One may wonder: how does Benet make the poetry of her poems, how does she put together the pieces that, together, make us gasp? I find four ways that she arrives at this work.
First, one kind of poem begins with the sense that "I know what this is and I search it for meaning." She starts with a general statement or insight and follows it with the particulars that support it, or with an incident or an item that sparks lines about how it is like something else. Her poem "Recursion" is one such example.
In her second way of constructing a poem, the poem builds to what it means; meaning emerges at the end. Particulars lead to a general statement or insight or understanding. Details accrue to meaning. The poems "Incident," "Ecologue, Minor," and "Disenthrallment" are excellent examples of this method.
In the third type of poem, "This is what it is." She arranges the particulars pretty much without comment, and the poetry is found in their relation to one another. "Performance," "Blood from Stone," and the third part of "Triptych: Crossings" would be examples. "Nil Admirari," which is a kind of litany in answer to her son's question "What is an angel," would also fall into this category.
And, finally, there is the approach which uses a combination of the three previous ways of shaping a poem. For instance, "California Littoral" starts with generalization; but in the end the particulars speak for themselves, i.e. the microwave bobbing on the waves is what it is: it doesn't mean anything; in that it may be like much else in our lives, where meaning is such a frail gossamer.
I have been singing high praise of Benet's work here; and I mean to sing high praise: this is lovely poetry. But the poet is human; and even the best of us falter. For instance, Benet's poem "Roses" fizzles out, and the final five lines "tell" instead of "show;" it starts profound enough, but ends up insubstantial, at least in my reading of it. The poem on the facing page, "Iridescence," takes nothing larger as its subject, yet makes something of it. I could discuss these poems side by side, to establish what makes one of them work, and the other not, but I don't want to do all the work: you, the reader, should read them and compare them and judge them for yourself.
And I suppose I wouldn't be an Iowa farm-boy if I didn't mention that, at least in my experience, you do not put "grain" in a silo, you put silage or haylage in a silo; you put grain in a crib or a bin. What do they say - even Homer nods? So does Milton and so do I. One wishes to forgive Benet's lapse on the strength of the rest of that particular poem.
Thirdly, I would suggest that the vantage and stance and tone of the second last poem in the book, "Instability," are wrong for this collection. The poem is not a "bad" poem by any means, it is simply in the wrong place; it may belong in another book.
Continued at MAPMAKER - 7, below
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