★★★★★ 5
A fine performance
Format: Paperback
You see an old pocket knife on the cover, maybe a Case; it may have even belonged to Jesse Graves, but he has certainly used it
in sculpting his poetry. "Tennessee Landscape" is pure plain speech, and all the more evocative for it. Graves uses language not to shock, not incite and not to transgress; he uses it to bring home simple and time worn truths that never go away. In the poem that is the book's title, Graves recounts his family history and ends telling us "The dead move through us at their will, their voices chime/just beyond our hearing...alone in the field, and never alone." He pays homage to a farming tool"(Elegy for a Hay Rake), not with a tone of jaundiced cynicism, speaking to it instead in a voice filled with thanks and appreciation, as if the hay rake, too,knew how worthwhile its job had been.
The second part of the volume expands Graves' geography from East Tennessee to New Orleans, North Carolina, points beyond, and the cast of subjects becomes a little broader as well, but the language remains firm and precise. "The Night Cafe: North Rendon, New Orleans": diction so perfect I feel I was there that night too. "My Sister at Sea": likely my favorite here. It feels personal, a short glimpse into a private heart; the glimpse is snatched away in a hurry but not before Graves tells us "...wishing I could bring/ you to this shore...Make your illness a small boat we could burn/Sailing out in ashes on the current."
Whether it is a landscape, a hay rake, a bar or a loved one, Jesse Graves is a poet of things that last, one who writes quiet confessions with confidence in a spare quiet and sure voice.
Very highly recommend this book.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2013
