Rise, Fall and Acceptance by Patrick Carrington review continued


As noted, my reader's eyes were sometimes distracted, specifically by three aspects of Carrington's writing. I asked him about these.
 
I found too much alliteration.  Here are a few examples: "Scrubbing MacGillycuddy's Reeks": "footprints / ground-frozen fossils that flinch." Also in, "Inking The Road Again": "while his neglected wife stripped / skin from a biker, / sucking highways out" He told me this, " I do think alliteration can be overdone, like anything else. Whatever alliteration I use in my poems seems to happen by itself. I don't consciously think about it when I write, nor about meter or sound. But sometimes I feel a beat, a rhythm in my head. I think most poets probably feel that, each different from the other, their own personal jazz. And there is no denying that poetry has a long tradition with sound."


I also began to find line breaks and stanzas jumping out at me rather then melding effortless into the whole. There are very few small press poets I can name who could match Carrington's precise use of this device. More often then not I see this convention used by poets who have been academically trained. Even the back cover blurb by Harvey Stanbrough, Editor of Raintown Review, notes line break and use of stanzas. Here is what Stanbrough says, "It (Rise, Fall and Acceptance) should be used to teach aspiring poets the importance of word choice, the line break, and the use of stanzas." Here is want Carrington told me about this aspect of his work, "Unlike alliteration, line breaks are something I take great care with. Enjambment (the continuation of meaning, without pause or break, from one line of poetry to the next) is one of the devices I use to try to make my writing different, and fresh. I have developed some thoughts that guide me. I am convinced that the most important word in a line of poetry is the last one. I think that is where a reader's eyes settle for a split second longer than anywhere else. I try to take advantage of that phenomenon when I line break, using the end placement to magnify a word, give it importance, or to create multiple meanings, or ambiguity. Unless I have a good reason to do otherwise, I like to break my lines after nouns or verbs, before prepositional phrases (to give the modified word both its own place and a second meaning when later joined by the phrase following it). I have started to break after adjectives also, if I want to "punch" that adjective. For me, breaking lines after unimportant words, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, usually feels wrong. The same can be said with stanzas. It is not only to add lightness to the page, but to give a group of words and ideas their own identity, besides being a part of the whole. It's a complicated question to answer, since many of my decisions are intuitive."

And finally an over abundance of language and metaphor (yes, I know we're talking about poetry here) like in, "Balancing Pens In Belfast": "By the way the seams and shadows / of their ruin unstitch and steal / my air and crush my bones, / their powdered hair and homes / that puff and fall in winter's winds / and hands, the swinging noose / of England choking rough / tumble songs they sang / in tall and long defiance, / defense of son and land." Certainly there is music in his words, and his love of language is noted by the acclaimed poet, Bob Hicok in a second back cover blurb where he says, "I can feel this poet's love of language and his deep sense of truth in every poem." While with Hicok, I sometimes stumbled over the abundance of metaphors. Here is what Carrington told me about these choices, "That poem was written specifically targeting a web journal I like very much, Alan Heinrich's Carnelian. He publishes a lot of rhyme and sonnets. I prefer Popeye to Petrarch, but I thought I'd give internal rhyme a try and submit to him. I'm surprised to see you quote that particular poem, since it is not at all representative of the collection as a whole. It's the only piece where sound and form are as important as content. As far as the formality of language, that seems to touch the on-going debate as to the value of academic vs. small press poetry. Writing is a 2-person enterprise, author and reader. I do think a poet who gets too far away from the life and experiences of that natural partner is doing both the reader and himself a disservice. Too large a gap may be one of the things that has moved poetry books into the dusty corners of bookstores, and turned poetry into a sub-culture where the only people who read one's poetry are other poets.  But I think there is and should be a natural and wider space between writer and reader in poetry than prose. I find the main difference between poetry and prose to be the degree of the creative process that the writer gives to the reader, prose being a heavily writer-based undertaking, poetry a more even split. Poetry that simply reads like prose with line breaks seems to indeed be prose, to me."


Carrington's quick rise as a poet made me curious about whether he felt he had locked in on his poetic voice. Here is what he had to say, "My poetic tastes are wide and cover both ends of the poetic spectrum. I very much like (most of) the poetry I read in Poetry Magazine and academic journals of that ilk, and I also very much like (most of) the poetry I read in the small press. I suppose that fact has created in me a double voice when I write, as I search for the one voice that will eventually become me. I love metaphor, as well as ambiguity and a certain amount of pointed obscurity. When I write from the academic half of my poetic schizophrenia, that personality comes out. I also love the 'plain speak' I read in so many small press poets, and when that side of me feels dominant, it's the way I too speak. My poems have found acceptance in both academic and small press journals, and it is probably for that very reason - that I love and write in two distinct voices. This book reflects that, I think. Both voices are there, the abstract and concrete, the stretch of language and the down-home and real.  And I think if I were to totally ignore one side or the other right now, so early in my writing life, I would not be true to myself. Both voices are part of me now. Whether and when one of the two takes over and becomes louder in my ears, I have no idea. Right now I answer both calls, and favor neither."


Despite my problems with this book, there are still many exceptional poems. I find it remarkable that a writer wakes up to poetry and two years later, has over 100 publication credits, a pushcart nomination, is the poetry editor of Jennifer VanBuren's very fine e-zine called, Mannequin Envy http://www.mannequinenvy.com/Winter2006.htm and most recently won the Codhill Press Chapbook Award. Isn't that amazing - has ever a prose writer crossed the great divide to poetry as quickly? Carrington has a bright future both within the non-academic small press, as well as the better funded academic world. He possesses enormous heart and emotional depth, but (as a reader) I sometimes could not find my way through his imagery to the purity of his experience. I would ask that as he elevates his game he remember to always keep one foot firmly planted on the everyday.

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To find additional samples of Patrick Carrington's work please follow these links:
Softblow:  http://www.softblow.com/carrington.html
Kennesaw Review:  http://www.kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/summer2006/poetry_summer_2006.htm
Rock Salt Plum Review:  http://www.rocksaltplum.com/RSPSpring2006/PatrickCarrington.html
The New Hampshire Review:  http://www.newhampshirereview.com/carrington.htm