South of Contrary - Poems to Challenge and Move

Last week I mentioned that I had been at a poetry reading/book signing by my friend Larry Christianson on the publication of his third book, South of Contrary. I also promised a review. Here it is, as promised.

What is amazing to me is that while I have always enjoyed good poetry, I can't say I have ever paid attention to it and why it works. By spending so much time sharing in Larry's poetry over the past couple years I have experienced poetry in a new way. It is, in short, story telling taken to a bare minimum of words. Poetry takes the everyday, wraps it into a non-linear format and out comes a new way of understanding the world.

I remember poetry doing that in the past when I had to read it in school. I know it happens in hymns and songs which are poetry set to music. Now, thanks to Larry, I have seen it in things that I know or have personally experienced. In his first book, Beyond Time: Poems from North of the Tension Line I knew places and even experienced some of them with Larry. It was a great way to get introduced to his style of writing. In his second book Obama Rising, he went in a different direction combining essays and poetry in reflection of the historic election.

Now, in South of Contrary, he has gone deeper and broader within the realm of poetry. It shows up, not so much in length as in how the words are put together into their final form. There is a sharper edge to more of the poems. There is a deeper penetration into situations and places. There is a complexity that is being brought to bear in sentence structure and emotion while allowing the basic words to spring at you in new ways. Sometimes they hit you right between the eyes.

For example, here is a little bit of a poem reflecting on something as simple as a lawn service:

Insidiously.
Incredibly shortsighted.

Poison truck
well accepted
without thought
or alarm.

Or a poem about a decaf coffee that could be about many things that surprise us:

Flushed free--
no chemicals,
no poison,
no drugs,
no caffeine.

Too extraordinary
to be believed
as decaf.

Larry has obviously had more time to hone his craft. It gets cleaner and pointed and challenging.

Reach of rivers.

Running from gravity

wild and free

on the wind.

Ruffling in big pines

and across open

waters.

Deep.

In the soul

of humanity.

I am now waiting for the next book, which I know he is working on probably even as we speak.

Here's a link to Larry's website where you can order this or either of his other two books as well.