Osso Buco

Taking a step back to the second poem in the book (I think some of the best are arranged at the beginning of the book for impact), this poem had a mixture of fine, and grating, moments for me. The title is the name of a dish I had not heard of, cross-cut veal shanks, braised with vegeatables, usually on rice. So, the opening lines,

"I love the sound of the bone against the plate
and the fortress-like look of it
lying before me in a moat of risotto,"

although sonically pleasing, does not seem well suited to the baby calf leg that is the central ingredient. Now, if it had been an old bull, there might be a hint of strength to it. In the same strophe, enter the metaphor--

"And best of all, the secret marrow,
the invaded privacy of the animal
prized out with a knife and swallowed down
with cold, exhilarating wine."

The privacy/prized combination halted me first time through, as harsh to my ear. Further, not everyone is going to like the marrow best of all, and the entire hunk of meat is pretty much the invaded privacy of the (very young) animal.

The second and third strophes were lovely. The second--

"I am swaying now in the hour after dinner,
a citizen tilted back on his chair,
a creature with a full stomach--
something you don't hear about in poetry,
that sanctuary of hunger and deprivation.
You know: the driving rain, the boots by the door,
small birds searching for berries in the winter.

-- is Billy at his best, and highlights from the third strophe--

"But tonight, the lion of contentment
has placed a warm, heavy paw on my chest...
and the sound of my wife's laughter
on the telephone in the next room,
the woman who cooked the savory osso buco,
who pointed to show the butcher the ones she wanted.
She who talks to her faraway friend
while I (am)...
feeling like one of the friendly natives,
a reliable guide, maybe even the chief's favorite son.

well, I guess the whole strophe was mostly a highlight, after all. I loved the lion's paw (now wouldn't that have been something to describe as a fortress in the middle of a moat of rice-- ditch the veal) the adoration for the woman who pointed to show the butcher, the contrast between the conversation with the faraway friend and the native (maybe even the chief's favorite son) who has a cup of tea as his only needed companion.

The next two strophes are opposing ones, the less fortunate of the world, and then a return to the current comfort at home. Strophe five delivered a slap to the face of logic with "the candles give off their warm glow...the light that lit and shadowed the faces of history." Light lights, other objects which interfere with the light cast shadows.

The final strophe has the couple heading to bed, there is a nice description of falling asleep as sinking into the earth, and then the final couplet forces an unlikely application of the metaphor down my throat--

"into the broken bones of the earth itself,
into the marrow of the only place we know."

Granted, the collection focuses on our struggle to accept mortality, I'm not buying that we find the marrow of anything by taking a snooze. As for death, how much do we become more one with the intimate parts of the earth at that point? Six feet down barely scratches the surface, let alone the marrow. In the spiritual sense, going down at the point of death has generally negative overtones to most faiths the world over. And that's about it, dear reader.

Directions by Billy Collins

www.americanpoems.com/poets/Billy-Collins/8970 --Will this link? Dunno.

This is the third poem in the book, and having read some two-thirds of the collection, I would say this is the cornerstone. The obvious theme is our struggle with mortality, the excellent cover art features a dog barking at the ocean in a futile attempt to chase it off. The picture is repeated elsewhere as a negative, which gives the appearance of a now-white dog still barking away well into the night. So, to further state the general theme, "things we do to try to distract ourselves from our inevitable demise, or at least things we do to comfort ourselves in the face of the lurking inevitable".

I consider this poem one of my favorite in the book. Later, perhaps as filler, coping with mortality flutters too often around the author's personal consuming interest in writing poetry, and name and phrase-dropping of other well-known poets, which becomes irksome, especially when applied to an already bloated subject, five takes on "gleaning my teaming brain" where one would suffice.

That grumble aside, this one was well balanced for me, the slow, rambling pace appropriate here, as opposed to unapplied, pointless rambling elsewhere. The setting is autumn(what else), and there are plenty of pleasant facets of the metaphor used, beginning with "a heap of rocks, probably pushed down during the horrors of the Ice Age", which calls to mind a barrow. The journey takes one over "the small footbridge with the broken railing, and for an even more bittersweet tone, "you might have to grab hold of a sapling when the going gets steep."The end is "a long stone ridge", but while there, the distractions of life fade to where one can hear "a sprig of birdsong" (one of my favorite phrase in the piece). Another favorite is "how the earth holds us painfully against its breast made of humus and brambles".

The poem only gets better with rereading, as the images sink in via the gentle voice used.

The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins

Hmmm, I am going to keep this short since this is an experimental post. I ordered some of this author's titles, I've only read one, previously, and enjoyed a number of them. I've gotten a third of the way through "Drowning", and had the first one, "Consolation" hit the right spot. The first line of the poem starts out, "How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer." I just got back from almost a week of a visit with my Italian mother-in-law, and was almost desperate for a big glass of ice tea with ice, conveniently mentioned explicitly in S4.

The poem chronicles the discomfort necessary to improve one's catalog of cultural sites assimilated in person, and conversely the easy slide of daily events when in one's own locale. Mr. Collins uses a repetition of phrases to tie the poem into a picture of the joy we take in having our daily rituals without the struggle of fitting into a different culture. They are a series of determined, forceful statements, the lines are mostly short compared with some of the other poems in the book. The energy required in making a trip through a foreign land is directed now towards justifying the reasons why one is better off staying at home.

The sound of "s" seems to be highlighted throughout, and I do not know what purpose it serves, it could give a hissing tone to the piece, but the language, as I said, is to forceful to allow that. Sonically, my favorite strophe is the second. A series of different sounds are showcased, mirroring the succession of trophy sites bagged. I will copy it here for those who might not have read it, or don't remember it.

"There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass."

It was a very accessible poem, an easy trip to the corner diner.
And now, for the uncertain outcome of pressing "PUBLISH POST" for the first time.

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