SPEAK LOW Paperback – March 16, 2010

I really liked the enjambment and imagery in these poems. There are more than I can count on my hands that could become new favorites. Very good!

Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009)Love and power intertwine in Speak Low, the most recent book by Carl Phillips, and that can make for a discomfiting mix for those of us who don't follow the same path. Balanced against that is the fact that Phillips is not an impulsive poet; his work is introspective, measured, capable of conveying the attraction in a way that makes it understandable for us normals while still conveying the discomfiture:"...I even think they look, more/than a little bit, like rough sex once it's gone where, of/course, it had to--do you know what I mean, his smell/on you after, like those parts of the gutted deer that/the men bring home with them, fresh from the hunt,/as if you were like that now, the parts, not the smell, I/mean as if you were his, all you'd ever wanted to be,/and how you almost believe that?..."("Distortion")On second thought, that probably wasn't the most introspective OR measured passage I could have chosen to illustrate that point. Compared to the rest of the book, it's almost breathless with passion. But you get my point, right? If you actually try to describe said rough sex you're heading straight into porn territory. Instead, Phillips takes a left turn into Hemingway's hunting camp, and BDSM becomes something even the lunkest-headed redneck is capable of at least grasping, if not identifying with.As such, I'm putting aside my usual disclaimer of "if you like that sort of thing" when I review books that deal with this subject. Even if you don't, this is well worth your time. Phillips is an excellent poet, a guy who understands that word choice is important and understands how those carefully-chosen words fit together in order to make something beautiful."Color of rust, russet. Color of fall. I can lay me head/on the wet sand that is nobody's chest now--not a chest,/at all--or I can lift it. Why not lift it? More fugitive than/lost, more spent than stranded, if I've been no stranger/to disillusionment,//nor am I enslaved to it...."("The Raft")****

Carl Phillips is a strong poet, mixing the literary and the sensual, the natural and the intellectual. While I enjoyed a great many of these poems, I also felt like something was lacking, something that would have put them over the top, making them transcendent and truly classic. These are dense, challenging pieces, no doubt, and they are rich with image, allusion and beauty.