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A review by juliechristinejohnson
River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007 by David Whyte
5.0
David Whyte spoke at Town Hall, Seattle on December 2, 2011. I had never heard of him, but a dear friend insisted that my husband and I attend with her and her daughters. She so believed in David's poetry and his message that she bought our tickets and made certain our calendars were free so we had no excuses.
I will be forever grateful to this loving friend. I sat transfixed for the two hours David spoke, recited his poems and a handful of others that have inspired him through the years. He recited each poem from memory, repeating phrases and stanzas during the poem, then repeating the entire poem. It was a powerful way to experience poetry. He emphasized different words each time, paused a different points, allowing you to fully absorb the words, their meaning and effect.
And the poetry itself? I began to cry as he recited the first poem of the evening, "Brendan", written in honor of his son (it wasn't until I returned home that night with a copy of River Flow that I learned the poem was entitled Brendan, my husband's name). I cried through every poem after that. The tears were a visceral reaction; it's as if something deep in my psyche and in my physical self is responding to the power and beauty of the art. I often cry at the symphony for the same reason.
His poems are at once grounded and ethereal, fully of this world, yet soaring above. David is a native of Yorkshire, with Irish and Welsh roots, but he has lived for many years on Whidby Island in the Puget Sound. His language is lyrical but clean, expressive but not dramatic. His poems have a deep connection to nature and there is a tremendous sense of place, whether that place is the nook in the stairwell where his writing desk sits or kayaking in the the ocean:
Out on the Ocean
In these waves
I am caught on shoulders
lifting the sky
each crest
breaks sharply
and suddenly rises
in each steep wall
my arms work in the strong movement
of other arms
the immense energy
each wave throws up with hand outstretched
grabs the paddle
the blades flash
lifting veils of spray as the bow rears
terrified then falls
with five miles to go
of open ocean
the eyes pierce the horizon
the kayak pulls round
like a pony held by unseen reins
shying out of the ocean
and the spark behind fear
recognized as life
leaps into flame
always this energy smoulders inside
when it remains unlit
the body fills with dense smoke.
And one line - in a section of poems about Ireland, that speaks so loudly in its simplicity - it shatters the heart:
Ireland;
joy when uttered, grief when heard
People form no less a vital center of David Whyte's poetry, whether in loving memory of his mother, as an expression of love to his partner, a poem of renewal and encouragement to a friend going through a divorce, or in astonishment at the birth and growth of his children:
From, "My Daughter Asleep"
Carrying a child,
I carry a bundle of sleeping
future appearances.
I carry my daughter adrift
on my shoulder,
dreaming her slender
dreams
and
I carry her
beneath
the window,
watching
her moon lit
palm
open
and close
like a tiny
folded
map,
each line
a path that leads
where I can't go
....
Like an transformative book of poetry, there is no "I read" conclusion to the journey. Only "I am reading, re-reading."
I will be forever grateful to this loving friend. I sat transfixed for the two hours David spoke, recited his poems and a handful of others that have inspired him through the years. He recited each poem from memory, repeating phrases and stanzas during the poem, then repeating the entire poem. It was a powerful way to experience poetry. He emphasized different words each time, paused a different points, allowing you to fully absorb the words, their meaning and effect.
And the poetry itself? I began to cry as he recited the first poem of the evening, "Brendan", written in honor of his son (it wasn't until I returned home that night with a copy of River Flow that I learned the poem was entitled Brendan, my husband's name). I cried through every poem after that. The tears were a visceral reaction; it's as if something deep in my psyche and in my physical self is responding to the power and beauty of the art. I often cry at the symphony for the same reason.
His poems are at once grounded and ethereal, fully of this world, yet soaring above. David is a native of Yorkshire, with Irish and Welsh roots, but he has lived for many years on Whidby Island in the Puget Sound. His language is lyrical but clean, expressive but not dramatic. His poems have a deep connection to nature and there is a tremendous sense of place, whether that place is the nook in the stairwell where his writing desk sits or kayaking in the the ocean:
Out on the Ocean
In these waves
I am caught on shoulders
lifting the sky
each crest
breaks sharply
and suddenly rises
in each steep wall
my arms work in the strong movement
of other arms
the immense energy
each wave throws up with hand outstretched
grabs the paddle
the blades flash
lifting veils of spray as the bow rears
terrified then falls
with five miles to go
of open ocean
the eyes pierce the horizon
the kayak pulls round
like a pony held by unseen reins
shying out of the ocean
and the spark behind fear
recognized as life
leaps into flame
always this energy smoulders inside
when it remains unlit
the body fills with dense smoke.
And one line - in a section of poems about Ireland, that speaks so loudly in its simplicity - it shatters the heart:
Ireland;
joy when uttered, grief when heard
People form no less a vital center of David Whyte's poetry, whether in loving memory of his mother, as an expression of love to his partner, a poem of renewal and encouragement to a friend going through a divorce, or in astonishment at the birth and growth of his children:
From, "My Daughter Asleep"
Carrying a child,
I carry a bundle of sleeping
future appearances.
I carry my daughter adrift
on my shoulder,
dreaming her slender
dreams
and
I carry her
beneath
the window,
watching
her moon lit
palm
open
and close
like a tiny
folded
map,
each line
a path that leads
where I can't go
....
Like an transformative book of poetry, there is no "I read" conclusion to the journey. Only "I am reading, re-reading."