What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Goldberg

I enjoy pretty poetry, I enjoy poetry that is weird, I love poetry that makes me think, and Egypt From Space by Beckian Fritz Goldberg has all three, I am happy to report. In the "pretty" category, we get lines like, "When memory dies the bird goes on, no longer a beast of burden. / It goes on in the infinite dark you can never / contemplate without growing blank and falling back into the world again." For "weird," we get "The bird that came with memory came with a man named Ed," and for lines to make me think, Goldberg offers, "After memory there is now," and other wonderful lines. Those three examples all come from a single poem, if you couldn't tell. The first poem in the book, in fact.

Why do I like this book? Its poems are pretty, unique, weird, and thought-provoking all at once, and they do so with grace and without throwing me out of the poetry. I have a feeling most poets would not be able to do that.

Something in particular that is new (for me) about this book of poetry is Goldberg's use of sequences. A sequence is a collection of poems that are thematically linked, usually. Egypt From Space is divided into four sequences of poetry, and beyond that, there are two mini sequences inside of a sequence and three sequences that transcend the four main ones. What I mean by that is that the first poem in the sequence might be in the first official sequence, the second and third may be in the second official sequence, and so on. I've never seen that done before, and it was an interesting way to lay out a book of poetry. It connected the sequences themselves, helping to create a single book of poetry. It also allowed her to bring to mind ideas and images that she had already used earlier, giving us a canon to work with within the book itself, storing up memories she could play on later.

I've talked about thisness before on this blog, and Goldberg's poetry definitely has it. The details make the poems seem more real, and there are some solid, concrete details in here. To randomly open to a page and grab some (because they are that plentiful): "The pig, you see, was a terrible voyeur of fragrance and / he thought he smelled a truffle in there," "The hotel pool in Mexico / clogged with purple bougainvillea petals drifting from the / patio," and "So American I can almost feel GIs riding home on the bus of my tongue" (those were all from different poems this time).

So no, I would not suggest this book of poems if any of those quotes made you flinch or gag. If, however, they were a delight to your mind or your mouth as you maybe read them aloud, I would suggest the book. It is one of my favorites from the books of poetry I have had the chance to read. I can't say that it changed my life, and none of these poems made me want to print it out and stick it on my wall--I guess they didn't resonate, though they did entertain and delight--but I can say that reading this book was definitely not a chore. And if it was a chore, it was the type of chore that you enjoy doing for the sheer pleasure of the experience. For me, that's weeding. I know, it's weird, but I like how dirt smells and how plants look and grow. What can I say? Somebody's got to like it.

For those wondering about Goldberg's credentials: She teaches in the MFA program at Arizona State University and is the author of several books of poetry. I first stumbled upon her poetry while reading through Best American Poetry 2013.