rob mclennan : Circle Back: poems, by Adam Clay

Circle Back: poems, Adam Clay
Milkweed Editions, 2024

 

 

 

 

The latest from Southern Mississippi poet, editor and critic Adam Clay is the collection Circle Back: poems (Minneapolis MN: Milkweed Editions, 2024), following The Wash (Parlor Press, 2006), A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (Milkweed Editions, 2012), Stranger (Milkweed Editions, 2016) and To Make Room for the Sea (Milkweed Editions, 2020). Composed with opening sequence and three numbered sections of shorter poems, Clay seems to structure his poems with an opening upon a small moment that slowly spreads out across the poem, across the narrative; nearly as a water droplet that expands to cover a surface, the narrative stretching slowly outward. “I can still see the deer blood / on the fence and the bone shards / in the drive.” the opening poem, “What Forks Will Splinter Probably,” begins. Clay offers medtiations and observations that meander, move naturally through and across thinking, returning back to points that require return, or those that simply won’t let go. Grief, for example, or thinking upon cemeteries; Clay writes an intimate thinking through a clear, crafted language as straightforward and ambitious as it is deep. Later on in the same piece, writing: “Think of a memorial to stone / in an endless field of gravel. I kept / thinking my life had sharpened down / to what’s surer than a point. But / what to do with the dust of April / in the wake of a year meant to end all / those to come?”

Clay writes on and through grief, a point the collection returns to, echoing throughout; moving outward, and back to that central point, examining, turning over, reconsidering. “Smoke rolls through / the voices singing happy birthday / to you,” the poem “On the Day When No One Was Born” begins, “but it’s not your birthday / or a day for any birth, / really. Where will regret / go at the end of the story?” Clay manages to pack an enormous amount into these poems, seeming to meander but working to weave a collage of highly deliberate examinations through a depth of knowledge, empathy and wisdom, such as the poem “Eternal Things,” that opens with the straightforward-enough lines: “I realized I never wrote a poem / about Italy. My daughter / rock-hounding with a Russian woman / who didn’t speak English.” A few lines later, writing: “I realized / I never wrote a poem about a lot of things. / The world is ending, and we’re priced out / of what we need.” How do these poems move so cleanly down the page, so easily across such generous and intimate conclusion?

 

 

 

 

rob mclennan’s collection of short stories, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024. His next poetry collection is the book of sentences with University of Calgary Press, the second in a trilogy of collections that began with the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022).

Emily Izsak, Adam Clay, émilie kneifel, Chris Johnson + Natalee Caple : virtual reading series #4

a series of video recordings of contemporary poets reading from their work, prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent cancellations, shut-downs and isolations; a reading series you can enjoy in the safety of your own protected space,

Emily Izsak : from Never Have I Ever (“Been Drunk,” “Split a Sundae with Frank O’Hara,” and “Cried Over Mini-Golf”)

Emily Izsak is the author of Whistle Stops: A Locomotive Serial Poem (Signature Editions, 2017), Twenty Five (above/ground press, 2018) and Stickup (shuffaloff/Eternal Network, 2015). Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Puritan, House Organ, Cough, CV2, The Doris, and The Hart House Review. In 2014 she was selected as PEN Canada’s New Voices Award nominee. Emily currently writes clickbait so she can afford rent in Toronto. She also married a doctor, so that helps.

Adam Clay : “Only Child (III)”

Adam Clay is the author of To Make Room for the Sea (Milkweed Editions, 2020), Stranger (Milkweed Editions, 2016), A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (Milkweed Editions, 2012), and The Wash (Parlor Press, 2006). His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, Tin House, Bennington Review, Georgia Review, Boston Review, jubilat, Iowa Review, The Pinch, and elsewhere. He is editor-in-chief of Mississippi Review, a co-editor of Typo Magazine, and a Book Review Editor for Kenyon Review. He directs the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi.

émilie kneifel : “grocery story” previously published in Lighthouse Journal, “<3” previously published in Unbroken

émilie kneifel is a sick fish, goo fish, they fish, blue fish (critic, poet, editor, and co-creator of playd8s, a show for you if you need it). find 'em at emiliekneifel.com, @emiliekneifel, and in Tiohtiáke, hopping and hoping

Chris Johnson : “Social Media” (battleaxe press broadside, 2016), “Without Discrimination” from Phyllis, I have never spoke your name (In/Words Press, 2013)

Chris Johnson is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. He currently lives in Ottawa, which is located on unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation. His recent chapbooks include Listen, Partisan! (Frog Hollow Press, 2016) and Gravenhurst (above/ground press, 2019). @ceeeejohnson

Natalee Caple : “So Far”

Natalee Caple is the author of nine books of poetry and fiction. Her work has been nominated for the KM Hunter Award, the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the ReLit Award and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Her latest novel, In Calamity’s Wake, was published in Canada by HarperCollins and in the US by Bloomsbury. The novel in translation was published by Boréal and has been sold separately for publication in France. Her latest book of poetry, Love in the Chthulucene (Cthulhucene) is published by Wolsak and Wynn. Natalee is an associate professor at Brock University.