirror: "Lovely blacks the it dublinly") or the Rue de Buci Markets. All of these poems are powerful in their own way, but perhaps the most startling are those which pick up a small cross section of life - a look at the busy freeway, or the Charles De Gaulle Airport, or a homeless woman in front of a church:
She lives in the shadows between one
century and the next, in a house of
cardboard on the street, without
spiders on her lips, and eyes that
follow you. Not so long ago she
was Hecate or Gorgon and burnt at
the stake. These days she burns in
the rain.("Hecate at St Germain-des-Pres")
Holtz captures the weary wonder of the traveller, teasing out every nuance observed, and then stretching out the implications until the reader is left with much more than the image. Always, behind every word, there is a sense of magnitude, of generosity towards the human spirit, and of humour towards the subject:
...where pedestrians watch leaping skateboards of homeboy
crotch and back-to-front caps
grazing the concrete apron
alongside herds of life-size
bronze rhinoceros and buffalo,
all blissfully aware of the
impossibility of each other.("Commuting in Musee d'Orsay")
In "The Silence of Crows," Holtz is back home, and introspective, contemplating the world's ongoing horrors, with participatory silence:
I draw the curtains and stuff my
ears with a poem. Listen - you can
hear them, there are thousands of
them, not singing. ("Refuge from the Silence of Crows")
These are war poems: simultaneously ugly and beautiful, celebrating survival, while looking back on the the loss of kin in Auschwitz, in Warsaw, or on September 11th.
The final section of this book, Nights in the Gardens of Spain, contains three short, and one lengthy poem, all pivoting around a visit to Spain. As with all of Holtz's work, the imagery is original, ironic, tender and funny. Holtz is a master at finding unusual but apt correlations, contrasting the powerful impact of a writer's words, with the impact of a terrorist's bomb: "The bombs you threw, Federico, only exploded in the heart." ("Federico Garcia Lorca seen with Terrorists at Fuente Vaqueros"). The contrast between these images is strengthened by the innocence of the writer's childhood toys, and the simple scents of an evening garden.
The final poem, which gives its name to the title of the section, Nights in the Garden of Spain, is in five parts, and incorporates a sense of history with the immediacy of discovery; the beauty of Spain with the irony of death. As with all of the work in this book, the poetry is light and yet still profound, full of joy, a tender humanism, and an exceptional command of the metaphor. This is a wonderful collection, which provides just enough work to whet the reader's appetite.
(Reviewed by Magdalena Ball, September 2004)
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Thylazine No.10 (September, 2004) | |
