Joanne Kyger Books

Joanne Kyger's poetry is the best. So Californian! Her sense of the immediate, and her deep mirth (even when writing elegies for friends and writers) are a tonic against overly theoretical (or, overly slack) poetry. She's also accessible, and not in an annoying way, like Billy Collins or whatever, that boring type of poetry. Her materials are familiar, but her concerns are eternal.

This book reminds me of Sei Shonagon, but the cast of characters is often well-known Beat writers. Kyger was married to Beat saint Gary Snyder at the time, but she is iconoclastic in regards to presenting him here. The arc of the book is their love story -- beginning with a shy and rather impressed Kyger and ending with a rather loud and irreverent Kyger. Early on she worships Snyder, but then he knocks her down and splits her head open on a wood table when she refuses to do the dishes. He is surly throughout the book, and given to bad moods, and kicks her at least twice.

Kyger gets it all down.

Beat saint Allen Ginsberg grabs his food at the communal dining hour and shoves his face full without waiting for others to be served. Orlovsky is shoving drugs in his face every moment that he can.

This is a funny book that knocks out stereotypes left and right. In one or two sentences she undoes the career of Paul Blackburn, for instance. And all the while she is musing on the possibility of a female literature, and what it might consist of -- something for which she had no clear legacy in American but the Japanese writers of the Heian period such as Sei Shonagon appear to have given her the inspiration needed.

This is a very good book for those who are tired of the Beats self-sanctification, and want a bit of humorous and unsparing insight into their world.

Why do I despise this book? Bad marketing. Had it been marketed as a retelling of a Native American creation myth, hand-bound and illustrated and in general a gorgeous piece of the chapbook-maker's craft, I'd probably have liked it despite my general dislike of Kyger. Sure, the pacing is pedestrian and the language is unexceptional, but we need more retellings of various cultures' creation myths to draw on. (I'm serious about this, I can't get enough of them.) But was it marketed that way? Of course not. This... is a LONG POEM! Uh, sorry, no. It's not a poem, and in all honesty it's not all that long, either; I got through it in about half an hour. And while reading about Coyote and his propensity for flinging vulture feathers about is right up my alley, a good bit of remarketing is needed here. And a rewrite probably wouldn't hurt. "The people began to walk around and find things to eat/ For now they could see." Uh, yeah. Pass the salt, please.