Geoffrey Nutter, Christopher Sunset

It's hard to write about good poetry—that and finishing my college education have kept me from posting a review of Geoffrey Nutter's Christopher Sunset. Wave Books has a monopoly on the best American contemporary poets, publishing just about everyone I like (besides, most notably, Tao Lin). For transparency's sake, I should say I was in Geoffrey Nutter's workshop at NYU. The poems enact what he teaches. Namely, there is so much stuff, so much of the world, and so much pleasure taken in the act of naming things in this book. Here's one of my favorites from the collection:

Behind Tantalus, Dawn

Behind Tantalus, dawn.
In the dawn, the box kite
navigating high above the wind-socks.
And on the tabletop, the apple
and the plum; hallelujah, shepherds
carry lances of power through the buckwheat,
genuflect before the staves of dawn.
Hallelujah, vocalissimus, the tabletop
is on the box kite, far out of reach.
How is it then the shepherd tastes the apple and the plum?
How is it then the lumberjack is sleeping
in the asphodel, his broadax propped
against a sapling all in blossom?
Tantalus, they are untouchable—
but dawn, merciful and new,
is touching you.


Here is the poem inside the poem:

Tantalus, dawn, box kite, wind-socks, tabletop, apple, plum, shepherds, lances, buckwheat, staves, lumberjack, asphodel, broadax, sapling, blossom, you.


As you can see, all of these nouns are interesting. I just like saying them, especially "buckwheat." When you say it right, it sounds like an exquisite curse, as do "box kite," "wind-socks," "tabletop," "lumberjack," and "broadax," which are all very complete and full-sounding in the mouth. I wanted to write that this poem had nothing to do with "Tantalus," then I read that Tantalus, as a punishment, was suspended in chin-deep water with fruit-laden branches over his head. The branches receded when he reached for them. Thus: tantalize. Take that for whatever, it wouldn't matter at all if there weren't such pleasure in just saying it. Say it. "Tantalus."

(If you don't like didactic paragraphs, skip this one.) This book is a celebration of the strangeness and variety of life, and, in so many of the poems, I feel the terrible pain of language—where the fruit-laden branch recedes. Naming the object is not the object. That's why, as I think Geoff would say, the way we say things matters. Before anything else, words are things in themselves. People keep asking me, as if I would know, what the difference is between poetry and prose. Poetry is writing where the dual reality of words—what the word is in itself and what it represents—is felt strongly. Some poets emphasize one aspect of words over the other, like Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," which is really more a textbook lesson for students than a poem. Christopher Sunset is a great book for people out there (I'm thinking of you, Phil) who wonder what the difference is between contemporary poetry and prose. Not to be a dick, but it has nothing to do with line breaks vs. paragraphs. There are some 'novels' composed entirely of poetry (the best ones) and some 'poetry' collections composed entirely of prose.

Just to finish things up, last week, I saw Nutter (with a name like "Nutter," you can see how Geoff is hyper-sensitive to the distinctions I discussed above) read with Dorothea Lasky as part of the St. Mark's Bookstore's reading series.  He and Lasky—whose books Awe and Black Life are up next for review— are royal guards of the poetry reading as it ought to be, a painfully awkward and intellectually disturbing experience. I'm not being ironic. That's what they should be; if poets didn't need to sell books, I would say that readings shouldn't exist at all. Nutter's whole family was in attendance, and I have to say, his two adorable children look awfully skinny. I'm a little worried for them. Having committed his life to teaching and writing poetry, their father is a certifiable lunatic. I urge you to buy this book. Please. For the children.