What's Wrong with Artifice

'AWE', the first poetry collection by Dorothea Lasky, was published by WAVE Books in 2007 to much fanfare and high acclaim.

Am I some kind of a blasphemer if I must diverge from the general consensus that seems to have surrounded this book in a buzzing, glowing bubble?

For me, it is only a 3 star book.

I do appreciate the risk taken by offering a collection that is a significant stylistic departure from a lot of contemporary poetry being published today. However, this style is not my style and doesn't really resonate for me.

It certainly does seem to have resonated for many other readers. I have heard a lot of praise for how refreshing it is. I have a heard a lot of laudatory remarks about how honest it is.

I am not sure what makes this book strike people as being more honest than any number of other books. Is it the relatively pared down style, the relatively straightforward usage of language that does not rely heavily upon figures of speech or even very specific imagery, for that matter?

In one poem, the speaker states,

"There is shit on my hands
When I have been playing around with specifics.

Love your lover. You are a lover."

Well, I like specifics--and I don't relate to this poetry's seeming disdain for artifice or complexity. This poetry seems to regard artifice and complexity as liars and unnecessary clutter, but I do not agree. I do not think that weeding out figures of speech or winnowing things down to simple statements is necessarily a more honest approach or that it necessarily comes closer to the truth--or at least certainly not everyone's truth. It is just another approach, just another style.

Perhaps this poetry is trying to get down to the essence of things--but statements like 'Love your lover. You are a lover.' do not strike me as particularly enlightening epiphanies or summations (maybe they're not meant to be; maybe they're meant to be more like small celebrations). Others may disagree and they are welcome to.

I think that there are many different kinds of honesty, truth, verisimilitude, and authenticity. This poetry may well be authentic in its own way and by its own standards and by its own logic, but it not THE truth. It is A truth.

I think that 'AWE' is an apt title for this book, because it seems to convey a certain tone of child-like wonder and perhaps that comes across as quite refreshing to some readers. To me, it often comes across as overly earnest and sometimes simplistic.

I especially don't relate to the repeated references to 'soul' and 'spirit' and 'God'. I tend to dislike the words 'soul' and 'spirit'. They don't mean anything to me or even evoke much of anything for me. Of course, every reader is going to bring her own interpretations to poetry and I have no problem with ambiguity or certain kinds of abstraction, but those words strike me as so abstract as to be almost meaningless, unless one is coming from a certain sort of Christian or spiritual background, which I am not. This poetry probably thinks that I am spiritually bankrupt.

The logic of this poetry makes me feel like I am being unaccepted by not being willing to lovingly embrace words like 'soul' and 'spirit'. The logic of this poetry seems to be seeking to purify. It makes me feel like I'm standing in line to receive some holy sacrament, except that I don't believe in God and so I don't know what soul and spirit are supposed to mean to me.

I remember when I was reading 'The Artist's Way', which made repeated reference to God, but also suggested that if one did not believe in God in a religious sense, then she could feel free to substitute the acronym 'Good Orderly Direction'. Ick.

Maybe I cannot embrace this book because I am conflicted, convoluted, contradictory, and tainted rather than pure and furthermore, I am not seeking to purify. I am not seeking to distill things down to their essences; I would rather cull countless weird artifact after weird artifact and explore irreconcilable facets.

I like layers. I like gradations. This poetry seems to be a little more about black & white dichotomies and I don't like to view things that way.

Things are always filtered through many other things, but filtering things does not always make them more basic and elemental. Sometimes it makes them more complex and difficult to navigate.

Certainly, there were some pieces I liked and some lines I liked, but overall it was a little too swept up into the breezy spirits of bluebirds and such.

I tend to dislike sweeping proclamations about love and soul and spirit and the great vision of art.

I tend to dislike the seeming assumption that one person's grand and overzealous ideas can somehow speak for us all.