The Daily Glance
Deborah Meadows’ Saccade Patterns is firmly rooted in experimental poetic practice; she uses a variety of techniques to explore difficult topics, from how we relate to each other to the erotic, and the poems themselves are beautifully put together, even when very dense. Ultimately, she raises more questions than she answers. Take the first lines of “Historically speaking”:
This precise eucalyptus bark peels down—
it’s how the tree narrows down possibility
yet placed here, they must adore
the equation: the hinge between
here and there, zero and quadratic items,
unripe earth and fraught sky, loose confederacy towards
a skimpy democratic plan.
Well, are we talking about peeling bark or something else here? Just look at the lines. "This precise eucalyptus"--which one? Just some tree she's looking at, or is the poem metaphorically a tree shedding bark? And the peeling, does that narrow down possibility? Why, because of the shedding of other bits? Then we skip a space and begin a new stanza. Is the narrative continued or have we started something new? For example, if the bark or tree is placed here, wherever here may be, then, it becomes an equation for narrowing possibility? Or is that some other equation? Is it a hinge? Or is that something else? It's easy to see how the myriad bark pieces could be a loose confederacy, but are we still talking about the bark? Is this about the poem, the words becoming a confederacy? Or is this some accumulation of equations, or coupled items ("here and there," "zero and quadratic items," earth and sky)? Basically, is she leading us through a complicated analogy or using quick shifts from idea to idea (which would go well with the title of the book)? I'm not sure, but the questions that arise when reading the poems are fascinating, and the language of the book carries me through it easily.
Deborah Meadows’ Saccade Patterns is firmly rooted in experimental poetic practice; she uses a variety of techniques to explore difficult topics, from how we relate to each other to the erotic, and the poems themselves are beautifully put together, even when very dense. Ultimately, she raises more questions than she answers. Take the first lines of “Historically speaking”:
This precise eucalyptus bark peels down—
it’s how the tree narrows down possibility
yet placed here, they must adore
the equation: the hinge between
here and there, zero and quadratic items,
unripe earth and fraught sky, loose confederacy towards
a skimpy democratic plan.
Well, are we talking about peeling bark or something else here? Just look at the lines. "This precise eucalyptus"--which one? Just some tree she's looking at, or is the poem metaphorically a tree shedding bark? And the peeling, does that narrow down possibility? Why, because of the shedding of other bits? Then we skip a space and begin a new stanza. Is the narrative continued or have we started something new? For example, if the bark or tree is placed here, wherever here may be, then, it becomes an equation for narrowing possibility? Or is that some other equation? Is it a hinge? Or is that something else? It's easy to see how the myriad bark pieces could be a loose confederacy, but are we still talking about the bark? Is this about the poem, the words becoming a confederacy? Or is this some accumulation of equations, or coupled items ("here and there," "zero and quadratic items," earth and sky)? Basically, is she leading us through a complicated analogy or using quick shifts from idea to idea (which would go well with the title of the book)? I'm not sure, but the questions that arise when reading the poems are fascinating, and the language of the book carries me through it easily.
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