Wendy Taylor Carlisle reviews CALENDARS for WIND (Summer 2003)

Annie Finch. Calendars. 70 pp. Tupelo Press, 2003. 70 pp. $14.95
(paper). ISBN 1-932195-00-9. Tupelo Press, PO Box 539, Dorset, Vermont
05251.
www.tupelopress.org

By Wendy Taylor Carlisle

The very first poem of Annie Finch's Calendars admits us to her world--a
world of fern and water, of moon and blood and whales, of Vivienne Eliot and
the Menstrual Hut, of humankind and flesh and nature and the discards of
them all. In "Landing Under Water, I See Roots," she declares her intention
to look at all things, even the disallowed, and notice everything, however
hidden.

All the things we hide in water
hoping we won't see them go-
(forests growing under water
press against the ones we know)-

and they might have gone on growing
and they might now breathe above
everything I speak of sowing
(everything I try to love).

The strains we will find again and again in Finch's work are here-the
formal emphasis, the pressure of the world against human nature, of
humanity against nature itself, and an abiding connection to the senses.
This poem also admits what we all must, who would pass through the world
with grace--and Finch does this so well--that we can only "try" to love the
roots of our dilemmas-only "try" to let ourselves love what we love.

When I opened Calendars, turning through the seasons from winter to fall,
and through the seasons of pregnancy to "Churching", I was dazzled by the
formal elegance I found there and began at once the awful game of
pigeonholing- was "Name" a sort of nonce pantoum-it almost seemed so. How
could I describe the dactylic dignity of "Elegy for my Father" without
getting overly technical about the form and its history? How important is
syllable count to an otherwise perfect ghazal? Was this first poem trochaic
tetrameter, Alternating Quatrain? I drove myself crazy with Turco and Dacey
and An Exaltation of Forms. And when they had all had their way with me, I
decided that the formal impulse that propels this collection is simply one
portion of its charm. Pick up this book not only for the gem of a perfect
English sonnet, "Mowing," but for its music, the sheer physical pleasure of
the rhyme and chime the consonance and vowling that carries the weight of
its wisdom so elegantly.

Enter oh enter the language of your skins
Where motion mentions silence, and words spill light
Over the actual air; let your touch begin
Spinning separate souls into one open flight
Towards one believed delight.

What could be a better way to celebrate marriage than with the thrust and
touch and murmur of the poem, "A Wedding on Earth?" It is finally not the
erudition and wisdom that draws me back again and again to Calendars, but
the sensuality, the way in which it bodies language and embodies wisdom,
the way it says sense to us and leaves none of our senses untouched.

There are some books one feels should be described as if they were wines,
with that same loving attention to their physical qualities, to body and
fullness and finish. Calendars is such a book. Throughout, these poems
have the bouquet, sparkle, clarity and aftertaste of a great grape. They
are felt foot to forehead in a reader's body where the ripe dark of
"Butterfly Lullaby" touches the skin as that sleepy, dreamy, dusty wing
enters the poet's night. The poems here pay homage to a natural world of
water and flower and blood with the formal devices of sonnet and quatrain,
couplet and rhyme, but they are a geometric progression greater than these
homages and parts. These are vintage poems.

Calendars has found its ideal publisher in Tupelo Press, a non-profit,
independent literary press. Founded three years ago to publish poetry,
literary fiction, anthologies and essays, the press has so far put out
twelve volumes of poetry and one anthology. They have gained awards such as
the Norma Farber Award, ForeWord Magazine's Poetry Book of the Year, the
Peace Corps Poetry Book of the Year, and four Pushcart Prize nominations. A
house known for its high production standards, attention to detail and what
the publishers call "the uniquely sensual look and feel of a Tupelo Press
book," Tupelo seems the perfect match for Finch's volume.