B R the Pacific Rim R P Review of Books Issue Twenty-Three Vol. 12, No. 1 Publication Mail Agreement Number 41235032 ISSN 1715-3700 $5.95 EILEEN DELEHANTY PEARKES RETHINKS THE COLUMBIA RIVER TREATY AIMÉ CÉSAIRE: LARRY EIGNER: ALAN GRAUBARD REVIEWS THE COMPLETE POETRY A TRIBUTE BY JACK FOLEY Letter from Paris: Anna Aublet Joanne Kyger’s There You are: on Virginie Despentes Interviews, Journals, and Ephemera Reviewed by Colin James Sanders Michael McClure’s Brand new Persian Pony , reviewed by Jesse Boyes Linda Rogers reviews Euclid’s Orchard & other essays by Theresa Kishkan The Collected Poems of Sam Hamill reviewed by Charles Potts Ajmer Rode on Pablo Neruda’s Venture of the Infinite Man The Hidden Master: George Dowden An Essay by Gerald Nicosia Rajnish Dhawan looks at David Chariandy’s Brother Jim Christy Remembers Peter Trower Vietnam Redux: The Road Not Taken reviewed by Richard Wirick 0 1 plus: Brian Wilson, Kallie George’s children’s lit, the sacred herb, and new poetry by 7572006 86399 George Elliot Clarke, Michael Dennis & John Creary Contents Features: Habitation: Collected Poems by Sam Hamill Review by Charles Potts page 3 The Hidden Master: George Dowden Essay by Gerald Nicosia page 4 The Complete Poetry of Aimé Césaire by Aimé Césaire Review by Allan Graubard page 7 PRRBPacific Rim Review of Books Remembering Peter Trower Essay by Jim Christy page 11 Issue Twenty-Three Vol. 12 No. 1 Spring 2018 A Tribute to Larry Eigner: The Last Ten Years ISSN 1715-3700 Publication Mail Agreement Number 4123503 Essay by Jack Foley page 13 There You Are: Interviews, Journals, and Ephemera by Joanne Kyger Review by Colin James Sanders page 21 Brother by David Chariandy Published by Pacific Rim Review of Books Ltd. Review by Rajnish Dhawan page 25 Publisher/Editor: Richard Olafson “McClure’s Visionary Journey”: Persian Pony by Michael McClure Review by Jesse Boyes page 26 Managing Editor: Carol Ann Sokoloff Venture of the Infinite Man by Pablo Neruda International Editor: Trevor Carolan Review by Ajmer Rode page 30 Music Editor: Joseph Blake Medical Editor: Dr. Nicolas Kats Departments: Circulation manager: Bernard Gastel Environment: A River Captured by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes Contributing editors: Jordan Zinovich (New York), klipschutz (San Francisco), Review by Rose Morrison page 10 Richard Wirick (Los Angeles), Paul Nelson (Seattle), Gregory Dunne (Japan), Antonio Whale in the Door by Pauline Le Bel D’Alfonso (Montreal), Peter McCambridge (Quebec), Carol Ann Sokoloff (Victoria), Review by Elise Roberts page 19 Linda Rogers (Victoria), Harold Rhenisch (Vernon), Anna Aublet (Paris). Music Books: I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir by Brian Wilson Review by Joseph Blake page 20 Legal deposit at the National Library of Canada, Summer/Fall . Letter from Paris: “Virginie Despentes’ NFT Guide of Paris: Vernon Subutex ” PRRB welcomes manuscripts and letters, but we take no responsibility for their safe Essay by Anna Aublet page 22 return. If you would like your work back, enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Children’s Books: The Heartwood Hotel by Kallie George Review by Chelsea Pastorchik page 25 Do not send original artwork. All texts will be edited for clarity and length, and Border Crossings: “Delight and Dismay: Life in a Refugee Clinic”: Your Heart authorship checked; please include all contact information. is the Size of Your Fist, by Martina Scholtens, review by Rose Morrison page 28 Diplomacy: “Spies and Prophets”: The Road Not Taken by Max Boot The PRRB is published three times a year. Back issues are available at .. A one-year Review by Richard Wirick page 31 subscription in Canada is . plus GST. Please send a cheque payable to the PRRB. Mind & Body: “The Mind Makes Up the World”: From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel C. Dennett, review by Richard Wirick page 35 PRRB mailing address for all inquiries: Poetry Round-Up: Cemetery Compost by Murray Reis; Blood Orange by Box Main Postal Outlet Heidi Garnett; Infinite Power by Janet Vickers Victoria, B.C., Canada VW S Review by Candice James page 39 email: [email protected] phone & fax: () - Reviews: “Two from Anvil”: Escape from Wreck City by John Creary; Bad Engine Copyright Pacific Rim Review of Books for the contributors by Michael Dennis , review by Ryan Pastorchik page 18 Nearly Normal by Cea Sunrise Person, review by Chelsea Pastorchik page 20 Opinions expressed in reviews and articles in the Pacific Rim Review of Books are the Tramping the Bulrushes by John Clarke, review by Patrick James Dunagan page 23 opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of the PRRB. “Tales and Photos of BC Families”: