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 Long sections of his poems can be read as prose. This has no detrimental effect on the poetry as poetry. The result is a highly individual style that owes much to lessons absorbed from modernist work, lessons absorbed and then ignored for Carter’s work is largely narrative poetry that looks back to earlier, nineteenth century models.
Reviewed by Bob Williams
Cross This Bridge at a Walk
by Jared Carter
Wind Publications
2006, ISBN 1893239462, $15.00, 109 pages
Jared Carter, born 1939, has enjoyed varied experience as worker for a newspaper and a publishing house,as well as – nearer to his own profession as a poet – his experience as writer-in-residence. This is his fourth book of poems.
Carter decided relatively late in his life to write poetry rather than fiction and the influence of a capable writer of prose shows through his poetry. Long sections of his poems can be read as prose. This has no detrimental effect on the poetry as poetry. The result is a highly individual style that owes much to lessons absorbed from modernist work, lessons absorbed and then ignored for Carter’s work is largely narrative poetry that looks back to earlier, nineteenth century models.
Here is an illustrative example (from ‘Mussel Shell with Three Blanks Sawed Out’) chosen at random of Carter’s quiet approach to a form that uses the virtues of both poetry and prose:
You know the road into Wabash from the south,
down the big hill, right at the bottom? Well,
if you turn right, there’s this grassy place –
that was where the old button factory stood.
Since the difference between prose and poetry is one of tension, it will be apparent that Carter’s poetry has the relaxation of prose. It is in the final lines that he draws taut the lines of his narrative vision. In ‘Mussel Shell’ an old man has an exceptional pearl that is the great treasure of his life. His friend was the young boy, now a man, who ponders after the death of the old man if he had kept or sold the pearl:
Even when Dude
was an old man, well up in years, and couldn’t
get around much, and didn’t have many visitors,
I like to believe that he still held on to it.
That way,
when he wanted to remember, he could get it out
of a night, and look at it, and polish it a little,
and hold it up to the lamp, to see it catch the light.
This is quietly perfect and a matter of nicely applied judgment, a virtue that Carter has in abundance.
Of the sixteen poems of this collection, many are narratives, but some are more lyrical celebrations. There is a lovely, comparatively short, tribute to Emily Dickinson, and two imaginative meditations on Scott Joplin and Bix Beiderbecke. These two reflect Carter’s interest in music, especially Rag, and his capacity as a pianist, which he modestly describes as amateur.
Poets are the poor relations of literature in the United States who if they dine at all at popularity’s table must dine on tiptoe. But for the discriminating reader the poetry of Jared Carter will be fascinating experience and one that will repay attention abundantly.
About the Reviewer: Bob Williams is retired and lives in a small town with his wife, dogs and a cat. He has been collecting books all his life, and has done freelance writing, mostly on classical music. His principal interests are James Joyce, Jane Austen and Homer. His book Joyce Country, a guide to persons and places, can be accessed at: http://www.grand-teton.com/service/Persons_Places
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