Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden

A book review by Zinta Aistars



* Hardcover: 144 pages
* Publisher: Harmony, 2001
* ISBN: 0609609017
* $15.00

I need no convincing to read poetry. It is second nature to me... if not first in line. There is this quick, pointed injection of life that poetry offers that lengthier prose cannot. An image. A snap of sound. A gut punch. A sudden miracle. A flash of light. A surprise. Housden has recognized this and, with this book, presents his own miracle of found poetry to the general reader. He has chosen ten poems by ten very different authors out of ten different planes of existence (time, space, culture) and presented them here to - more than not, I think - the mostly uninitiated. Certainly these are not complex poems. No argument on their quality. They are definitely not the ten that I would choose (although one or two of them might indeed make it onto my list also)... but they don't have to be! Poetry is, after all, as personal and intimate as making love. Indeed, it is making love... the mind in the most intimate relationship with life in all its juices and flavors.

Housden's choices range from Whitman's enthused "Song of Myself" (this one would make it onto my list also)... to the simple pleasures of "Ode to My Socks" by Pablo Neruda... to the inspirational "The Journey" by Mary Oliver... to the old age reborn to new age "Zero Circle" by Rumi... to the deliciously sensual "Last Gods" by Galway Kinnell... to the always impressive "For the Anniversary of My Death" by W.S. Merwin... and more. Each poem is followed by Housden's essay elaborating his choice, the poem's effect on him, it's life-changing (at least for him) message. He kindles the poetry flame, and that is a wonderful thing.

For those who are reasonably well acquainted with poetry, there is little new here. The authors should all be familiar ones, several by now considered classics. There are Pulitzer Prize winners along with those appearing in smaller literary presses. None of that, I suspect, was part of Housden's criteria in his choices. He appears to have chosen poems for their ability to stop time, for just a moment, and cause some kind of metamorphosis, an epiphany, a momentary trembling of the earth beneath his reading feet. While a few of these choices left me unmoved, as a whole, I enjoyed the book and sharing in his perspective while keeping my own. Revisiting Whitman was a nostalgia of youthful enthusiasm, for instance. Whitman showed us that poetry need not be stodgy or stiff with rhyme and iambic pentameter. While both Neruda and Rumi left me cool, and Machado had only a mild effect... the encounter of "Last Gods" by Galway Kinnell... mm, left me purring. Never underestimate the power of the written word, indeed. Not only is it more powerful than the sword, but nothing can compete... no trash magazine, no cheap celluloid... with the eroticism of such well chosen words. Kinnell's poem evokes ripples of sensation, sweet sweet, savory, leaving all the senses tingling... but also stimulates the most erogenous zone of all: the mind. It is not shy. It is not embarrassed to be precise in its description. Yet here is a most wonderful example of the difference between erotic art... and pornography. One being of beauty, uplifting, lasting... while the other is ugly and base. One enriches while the other degrades. In his essay following the poem, Housden writes:

"...pornography divorces body from soul and turns body into a thing, which can be used like any other thing for profit in the marketplace. Pornography is a caricature of the erotic; it can only exist by demanding anonymity, and substituting fantasy for relationship. Without relationship, there is no soul. There is only sensation, for its own sake; and sensation is no more than skin deep. Sensation on its own - however orgasmic - fails to deliver the goods. To skim the surface of life ultimately leaves us on our own, and predictably, lonely. One reason we seem to be such a pleasure-hungry society is that we are habitually looking for it in all the wrong places."

As Housden says of Kinnell (and oh yes, I am looking up this poet on my next trip to the library), this slim volume of applause to poetry, its word-play and its word-ecstasy and its word-power, is one of immersion into the experience. "Great poetry," Housden says, "can alter the way we see ourselves. It can change the way we see the world... suddenly you see your own original face there; suddenly find yourself blown into a world full of awe, dread, wonder, marvel, deep sorrow, and joy.... poetry bids us... to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind; it calls to us, like the wild geese, from an open sky."

