Rara Avis
By Blas Falconer
4 Method Books | 2024 | 77 pages
Sometimes, after I start studying a poem or ebook of poems, I’m hit full drive by the need to talk out loud, Ah, that is poetry! I would like poetry to ship the whole lot it may possibly, the whole lot: philosophy, story, music, expertise, thoughts and physique, thought and sensation. When it does, it may be entire, the best way a dwelling organism, with its personal techniques of breath and motion and beating coronary heart, might be. If it’s not, I’d transfer onto different distractions. Whether it is, I can’t cease eager about it—like I can’t cease eager about Blas Falconer’s new assortment, Rara Avis.
Whereas these stunning poems are compelling, exploring matters of household and fatherhood, disgrace and love, and portraying summers in Puerto Rico, grandmothers, cousins, the vagaries of genetics, forgiveness, and kindness, what makes the poems unforgettable is their superb craftsmanship, breathtaking turns, and easy line breaks which might be pure but shocking.
“Pancreas” is a placing instance of how such turns and breaks can construct and transfer readers by a posh and shocking emotional panorama. It begins as many of the poems on this assortment do, quietly and easily, on this case with shut examination of an organ, taking a look at its capabilities, habits, and the way it can malfunction.
Right here is the poem in its entirety:
Pancreas
A gland, like
a sponge,
secreting fluids to
regulate
blood sugar, to
break down.
Widespread
illnesses embrace
irritation (pan-
creatitis) and
most cancers (ab-
dominal ache,
weight reduction,
jaundice). It’s
attainable to reside
with out one, my
father says
on the cellphone, a
dryness in
his mouth, his
tongue sticking as
he tells me what
to anticipate if
he’s fortunate. And
all day, the whole lot
regardless of how
small, makes me
consider it,
hidden deep
inside me,
weeping. The bee
crawling in
blossoms
scattered on
the glass
tabletop. The sound of
a pitcher fill-
ing slowly
with water.
The traces “It’s attainable to reside with out one” adopted instantly by “my father” signify a robust flip, the place the pancreas turns into a metaphor for the daddy, who the speaker, his son, can not reside with out. Later within the poem, one other flip—this one subtler however simply as highly effective—transforms the pancreas into the speaker’s personal grief, “consider it, / hidden deep / inside me // weeping…” What makes this final flip so masterful is how, with none particular fanfare, it harkens again to the opening description of the pancreas “secreting fluid” and “breaking down.”
Poems like this one, documenting narrative moments in lyrical phrases, construct on each other to create a life, a consciousness, within the panorama of the physique and world, all made haunting by the poetry—two boys wrestle, touching, discovering one another’s pores and skin, a flash of intimacy, earlier than turning away (“Qué Significa”); a person and his son take turns studying a narrative, the place the daddy dies earlier than the primary sentence, the son typically questioning if the daddy is gone for good, typically yawning with boredom (“Within the ebook we’re studying collectively”); a younger boy stands in keeping with his mom, embarrassed as she shouts on the man behind them, He can’t contact me! like that! (“Figura Serpintinata”)
These poems are quiet, however with a outstanding emotional heft conveyed by direct commentary of the physique. The gathering opens with the poem “Rara Avis,” which gives an outline of a hen embalmed and entombed with its king. The emotional content material is pushed by the unflinching precision of the descriptions: “Pressure-fed mice, sparrows, it couldn’t // expel the bones, the claws, / and died having eaten an excessive amount of, // the abdomen packed: feather and / fur, tail descending the throat.” This poem gives what seems to be a straight-up invitation to discover a connection between Falconer and the hen, starting with this: “A falcon, certainly one of tens of millions raised / for sacrifice…” Is that this creature an archetype for the poet? The emotionally charged imaginative and prescient of a hen raised in captivity, denied entry to its pure habitat, is an added layer to the narrative moments on this assortment the place the speaker involves phrases with what he has been drive fed—loss, demise, definitions of masculinity, and his personal wishes.
“My Son Needs to Know Who His Organic Father Is” is a poem during which the reader shares the bodily and emotional expertise of the speaker, a father watching his son at swim follow by way of traces solid briefly and rhythmic strokes with phrases repeated like laps in a pool.
My Son Needs to Know Who His Organic Father Is
My son desires to know
his title. What does he seem like? What does
he like? My son swims
4 days every week. When my son swims
underwater, he glides
between strokes. When he glides underwater, he’s
an arrow aimed
at a wall. 4 days every week, his coach says
Depend—1…2…— earlier than
arising for air.
My father had blue eyes, blond hair,
although mine are brown.
My father couldn’t converse
Spanish and puzzled, How are you going to love
one other man? We hardly ever touched.
When my son
is counting, I rely
with him. I say, I’m
your father, too. 1…2…
Because the son swims and counts, so does the speaker, and so can we. The speaker has been right here earlier than, “4 days every week,” watching his son, alone with these musings. The son is aiming like an arrow, nevertheless it’s an arrow pointed at a wall. We will really feel his willpower to know all that he’s, to be it and assert it. We will really feel the partitions that include and frustrate the desire to know utterly who one is.
A flip, a alternative phrase, a line break can kick the reader into new and deeper territory, as when the poem turns abruptly to the speaker’s father: “My father had blue eyes, blonde hair, / although mine are brown.” The phrase “although” factors to one thing extra sophisticated than a easy distinction, extra like a concession to actuality, prompting a shocking ache that takes maintain even earlier than we get to the extra direct expressions of distances between the speaker and his father: “My father couldn’t converse / Spanish and puzzled. How are you going to love / one other man? We hardly ever touched.” These traces are expressions of an ongoing conceit, the poet/speaker grappling with the captivity he has skilled inside his family and the truth he was drive fed.
With Rara Avis’s placing first poem, I entered a world of storytelling whose deft lyricism moved me from poem to poem. We open with the physique of a hen, make a connection to the human physique’s very important organ, the guts, after which demise, life, fatherhood, sons, and lovers. The vanity of the uncommon hen by no means disappears. It’s a form of gloss, a information, an added layer of that means, exhibiting us the distinctive hen in each story. Certainly, in all our tales.