The Language of Family, edited by Michelle van der Merwe, review by Eric Spalding page 24 In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma Review by Trevor Carolan page 24 Drawing the Shade by Michael Rothenberg This issue of the Review by Richard Stevenson page 26 Pacific Rim Review of Books The Sacred Herb/The Devil’s Wood by Andrew Struthers Review by Paulo Phelonius page 27 is dedicated to the memory of Two Roads Home by Daniel Griffin Peter Trower Review by Joel Robertson Taylor page 29 “Trouble and Beauty”: Too Late to Turn Back Now by Finn Wilcox (1930-2017) Review by Ajmer Rode page 32 Euclid’s Orchard & Other Essays by Theresa Kishkan Review by Linda Rogers page 34 A great friend and author, Extra Illicit Sonnets by George Elliot Clarke he will be missed. Review by Linda Rogers page 36 “Hitting the Mother Lode”: Captain Poetry’s Sucker Punch by Kenneth Warren Review by Emily Izsak page 37 The Summer Book, edited by Mona Fertig Chainsaws in the Hellhound on His Review by Linda Rogers page 38 Cathedral: Trail & Other Collected Woods Stories Poems Ekstasis Editions Ekstasis Editions Feature Habitation: Sam Hamill Collected Charles Potts t six hundred pages, one poem after another, in Asome apparent approximation of chronological order, and with no section breaks or indication which if any of Hamill’s previous books the poems were collected from, or if they are published here for the first time, a reader is presented with a long string of con - sciousness that varies little and doesn’t present any requi - site dynamic development. In fact the poet seems to be altogether too conscious of what he is writing with very little sense of the unconscious, mystical, musical break - through which gives poetry one of its essential qualities. It often feels as if one is reading the same poem over again. Hamill’s frequent modus operandi is to begin a poem by setting a scene, often starkly realized and concrete in detail. The chief purpose of this scene making device, Habitation: Collected usually with the initial stanza or poetic paragraph is to Poems create a backdrop for a pose. See the poet in his garden, Sam Hamill on the beach, at a café, troubled by the nature of things 600 pages, Lost Horse and his position in them. When the going gets thin, he Press, 2014 Sam Hamill conjures up what he considers to be his poetic antecedents, Hamill has been, many times apparently. In “Lives of a Poet: Four Letters to Hayden Du Fu, George Seferis, Kenneth Rexroth, and several dozen others, more famous names Carruth,” we hear about “Wily Su Tung-p’o” and before that third letter is completed, than you’d care to hear recited. This name drop soup, the great poets of the past with “You, like Su Tung-p’o,/are a master, a wily/old fox…/” The wily fox has been a Hamill mugging for the camera, is often all that the work contains. “Summer Rain” is hackneyed reference at least since Aesop. Mentioning the names of many great poets a good example of this literary echo chamber: doesn’t make the work they are named in great poetry. There are a lot of epistles here, a classical stance of the poem in the form of a letter. In fact the book commences with Kotaro duly noted, his echo a letter to Han Shan, (not that he will ever receive it). Writing letters to or dedicating Of Han Shan’s echo of Lao Tzu, poems to some relatively famous poet (dead or alive), can be a feeble attempt to And hundreds of years between. strengthen an otherwise unremarkable poem. “Sheep to Slaughter” contains several of Hamill’s limitations in one place. It even Without actually counting it is likely that somewhere between a third and forty- begins with the word “Like” as if we were in a non-Heraclitian world where things were five percent of the poems follow this template. like one another and not distinct and worthy of notice on their own merits. And it There are several finely realized lyrics of brief duration: for example, “A occurs again in the poem. Charles Olson was correct to try to bat similes out of poetry Visitation,” “Nagasaki Horses,” “Black Marsh Eclogue,” “Cooking,” “The Goldfinch,” as a “bird that comes down too easily.” Harry Shaw’s Dictionary of Literary Terms and “Of Cascadia.” asserts that similes are essential to all poetry. I doubt it. There are several “or”s in this Late in his life and recently as the American empire began its senseless war on poem, a sure leak to let the air out of the poem’s penumbra. As if the poet was on a abstract nouns, terrorism and terrorists, Hamill became a worthy leader of poets against fishing trip, unable to decide on something to say and reverts to providing alternatives. the war. His complaints about the fascist in the White House, George W.