Never-Ending Pa

Andrew Hudgins, The Never-Ending (Houghton Mifflin, 1991)Few people who read Andrew Hudgins' poem "Praying Drunk" are likely to forget it any time soon. "....I want a lot of money and a woman.And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know,a character like Popeye rubs it onand disappears. Although you see right through him,he's there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,and smoke that's clearly visible escapesfrom his invisible pipe. It makes me think,sometimes, of you...."Hudgins is one of those rarest of birds, a poet who flaunts the rules not because he doesn't know what they are, or because he feels rules are "beneath" poetry (as so many thousands of people who write bad poetry do), but because he's actually writing stuff whose form, structure, and substance demand a certain amount of rule-breaking. He throws rhyming couplets into a free-verse poem, comes up with the occasional horrid line break (as in the third line of the quote above), throws every grammar rulebook to the wind, and is one of those very few whose words sound as good as they do because of the way he chose to write the poems in this book. Every flaunted rule hints at hours, maybe days, of thought on whether the lines in question might sound better in some other form. In every case, it seems, the answer was no.Hudgins, much lauded and yet little known, is one of modern America's finest poetic voices. The Never-Ending continued his recognition as such, becoming his third book in a row nominated for a major American prize (the National Book Award, this time); it was also his third book overall. That's a track record that's pretty hard to miss.Unlike so many fine ones, Hudgins' books, most of them, are still in print. Give the man a try. You won't regret it. **** ½

Hudgins is accessible. Kind of funny, like Billy Collins. Human in a way that reminds of William Stafford and Lucille Clifton. Manly as Hemmingway, but not as impressed with himself. A good-hearted loser like the rest of us. "Praying Drunk" is the highlight, as its title would suggest.

To understand God, siblings, breakups, and mescal worms, find this book, buy it, and read it over and over.