Brendan Constantine's "Bouncy Bounce"

Say this aloud: the sky is not a river

                        It won’t deepen if you fall in. - from Bouncy Bounce

    For those of you who’re not familiar with the poet Brendan Constantine,

or have always wanted to read his work, and have yet to do so, a good place

to start would be his new chapbook, Bouncy Bounce (© 2018 Blue Horse

Press), or his back catalogue of excellent work.

    More than Constantine’s other works, Bouncy Bounce, as the title suggest,

is a buoyant volume of poetry; highly enjoyable, and quick to breeze through,

until you find yourself mesmerized, and then, like a wayward ball on the

playground, it smacks square you in the face. There’s a trick built into

Bouncy Bounce, like that infamous scene from Lawrence of Arabia,

where Lawrence imparts to Potter, his British comrade, “The trick,

William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”     

    Poetry should hurt, otherwise, what’s the point in writing it. The more

painful, the more memorable, and this is where, Constantine, like

W. S. Merwin, succeeds beautifully. There’s an intimacy in Constantine’s

poems, which make the reader feel like they are being given the privilege

of being taken into his confidence, to share his upside-down view of the

universe, in regards to family (“Open Heart Perjury” and “Crib”),

anthropomorphism as a means of accessing empathy, and recognition

of ourselves (“Field Trip” and “At a Stumble”), and who we are, in

relation to, as well in our relationships to each other (“Out in the Air”),

and what the most powerful poem to illustrate this, “The Arrival of

the Sleepers”:

The sleepers came like curtains in the blown in the wind.

The sleepers came here

The came and blew softly into the firelight

And they were sleeping

And they were sleeping where they stood

And more sleepers came

And they lay their bodies down

And they lay their long bodies over each other

And they did not stir

And they did not stir

The sleepers slept like stones in a bog

They slept like a bog

They were a bog of sleeping sleepers

And if you had been here

If you had walked over them

You would have sunk down into them

Until just your head and arms could be seen

And you would have waved and struggled

You would have struggled

Like I struggled

Until at last you slept beside me

© 2018 Brendan Constantine

     If, for no other reason, you wish to grow, as a person, through

poetry, then Bouncy Bounce is the perfect choice to initiate that

process. As with all of Constantine’s work, it deserves a permanent

place on your bookshelf.

Bouncy Bounce, © 2018 Blue Horse Press, Brendan Constantine,

ISBN-10: 069282096, ISBN-13: 978-0692820964, 33 pages,

$10 (US)

© 2019 marie c lecrivain