Poet unafraid to be lyric despite being young

Words on Poetry

Miriam Sagan | For The New Mexican

1/20/2008 - 1/20/08

Being disabled is not what you think.

Limitation exists only within the context of others

as the only language the body knows

is that which it tells itself.



So begins the poem Ornithology, which poet Jennifer Bartlett says is her favorite from her first collection, Derivative of the Moving Image (University of New Mexico Press, 2007).

Bartlett is a relatively young poet, under 40, with work that is idiosyncratic and original. She partakes of different streams in contemporary poetry, by turns lyric, experimental and personal without being overly confessional. Poets of course are highly individualistic, yet often see themselves as within groups or movements. Bartlett observes, thought-provokingly, "I feel as though my generation has ... become allergic to any sense of the 'I' or lyric. Many poets of my age are purposefully experimental and oblique just to follow a trend and be included within a certain society. It feels as if you are a bit of an outsider, you are banished to the land of the 'narrative' which, in many circles, is a dirty word. Writing poetry is not a conscious act. People write whatever comes from the well."

What comes from Bartlett's well is a mix of feeling, image and fascination with language, as in the poem A Man and a Woman Standing in the Rain in Front of a Candy Store:



I can't make your skin my own,

nor your heart my heart,

knowing this we dance around each other

encircled in the smallness of our
laughter,

you lean toward me when we walk

as if this leaning will save you from your fear of the world.



The two hundredth question asks:

does your soul ever leave your body?

Yes, often.

For example, the night my sister died

and we left the hospital together.

For example, the time your wrist touched my dress

and I imagined its keeping itself there.

I am susceptible to angels.



Many of the poems in the book are elegiac and based on mourning and remembrance. But the narrative is treated lightly, rather than in full confessional mode. The poet says: "Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how one looks at it, lost has been a major narrative throughout my life: loss through death, through transitioning relationships, and through the body as metaphor. It finds its way into my work because I tend to write about what is in front of me. Now, my husband and son are in front of me, so I'm writing about them. I hope to take some years off from sadness."

One thing that puts Bartlett in company with modern poetry is that she's tracking the ephemeral in words — thoughts, feelings, perceptions are all seen as fleeting, of the moment. As the literature of disability goes, these poems also break new ground. Bartlett writes about cerebral palsy and her body in a fashion that is more like the unflinching naturalistic approach of Japanese poet Shiki writing about spinal tuberculosis than say Anne Sexton's or the confessional school's narrative approach to ailment. Ornithology continues:



Movement appears painful from a distance

when rather it is just the body reiterating itself.

Like one of da Vinci's hopelessly grounded things

these limbs make a contortionist out of me,

lifting my one good wing from the sidewalk

unfold finally, cinematically,

after a winter of wordless birds.



In terms of influence, Bartlett has learned from many. She says: "When I read my teacher, Bill Olsen, I see his imprint throughout my work. He was actually heavily involved in the final manuscript, as was my father, Lee Bartlett. Other than my father, Nathaniel Tarn has played the biggest role in my life as a poet. He is my spiritual connection to art and my mentor in the deepest sense of the word. Without my father and Nathaniel, I would not be able to write in this way." And continuing to reflect on her contemporaries, she adds: "Many poets of my generation doing fabulous work. I like to call us the new lyricists, although I don't think I invented that term. Many poets are taking the best of the lyric and the 'experimental' and making something new."

That last is certainly a description of the poems in Derivative of the Moving Image.

Miriam Sagan's poetry class is beginning now during the spring semester at Santa Fe Community College.