Book Review 2011-002
Human Resources by Jesse Waters
February 2011 from Ink Brush Press, 88 pages
(This copy sent to me by the author)
In Jesse Waters debut collection of poetry, Human Resources, he gives readers his honest and straightforward views of love, youth, aging, relationships, sex, and life in general. They're not always pretty or uplifting, but they're also not completely negative or dumped on. While there's a sadness and a bit of a "what can you do?" attitude behind these poems there is also a dash of hope underlying them.
With forty-nine poems spread over five sections, Waters allows readers plenty of opportunity to dig in and appreciate his particular world view. To be very honest, I'm not sure what led to which section each individual poem would fall into--I wasn't able to determine how the sections were different from each other.
When I turn sixteen—on my sixtieth birthday—
in my greatest dreams the smell of pastry baking
will again wake Cape Joseph under the dead sycamore
at the end of my mind: The kindergarten teacher I bit,
Cindy Harris—Martin Syzna, the friend who swallowed mercury
and dies so young, first gone blind—Gloria Tern, the first girl I hated,
and loved—my ex wife—my father…
They’ve all come to the Be-Lo in the fog of my old sorrow.
One by one they ask me for forgiveness,
I can hear them, and I reach out begging to be forgiven
but I cannot see one clear face—I see that I don’t
know them anymore. Have I forgotten them?
Did they forget me? I’d give anything
to kiss them each one last time, on the cheek,
see my own eyes in theirs.
Their soft bodies burn away
in the light over the east wing roof
of the ice and coal plant across the street,
and there’s a faceless boy in the Pittsburgh
of my last, young day, in Madison, in DeMoines, everywhere
I’ve ever been, or would’ve been, pedaling fast
in the cold morning’s fist through block
on block of wet, lightless Annapolis street.
He’s racing fast with a basket of the good news,
trying to beat that cold January rise,
and the world around him
moves like a scene in which
the day never gets past dawn’s first rays.
This comes from a longer poem in the collection, "Gather the Last Young Day," and it captures much of what I enjoy of Waters' writing. There is reminiscence, and it is both negative and positive, lending some honesty or authority to the writing when I read these works. I can't think of one of these forty-nine efforts that completely leans in one direction or the other. "It's Not Me, It's Me" begins with a stanza making it clear that both the narrator and a friend of his had been involved with a specific woman and that she had chosen the other, the friend. While there is regret that he wasn't the one still receiving pleasure from this woman, at the same time he's happy for the duo as "The plain truth is they're meant for one another."
The last stanza of the last poem in the collection, "Penquin Logic," leaves the reader with:
With patience, and a fine layer of fat, I'd crawl
back whole continents, for one last faceful of your hair
I'd pull the few hours of each day's sunlight
into fires made of luck and lust.
which I find to be a fitting end to this collection. It ends with the hopeful positive that can be found in each of Waters' poems.
4 stars
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