The Daily Glance
Joshua Beckman's Take It is like many other books with its dark view of contemporary American life, but Beckman claims a place as a quiet bard concerned about our future in the book, and he urges us to take a look at ourselves without screaming loudly at us***. He points out what he sees and places himself firmly in middle.
Joshua Beckman's Take It is like many other books with its dark view of contemporary American life, but Beckman claims a place as a quiet bard concerned about our future in the book, and he urges us to take a look at ourselves without screaming loudly at us***. He points out what he sees and places himself firmly in middle.
So long have we forgiven ourselves an ancestryIs there hope for a way out of situation in Beckman's work? I'm not sure. I like to think of the book's first poem as a worldview summary. In that poem, a park ranger lets an "angry mob" know that a park trail is closed with a letter. Her p.s. is the following.
that now we must attend to. Fragile us,
we said. Intemperate world, we said.
But here we are again among the mountains
and rivers, and what will we say now?
We deserve no more oceans, we deserve no more
banks, we deserve now more medication.
Athletically we live in this world and may we
speak no more of survival. I want to say, our gift,
but what, after that, would I say?
Ofttimes as the day ends***Beckman is the type of artist I call a weaver in my book In the Weaver's Valley.
on a wet bed of yellow leaves
or the sky densens gray and dark
I am brought to imagine
the growing disquiet
in the hearts of my countrymen.
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