Issue 5: Featured Poet - Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin. 2010. ALL THE POETS (MOSTLY) WHO HAVE TOUCHED ME (LIVING AND DEAD. ALL TRUE: ESPECIALLY THE LIES). 277 pages. Huntington Beach, CA; World Parade Books; ISBN # 978-0-9846198-5-6

I think ALL THE POETS WHO HAVE TOUCHED ME is a tremendous book along the lines of John Berryman's Dream Songs. It's the Lifshin persona with equal attention to the speaker and the subjects presented. There's a great intellect at work in the book, showing the author has digested the essence of the poets, both recent and remote, presented as flesh and blood characters, with their eccentricities and normality. It humanizes them using sound biographical knowledge but fictionalizes them, adding luster and depth. The revelations of both speaker and related poets are powerfully original but have the sense of being basically historically sound. It's an intriguing presentation that keeps the reader eager to see what's on the next page. It's scandalous and morally elevating in turn. It keeps coming back with additional observations real and imaginative. The book with its many pages and accumulation of factual and imagined information has the satisfying weight of a masterpiece, and though phrased in a perfectly conversational tone, it occasionally has the music of a hymn, sometimes a dark melody, at other times a radiance. The diction and milieu are in accord with the varied historical eras treated. The book is not just a hearty meal. It is a feast of words with fascinating descriptions and engrossing ideas. The reader will leave this banquet of literary delights fulfilled.

—William Page

Riding Horseback With Sylvia Plath

She was more hands on. I had taken

a few lessons as a child, but she wanted

to plunge in. I told her I didn't want

any injuries. Ballet was my obsession

and even a mild Achilles tendon ache 

or sore knee makes me seethe. She 

was a good dancer, you should have 

seen her in that tight red dress, blonde

hair. Neither of us were as blonde as

we pretended. What isn't an illusion

with poets? Stages of trying to pare

everything down, poems, our legs,

our whole bodies. Not that she was

ever as plump as I was. I painted

horses, as she did, fell in love with

their beauty, wildness. We both fell

for those enormous mahogany eyes,

as we did for many similar lovers:

big untamable, a little scary. We 

could lose ourselves in their 

manes, leave whatever was most 

terrifying or hideous out of sight. 

When I wrote about Ruffian, the 

gorgeous  tragic race horse, Sylvia 

understood how the world went

away, as when she brushed Ariel,

loosed the cake mud from her

flanks and tail. There was no one

to bother her, no nasty notes from men,

no over-worried mother's calls or

letters, intrusions we both knew

too well and couldn’t quite deal

with. No one was telling us

what to do when we were lost

in horses. No advice, threats,

warnings. We both had had it

being told what to do

Early morning, before it's light,

to be one with a horse, especially

if it's your birthday: ecstasy.

Sometimes, it's as though

it's too much to be charming,

and still, give up wildness.

When Sylvia rode Ariel

as dark sky began to lose

its ink, she broke for that

moment, out of everything

holding her, as I did with Ruffian,

cantering, galloping, airborne,

no longer daughter, mother, wife

--Lyn Lifshin (Reprinted with permission of the author)

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