Recently, at a literary conference, a couple of friendly poets and I passed the time complaining about “clever” poets, those who attempt to be clever in writing and performing poetry. None of us in those conversations liked that characteristic, and we said so as we patted each other on the back and raised our glasses to non-clever poetry. Then I returned home and picked up Alan Birkelbach’s latest collection. Reading it, enjoying it, I notice that the word clever keeps coming to mind. So now I want to conclude there is good clever and bad clever. Bad clever would be when the writer unnecessarily, incessantly, calls attention to him/herself, when the cute phrasing overshadows the topic. Good clever, however, does not obfuscate the topic. In fact, a line or two makes the poet’s unusual observations memorable, even ironically, redeemable.

Alan Birkelbach is much more than clever, but there is a mischievous, playfulness in his work. In his opening poem, “Meridienne Verte” the poet seems typically American, taking a friendly jab at the French who apparently failed to carry out their grandiose plan to plant 60,000 trees in celebration of themselves at the turn of this last century. In fact, I suppose in jest, the entire collection is dedicated “To the Salon.” But the opening poem does more than laugh at an unusual occurrence, or non-occurrence. In fact, the poet turns the topic on himself, and is reminded of the non-events of his own life. This poem, then, sets the tone for Birkelbach’s collection which serves as a monument to the non-events of our lives, a snarky tribute to the plans that went unrealized. In his lines we are reminded that design does not guarantee realization.

Thankfully, Birkelbach fun style does not come at the expense of situations and ideas that trigger his poetic imagination. In fact, at times his style can be downright humbling, if not disconcerting, as in “Vigil” where:

in the nursing home
watching my father sleeping
an angel drifted through the ceiling
… and he said,
“it doesn’t matter
how many times
you come here to watch him.
You will never catch up.
That’s how eternity works” (p.46, lines 2-4 & 7-12).

On a seemingly lighter note, in “Rosetta Stone” the poet celebrates the “tenth anniversary / of buying [his] chain saw” (p. 53, lines 1-2), then continues to identify other gadgets that have become useless to him over time. In “The Last Word” Birkelbach ends his observations with the cryptic phrase “apocalyptic indifference” (p. 56, line 12). In “Ultimately” the notion of a “Grand Design” (put forth by Linnaeus) is cleverly contorted so that the true order of the universe is contemplated (“this beer belongs in my hand” (p. 60, line 2). This poem, like others in this collection, is something of a contemporary (Bud Light) theodicy. Ultimately, the poet recognizes there is “more than enough blame to go around” (line 10) when theories of design and random fail to fully answer all questions. He continues his poetic reduction of the cosmos in “An Open Letter” where he follows Johannes Kepler’s idea that “geometry was an innate part of the divine plan of creation.” Birkelbach responds: “I could have told you that” (p. 45, line 2), then describes relaxing on a couch with his girlfriend who “unbends / the perfect forty-five degree angle of her knee / and extends her leg toward me. / I nibble on her ankle, / and her foot straightens / into a perfect linear arrow pointing / over my shoulder at the stars (lines 13-19). Such geometry concludes in an ecstatic question: “How much more divine / can geometry get? (24-25).

Not unlike Billy Collins (a poet who, on the page, often does not move me) Alan Birkelbach’s work finds everyday suburban gadgetry, the rough-around-the-edges domesticity, for his topics. My point is not to demean him, but to admire him, for as I suggested above, Birkelbach goes farther than many. His clever style fulfills the seriousness implied within his observations. There is an ironic clumsiness apparently intrinsic to contemporary human existence, and Birkelbach attempts not only to examine it but to conquer it with his self-effacing manner. Meridienne Verte is a book deep enough to satisfy grumpy has-been-theologians while simultaneously jabbing at that humanness that tends to get in the way of the paradise we all (at least once in a while) imagine and for which we pine.

Birkelbach is honest enough to face the stark possibility that all we have is ourselves. I respect his prickly courage. I like most of these poems. I love “Playing Lorca’s Piano” in which the poet lightly mocks how we tend to be drawn to historical trivia, as if by some associative leap, we too are important as the historical figure. Among other things, he lists “Shakespeare’s favorite shirt (p. 79 line 9), “Dylan Thomas’ favorite whiskey glass” (12), a chair in which O’keeffe might have sat (19). The significance of the poem (something that underscores all of his poems), is to be found in the final four lines:

Or we sit on the bench in front of Lorca’s piano.
And we stroke the keys and we wonder if maybe
Some notes are still drifting over the wires,
Or there are lingering vibrations we aren’t meant to understand (23-26).

Reviewed by Ken Hada, Ada, Oklahoma

Meridienne Verte, by Alan Birkelbach. Chicago: Purple Flag Press 2015. ISBN: 978-0-944048—62-7