Tag: Ken Hada

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margaritas and redfish

Lyric poetry is a matter of seeing, seeing
an act of the mind going
here and there
to and from

familiar places (away from home
and back again again
again) a way

of making
new, inviting

us to see what we
think we know
so well we
see

eyes closed,
to see
now

for the first time
what we have seen
before. To make a scene.

Ken Hada is a nature poet in the sense that his poetry touches us with what we take to be other. It is a cultivated habit of being in the world. And that makes him a “city” poet as well, because a city is what happens when humans dwell on a place.

What I find most remarkable about Ken’s poetry is its gentle admonition to dwell here now in this place where congregations of krill loiter, “unsuspecting as a wave” (1), “…an emerging world / where winter has been” (3), where we so often “name gulls / but fail to understand / gulls naming us” (20). Ken “manages a small fire” (12), and that is a big part of what it means to be at home.

“For all of us / it’s simply a matter of time” (43). What it is is simply a matter of being “witness to things / defying explanation, flourishing without me” (53). Without me, eyes closed, to see now.

I know Ken’s Canadian River from “slipping / through shifting sand, eyes / pierced…” (67) picking plums miles upstream. I have known many of the places he writes about all my life. And I am grateful for the opportunity Margaritas and Redfish gives me to see them now for the first time.

Whether you know these places from childhood or not, you will be glad Ken has taken the time to dwell on them. Pitch a tent here with him, make a scene. Accompany this gifted poet who walks lightly “where grace empties / into a delta” (1), a city as wide as the world.

reviewed by Steven Schroeder, Chicago

Ken Hada. Margaritas and Redfish. Lamar University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-985-0838-6-1.

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contrapuntal

Contrapuntal is the work of a sophisticated, mature poet. Carol Hamilton, Poet Laureate of Oklahoma, 1995-1997, brings her years of lyrical experience and her keen eye for cultural history to the story of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Even those with only a casual awareness of the interlocking history of these famous nineteenth-century musicians will be able to follow their story as Hamilton carefully outlines it.

Hamilton begins with “The Three-Cornered Hat of Clara Schumann” (p.3) –
a poem that introduces the triangle of Brahms, Clara and Robert Schumann. The lines set the mood for the biography: “Johannes was the one she could contend with,/stand bloodied, unbeaten,/loved again but still captain/of her own doomed regiment.” Clara’s “doomed regiment” is the result of a “wunderkind” whose presence is lyrically summarized: “How straw is spun to gold is an old tale,/one never too-often told” (p. 5).

The story that Hamilton reconstructs is of course very sad. Hamilton expertly captures the various moods of her three primary characters (especially Clara’s situation) as her chapbook progresses. For example: “Retrospect/is the sieving god, yet who is the one/who knocked again?”(p.9). Hamilton proceeds by developing each poem to provide a context, something like a chapter by chapter reconstruction, then she sings a wonderfully insightful and beautiful climactic line to end the poems, as seen in “Lights” (p. 12): “These weather patterns dance/in earth’s endless rotations,/and so, in Clara, for all to see” and in “Diligence” (p. 19): “There is a price/ for the ticket to any show we choose.” As the title Contrapuntal suggests, the voices retain distinct personalities. Beyond this, beauty and pain speak to one another, both for the personalities within this drama as well as for contemporary readers: “The soaring songs/of loss still sing, the counterpoint/of beauty forever turning on pain” (p. 23).

It is one thing to give a broad history in verse form, but it is quite another to offer a lyrical response while also penetrating key nuances of the story. This ability is clearly evident in Hamilton’s handling of her subject. By composing the story of the Schumanns and Johannes Brahms, the poet transforms their experience, creating a dialogue with readers that transcends the parameters of time and the simple, crass facts that have shaken down throughout history. Hamilton’s poetic interpretation engenders understanding and empathy, keeping their heartbreak alive for us to contemplate so many years later, not merely as nasty voyeurs but as sympathetic, fellow travelers. We can admire their musical genius while fearing that all-too-human component that humbles even as it inspires. The book ends paradoxically: “A love of grinding grit that leaves/a lovely polished stone” (p. 27).

reviewed by Ken Hada, Ada, Oklahoma

Carol Hamilton. Contrapuntal. Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59924-467-9.

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the way of the wind

Ken Hada is unequivocally a poet of place, and his poetry is at its best when it clears a space where readers can dwell for a time in “the gypsum hills of northwest Oklahoma and the Ozarks of north Arkansas.” There are moments in The Way of the Wind when this happens almost flawlessly — as in “The Windmill” (12), which “creaks and groans / the belt squeaking in prairie wind, / wrinkled blades twirling / in tired momentum / unbalanced.” We can see it, but we can hear it as well — especially in the direct discourse of the short first line — no simile, just the sound an old windmill makes in prairie wind, here and now. And in “A Cedar Grove” (15), “Musing in wild / transcendence, / buoyant bluebirds / sing me back.” The alternation between lines of four syllables and three throughout the poem evokes something of the rhythm of a bluebird’s song.

The book is divided into three sections, and the strongest poems (because they are most direct) come in part three, “Singing of Transience,” where moon is “Just a sliver / of light,” smoke is “incense returning / to vials / from the temple / of the gods /of Autumn” (21), and blood is “as familiar / as it is foreign, / ordinarily strange / like turning leaves.” Hada comes to blood by way of “Red-tipped fescue / red sumac, ivy, / cedar bark and berries –” in a place where “even the water is red” (62).

Writing of Hada’s collection, Texas poet laureate Larry Thomas says “if the timeless red dirt of Oklahoma could speak, this book would be its forceful utterance.” At its best, that’s exactly what it is — Oklahoma red dirt singing. Readers who know Oklahoma will recognize familiar tunes and sing along. Those who don’t know Oklahoma but listen will hear it here in the rhythm and words of Ken Hada’s poems.

reviewed by Steven Schroeder, Chicago

Kenneth Hada. The Way of the Wind. Cheyenne, Oklahoma: Village Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9791510-7-1.

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