The Brentwood
Anthology is a strong
collection out of a local poetry workshop
These
are writers seriously engaged in the art of poetry
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The great
American poet — and Pittsburgh native — Jack Gilbert disliked academic poems,
because he felt they were not "serious enough." What he strived for,
and felt all poets should strive for, is "poetry that matters."
Gilbert began his
career at the famous Poetry as Magic workshop in San Francisco, during the
1950s. Workshops have become the main alternative to MFA programs as entrée to
the writing profession, and are just as numerous. Yet few have been as
successful as the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, run by Michael Wurster since
1974. Now Wurster, and co-editor Judith Robinson, have published The
Brentwood Anthology (nine toes press; $15), a collection
from workshop participants. As rare as it is for a non-academic entity to be
involved in publishing, it is even rarer to find a collection clearly devoted
to poems that matter.
Even more
surprising is the generally high quality of work from an open workshop that
welcomes all participants — neophytes, amateurs and professionals. Certainly
the maturity and depth of the poems vary, but these are writers seriously
engaged in the art of poetry.
Among the 120
poems by 22 poets, there are strong pieces in a variety of styles. For example,
in a mere 13 words, John Stokes manages to convey the pain of losing someone in
the epically concise "Working on the Old House": Gone almost three
years, I still keep my
tools apart from his
tools.
Stephen Pusateri
combines lyricism and irony in "He had a mouthful of sparrow bones":
"His laugh could have cut / each bird from its flight / had they room to
fly." It is the ability of poems like this, that achieve beauty without
taking themselves too seriously, that makes them exceptional in today's often
sententious poetry marketplace. Likewise, Ziggy Edwards' "Girlfriend
Machine," which sardonically describes a broken relationship in terms of
spooning in bed: "It will be my fault when you peel off / these clinging
arms, draw a line down the middle, / force me to become something else in the
dark." Such work awakens us to the exciting dangers of human relationships
without choking on sincerity.
Gene Hirsch
brilliantly evokes another examination of love in the enigmatic "By the
First Light of Day" by showing, instead of telling us, the
character's feelings. If more poets did this, as Brentwood Anthology contributors
strive to do, we would be rewarded as readers much more often.