Collected Poems of Mongrel by Kenneth Brewer

Abstract

Reviews 367 “The Condor,” a poem that brings in Apache myth and Hogan’s familial mythology, together with some exquisite descriptive passages, he says: We call the condor an endangered species and like the sound of that captured phrase. And the condor, his wings transcendent as an old memory beat: Alexander! Alexander! With no other worlds to conquer. There is neither wailing nor preaching in “The Condor.” It is a poem that is remarkable for its restraint, for its even tone (an indelible Hogan trait), for its surface simplicity combined with bite and depth. When, in another poem, Hogan says, “We live by our wounds,” it seems like an easy, easy conceit, yet with Hogan it feels earned. In the final poem in The Broken Face of Summer, Hogan writes, “I can’t go back to where love was / I’ve got to make it new or go without it. // I am looking for resolution / I am looking for a means to keep the world/from slipping away.” That phrase, “I’ve got to make it new,” comes from the classical Chinese, Tsung Tze (“Make it new, day by day make it new!”) via Ezra Pound (ABC of Reading, The Cantos, etc.) yet Hogan makes even the phrase itself seem somehow new and invigorating. “I live,” he says, “in a city of trampled dreams / trying to find a way to make things new.” It’s high time a reputable western publisher brought out a large book of Hogan’s work, one that might be kept in print for years to come. His work is accessible, and we have much to learn from a poet of his intelligent mod­ esty and character. SAM HAMILL, Port Townsend, Washington Collected Poems of Mongrel. By Kenneth Brewer. (Salt Lake City, UT: Compost Press, 1982. 43 pages, $2.50.) Keith Wilson, in his brief introduction to Mongrel, compares these poems with those of Gary Snyder’s coyote tales and Howard McCord’s Old Beast poems. They also share something with Jaime DeAngulo’s poems and stories from many years before. They are a kind of modem prankster sequence, very much in the oral tradition. Some of the best of the Mongrel poems are very quick: Going West Trailways bus leaving a name in the urinal he wanted to call 368 Western American Literature In a sort of decadent citified haikai of which Basho would have approved, Brewer pokes holes in western macho self-proclamation, in selfrighteousness in general, and is at his best in little poems like “Going West” where he makes fun of his own persona. At his best, Brewer combines the humor of Mongrel with a deep sense of place and history. In a poem like “Sundog,” one finds intimations of the unutterable sadness of the American West. “Mesa Verde Pueblo crumbles in his eyes. / Every stone becomes flesh. / Every step rustles a grave. / . . .” Such lines evoke not only the heavy cargo of our past, but bring us into the light of the present — who we are and how we got here; more than delivering upon our shoulders the weight of the guilt of our ancestors, they bring us the possibility of a reverent present. “The dead live through him,” Brewer says, “welcome their lovers / in arms without memory.” Brewer follows “Sundog” with a poem called “Jamboree,” a poem that takes careful aim at the white, Anglo-Saxon eco-freak “protectors of wild­ life / Ed Abbey in they hip pockets / ya know, they dance / ya know, like gettin free.” A healthy sense of humor is essential; it gives us pause to con­ sider. In “Mongrel’s Clone,” Brewer writes, “He wondered if the clone had a soul / and what this would do / to genealogy and temple weddings.” Brewer’s sense of humor combines with his reverence for place very much like his predecessors’— American Indian storytellers, Snyder, Rexroth , Buddhist and Taoist holyfolk, even Chaucer. In a time in which most of our poetry comes through the cultural strainer of The New Yorker and the New York Times Book Review, stinky old Mongrel is a pleasant, if rude, surprise. SAM HAMILL, Port Townsend, Washington Rainbow. Poems by Peter Wild. Illustrations by Doug Hendrickson. (Des...