Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides

Stephen Dobyns, Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (Penguin, 1999) What a great name for a book. Ain't it? It's what drew me to Dobyns' tenth book of poetry. Once I cracked the cover, his long-limbed, loose-jointed style kept me going: "Heart considers the nature of fairness-- how some folks get pearls, others pebbles. A rock falls out of the sky, who it smacks is anyone's guess--butcher, crook, or priest. Heart is struck by the unfairness of fairness. What does it mean to deserve something?" ("Great Job") The book is separated into three sections. The first and third are the Heart poems, a series of pieces (all in this style, with no stanza breaks, each running about a page and a half) about a character called Heart and his views on life. The middle section, "Oh Immobility, Death's Vast Associate", is one much longer piece in the same style. It doesn't hold up quite as well, for as you can tell from the excerpt above, these poems do almost as much telling as showing, and the longer the piece gets, the greater the chance it will become overwhelmed with its own exposition. The shorter poems, however, often strike the perfect balance. There is a good deal of fun to be had here, and, especially as Heart grows older in the later poems, a good deal of wisdom as well. Fun stuff, this. *** ½

Few books of poetry these days have such a sense of unity as this. Heart is a character that you follow from poem to poem as you might get caught up in the plot of a novel. Each poem stands on its own, too, with engaging and exciting language and a tone which ranges from wickedly funny to touchingly melancholy--sometimes being both at the same time. Stephen Dobyns is one of the best American poets writing today, and here he gives us an incredibly rewarding collection--the kind that you want to lock yourself in your room with and chew on for hours.

I've been a Dobyns-follower for years. His CEMETERY NIGHTS is one of the books that mark a high point in my reading life. And I read a lot. PALLBEARERS is Dobyns to the nth degree -- sly, wise, hilarious. Dobyns and Heart are our modern Berryman and Henry. The man is a genius. If this book doesn't win every major poetry book award, there's something wrong with the system...