A review of Slavitt's latest poetry collection.

 

“Change of Address”

“Change of Address: Poems New and Selected.” David R. Slavitt. (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rogue.) $27.

David R. Slavitt is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, editor and translator who has published more than seventy books. He also ran against State Rep. Tim Toomey last fall and lost by a very wide margin. Probably one of the reasons he lost is that he shoots straight from the hip and he ruffles quite a few feathers with his at times off-color remarks. When I interviewed Slavitt on my TV show “Poet to Poet,” on Somerville Community Access Television; I was ready to duck for cover from the barbs and scathing witticisms he was sure to throw at me. Slavitt, true to form proved to be an extremely bright, funny and caustic personality. At times his considerable ego threatened to crowd me out of the studio. But of course this is part of the Slavitt shtick. Like Frost, who played the cranky old New England farmer, Slavitt plays a part and he plays it deliciously well.

The poetry in “Change of Address...” puts Slavitt’s considerable talents on display. Slavitt’s poetry is not dead-on-arrival, but an alive and breathing corpus. It tweaks you, it smacks of elitism, but most importantly it engages you. In his poem “Plodders,” Slavitt tries to bait the reader into believing that he or she is in his exclusive club, but later the pulls the rug out from under the sad sack: “ Consider the unclever. I/ envy them rather. They do not try/ but dimly rouse themselves to their half-/ wakefulness...Like old shoes/ they’re comfy, good for years of service ( We’re unreliable and nervous), They are on the whole, a happy crew./ I envy them. ( I envy you.)” Yes, a slight perhaps, but perhaps also a tinge of sadness, or is that the social worker in me? In “Crazy Delmore,” a poem about the poet Delmore Schwartz, Slavitt traces his own maturation from a callow youth to a seasoned adult. When the poet was younger he was intolerant of Schwartz’s madness and subsequent bizarre behavior, but later the years brought hard -won insight: “ but the words have changed over the years, and it says/ that there’s no justice, that this is what can happen, /that writing is harder,/ the talent and dedication will do you no good/ are dangerous, even, and may, if you aren’t lucky,/ drive you to such despair and make you crazy...so I can report,/ chastened, how I have learned at last to read/ the words of that hard lesson he had to teach.”

Don’t be scared away by Slavitt’s impressive resume. You will be able to understand these poems. And yes you might even smile...for a little while.

Doug Holder-  This article appeared in The Somerville News.