Gina Franco, The Accidental

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Accidental by Gina Franco John Rubio (bio) Gina Franco, The Accidental. University of Arkansas Press, 2019. Pp. 88. Upon first reading, one might jump to the conclusion that Gina Franco’s The Accidental is a rather “inaccessible” book of poetry. I find such critiques less than useful in that they presume a standard of accessibility and determine any work that exceeds this boundary to be obscure or esoteric, with “accessible” now referring less to a standard than to a subjective scale with which the critic feels comfortable. In this way, the critique become less accessible than the subject of its criticism. These are no doubt challenging poems. Franco weaves references to Heidegger, Hegel, and Simone Weil with biblical scripture and personal narrative to form a dialectic of the spirit as it struggles through the confines and exposures of being. The dynamics of life and death and the impasse of the spirit remain prime articulations of this dialectic throughout The Accidental. If readers are so inclined (or already have a background in theology and continental philosophy), they could spend much time with Franco’s notes, poring over her conceptual associations, inspirations, and references. Indeed, Franco does not simply drop names; she elevates discourse. She engages not only with the legacy of these thinkers, but with the very substance of their thought, linking that substance to Franco’s own stories and ideas, especially those concerning death, family, and the soul’s grief. Simultaneously, readers could approach these poems with no formal training, without consulting the notes at all. This is not to say that Franco’s writing is unfocused, but rather that multiple approaches to her poems can be taken without having to sacrifice (or expect) intellectual rigor. Franco’s poetic dimension does not require an academic passport, and entering without one does not mandate that the philosophical musings of her poems be abandoned. I note a similar experience in reading the work of Alice Notley. In this sense, The Accidental is not inaccessible so much as it reworks the parameters of accessibility. Franco does not shrink or expand these parameters, but rather allows them a more flexible and porous contemplation. As Franco is reinterpreting ontological theory for her own purposes, so too are readers encouraged to do the same. Therefore, whether or not we have experience with the actual theories is unimportant; we are still welcomed by Franco to play in their imaginative fervor, to mix it with our own. Reading (and rereading) the poems is all the research we need. Also, as stated above, The Accidental is a dialectic process, meaning that it frequently dwells in a liminal space, in a space between two extremities, a space that cleaves from two determinant ends. Thus, to inhabit its pages is to go along with that process, and it is frequently a disquieting and discomforting habitation. Even when not dealing with tragedy—such as the death of Franco’s maternal grandmother, Carmen Rios, who drowned in a flood and whose body was caught by a neighboring tree, which becomes a thematic presence [End Page 134] throughout the collection—The Accidental can still feel unsettling because its dialectical process in many ways eschews experiences of stability and settlement. We are placed in between determinations, just out of reach of their stable footings, but not so separated that we are unable to clutch at their presence: to cleave (as these poems do) is both to divide and to draw together. We are placed in a poetic flood; we sense momentum and perpetuation—an ongoing thrust that moves us along, ever in view of the sidelined dry land that we can never quite grasp. To be swept up in The Accidental is to be washed by aporias of being. But rather than trying to solve these paradoxes, Franco encourages us to instead realize that only from the view in the flood, only from the space between, can we see the connection between these two shorelines—a connection that is now personified by the writer and readers themselves, thus generating another dialectic to engage. As the speaker of “America” (dedicated to Maribel Alejandra Cortinas Segura, who was murdered in 2009) states while looking...