Whether these ten poems call to us, some of these ten, or another ten of our own choosing... poetry is an experience worthy of immersion. Housden's enthusiasm for the literary form is contagious. That enthusiasm, taken to be one's own, that understanding of the power of the word, is what can change lives.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

A book review by Zinta Aistars




* Hardcover: 672 pages
* Publisher: Modern Library, 2002
* ISBN: 0679642595
* $23.95

It's not often my son--a well read young man in his early 20's--recommends a book to me with such effusive enthusiasm. How could I not read "A Prayer for Owen Meany" with that kind of encouragement? Granted, son and I have very different tastes in tomes. But Irving is actually an author more my style, and the novel I just finished prior to this one, "Da Vinci's Code," was more his style. I'm always willing to stretch. We traded books.

Ah, what a refreshing pause! I had been somewhat disappointed in Dan Brown's literary style (or lack of) and so John Irving's much more complex, much more nuanced, much more intellectual approach to storytelling was renewed pleasure in words. I gave a nod of approval to my offspring even as I turned the first pages.

Alas, I turned them more slowly as chapters wore on...

Irving has indeed created an odd couple of characters: Owen Meany, the dwarfish youth with high-pitched voice of stunning self-importance that wavers between arrogance one moment and self-sacrificial lamb of God the next, and his sidekick Johnny Wheelwright, illegitimate child of a striking, freespirited woman soon killed off by a baseball Owen accidentally slams across the baseball field during a Little League game to hit its killing blow against her temple. Not that this would destroy the odd friendship of these two. Indeed, it bonds them for life. As for Owen, he doesn't believe in accidents, especially not this one. What transpires through the remainder of the story, tracing the lives of these two from children into adulthood, is a complex weave of seeming circumstance into eventual climactic conclusion that rather neatly ties many loose threads together into a tight knot. Owen has foreseen his own death by a visionary dream, and he never doubts, at least not until the final days of his life, that this dream is the beacon guiding him home (home being, for Owen, heaven for those who would enter through the gates of martyrdom).

In the process of these two strange lives, topics of destiny and fate, religion, American politics and foreign policy, various rites of passage from childhood into adulthood, and other miscellaneous lighter and deeper issues are undertaken. These, too, all come together into the neat knot at the book's end.

I won out in the book exchange with my son, no argument there. Irving is a quality writer. But, although I have yet to read his other works, I suspect this one is not his best. The ideas he undertakes are fascinating enough, yet I found myself unmoved by either Owen's fate or Johnny's somewhat victimized standing by. Perhaps we all need more of a mirroring of our own experiences to truly lose ourselves in a book, and while I did not have those experiences that might bond, my son obviously did. One vote this way, one vote that.

Saving Milly by Morton Kondracke

Book Review by Zinta Aistars



* Hardcover: 320 pages
* Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1st edition, 2001
* ISBN: 1586480375
* $25.00

In order to learn more about a disease that has affected several family members, I read Saving Milly with great interest. I was quickly pulled in. Kondracke writes with honesty about a strong and vital woman, his wife, as well as what it means to be caregiver and spouse to one afflicted with Parkinson's Disease. He has much to say in praise of his Milly, while often taking an unglorious view of himself. He admits to insecurities and vanities and weaknesses few of us would admit to in public, let alone to ourselves. Most admirable, perhaps, is the love story intertwined with the story of how both Mort and Milly, each in their own way, cope with PD. In a time when so few relationships survive the minor bumps and bruises of everyday life, this one has survived a major crisis, grown even stronger for the testing. When these two married for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and with a promise of fidelity... they meant it. Wonderful.

While much of what Kondracke writes about the symptoms and treatments of Milly's disease were, in basic outlines, already known to me, I was intrigued to read his insights into the politics of a disease. I was not surprised... yet nonetheless dismayed. Money rules. Connections count. Nothing like celebrity to shine a spotlight on a particular illness. Hrmph. But so be it, this is reality. And to see it in sharper light of realistic approaches and political power can only help us play the game more effectively. None of us should be unaware of the lies we are too often fed by politicians, but all of us should hold those we vote into office accountable. In the end, it is most important to understand that causes close to our heart must be championed if they are to be cured.

Kondracke has given us a window onto a disease that has or will touch many of our lives, a disease that has gotten too little attention, especially prior to exposure gained by Michael J. Fox (who also makes an appearance in this book). It may not be the most typical experience with PD, especially in terms of the kind of care he could provide Milly because of his own celebrity and his own higher income bracket, but that is of less importance than the story of survival achieved with love, grace, compassion, and insight.