A pair of recent poetry books issued by two Spokane publishing houses has one thing in common: Poet, teacher and editor Christopher Howell had a hand in each. Both are good books that deserve good readers.
Lynx House Press — co-founded by Howell in Amherst, Mass., in 1972 — awarded its 15th-annual Blue Lynx Prize to “Last Night,” which resulted in a new book of poems by Seattle poet Thomas Brush.
In 2005, Lynx House, under Howell’s direction, became an impress of Eastern Washington University (EWU) Press, where he teaches and had served as director of the esteemed EWU Press, which closed two years ago.
Lynx House Press is independent once again.
Thomas Brush is a lifelong Seattle resident whose work has been compared to Richard Hugo’s. Brush, published in the better literary journals and recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Humanities and Washington State Arts Commission, isn’t a big name in Seattle poetry circles: Apparently, he doesn’t travel in circles.
Hugo and Raymond Carver would have recognized a kindred spirit in Brush, whose poetry is composed of the cracked music of everyday life and a longing for transcendence thereof.
Here’s the opening to “Chalk”: “Today, after taking two ferries/Across Puget Sound and driving two hours up and down logging roads/Along the crumbling rim of the Pacific, I bet on the rainforest and won/Every swollen mushroom and truffle, every wrinkled, white/Log and stunned and spotted wildflower.”
But, then, memory turns to the horse races the day before and how a surprise winner — “the pink and yellow silks were dazzling” — intruded upon his sleep, an intrusion that contained a woman drinking “Chartreuse/Margaritas at the window seat,” who was “Still smiling and willing/to bet on anything.”
“Last Night,” by Thomas Brush. Lynx House Press; 80 pages. Paperback, $15.95.
Lines worth re-reading
From Willow Springs Editions, a small literary press housed by Eastern Washington University’s Inland Northwest Center for Writers (mostly staffed by Howell’s MFA students), comes “Gnawing on a Thin Man,” by Ray Amorosi.
And it’s a thin book — 37 numbered pages of poetry — packed with odd gems whirled into finely wrought lines that compel re-reading.
In his mid-60s, Amorosi is a widely published poet and teacher who somehow retains fresh wonderment for the world in his eyes. As it is for Brush, it may be a God-less universe we’re in, but beauty is still the payoff.
“So why expect your loneliness to excite God/into helping,” Amorosi writes.
For those with beloved, hard-to-explain sisters, there’s this wonderful line: “I often/slosh through the low tide to a sister/unattached to causeways.”
Though Amorosi writes from Massachusetts, those lines resonate in Ish River country. This is a singular voice with lines that strike like lightning.
“Gnawing on a Thin Man,” by Ray Amorosi. Willow Springs Editions. Paperback,
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