Space, In Chains, by Laura Kasischke

"Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be

inadvisable to draw it out...Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure."~ A.E. Housman from The Name and Nature of Poetry


"No poet has joined the chasm of ontological despair to the pathos of household frustration so well as Kasischke at her best, and she is - though eerie, though willing to let threads dangle, though looser in the poems' weave than she has been - at her best often in Space, In Chains."

~ Stephen Burt, writing in The New York Times

"Poems clotted with wonder, terrifying as Rilkean angels, fertile and corrosive as volcanic ash. A poetry of grand pronouncements in a minor key, like Charles Wright with a more overt sense of humor and better rhythm. What can you say about riddles that remain recondite?"

~ Dave Bonta, writing for Via Negativa

"Poetry is the expression of the experience of poetry."

~ Wallace Stevens

Howdy,

The poet that I chose for our annual observance of National Poetry Month, is a writer who came to

Laura Kasischke

my notice (on Public Radio upon the publication of her novel, Suspicious River) chiefly through numerous glowing endorsements of her prose. 

Laura Kasischke is as prolific a poet as a novelist, and her reputation as an author who was not shy about telling her tales in, shall we say, "a minor key," put her on my radar as someone to read as soon as humanly possible. As to her novels, three of which have been made into films, I've not yet had the pleasure. It is perhaps telling about me that I decided to approach this intriguing writer first through her verse. I can tell you that as a result not only will I delve deeper into her poems again (including this book), I will also be reading several editions of her novels now adorning our shelves.

A phrase that comes up from time to time about poetry that was most notably employed by John Keats is "Negative Capability." That is a phrase that came easily to mind as I read Space, In Chains. And I feel certain that it will come up again in our discussion on Tuesday night, April 28. At the time that I chose Kasischke's book, I was not aware that it had won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award. This fact, coupled with many praiseworthy critical essays on the book would seem to acquit my selection.

That, of course, remains to be seen. I always look forward to the April meeting as one of those that tends to be most unpredictable and somehow transformative. So many have been the times when through some mystical combination of libations, the evening air, sights, and sounds (poetry read aloud and birdsong) experienced on Tom and Trudy's porch, minds were changed, spirits were expanded. I expect no less in the meeting to come. On Tuesdaynight, let's read lyrical poetry out loud to one another. And though some of the lyrics be dark, light may yet come out of them. See you then.

Durren

Discussion Questions

1. As you read Kasischke's poetry, did you do so silently or out loud? Did reading aloud add in any way to your enjoyment or your understanding of the poems?

2. Read for us your favorite poem (Assuming, of course, that you have one). Tell us how or why it spoke to you.

3. When asked in interview about the process of writing the poems in Space, In Chains Kasischke says the following:

"A few years ago I read an interview with the fiction writer Dan Chaon in which he was asked about his fiction-writing process. He said that he starts out by writing a scene, or maybe a character sketch, puts it in a folder, and puts it away. Then at some point he writes another, and then maybe another, and puts those in the folder, closes the drawer, and hopes that they will mate. I loved that. I couldn’t have possibly articulated it, but that was a little like what I was doing at that point myself, but the interview freed me up to do it full-tilt.

I started writing ‘bits.’ Collecting images, etc., closing the notebook, in my case, and hoping they would mate. Sometimes they did! And I found that somehow I was able to say things I’d be working toward so much better (in my own humble opinion) than whenever I’d tried to go at it straight on.

In the past I’d made association my process, but if you sit down to free associate, there’s only so far you’ll get at any one time from the place you started, I find. You’re writing in one breath, under the same ceiling, in the same landscape. Writing a poem over the course of weeks or months and putting its pieces together was really exciting for me. Now, I’m doing something else, though. I guess you use the tools you have at the time, and maybe use them up?

As a reader of these poems, does the above shed useful light on this work in particular?

4. Does Kasischke's poetry create any interest for you in her novels?

5. If many (most?) of the poems proved impenetrable to you, to what would you ascribe this; insufficient time with the work, a tendency in the author to be overly self-referential, the structure of the poems, or something else altogether?