Jefferson Carter
dedicated minor poet
A lengthy review by Jim Knight of my new poetry collection:
Yesternow
After reading Jefferson Carter’s latest poetry collection, Yesternow, I sense he hates political correctness as much as I do. And he’s not afraid to show his anger, another quality I admire! Example: he starts one of his poems with
My yoga must be working,
I haven’t wanted to punch anyone
In the mouth for weeks.
I define political correctness as idiot code for saying only inoffensive things to everyone –– a guarantee for extreme self-consciousness guarded by a self-censorship which disallows humor and the free exploration of differences of opinion. So that instead of a society of courageous people who dare to be vulnerable and express their thoughts and feelings openly with others, we have a whole generation of well-mannered, cheerful, device carrying, distraction seekers who blindly adhere to what Herman Melville described in Moby Dick as a “genteel society,” people who unconsciously abide by a gospel of “unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.”
Jefferson Carter’s poetry, among other things, is a highly inventive, satirical slap in the face to such nonsense.
Political correctness would presumably also mean saying only what has been said (and approved) before. If that is true, then all good poetry is politically incorrect.
Carter’s poems have definitely not been said before and like other poets worth reading, his nearly always irreverent voice is immediately recognizable. His meanings, though, are not, another thing I admire.
I used to tell my poetry and literature students that if I could fully understand a poem the first time I read it, then it was probably not worth reading. “I’m attracted to poems I don’t understand,” I would say. To this, I would be met by dumbfounded looks of non-comprehension and skepticism as though I couldn’t possibly be serious! I’d quickly add that it was the “fresh, unusual imagery and the sound and rhythm that pull me into a poem, and that much like music, it is the feelings evoked that sweep me away.” An oversimplification, no doubt, but one that got my point across. The poems I most enjoy are sensual-emotional experiences, not intellectual constructions. It is poems that express their meaning in unusual, imaginative ways that make me want to read them again. Tony Hoagland addresses this in his book, The Art of Voice: “The role of voice in poetry,” he says, “is to deliver the paradoxical facts of life with elan, humor, intelligence and wildness.” Many of Carter’s poems do exactly that!
In the past, I’ve characterized Carter’s poetry as Zen moments with a comic punch. His latest book, Yesternow, continues this with perhaps even more mystery; that is, with images that leave the astute reader wondering about various possible connections of what has been described but also left unsaid. The first two poems in his current collection aptly demonstrate this. In “Little Orange Horse” past and present, yesterday and today, are presented without comment or commentary in a pure, imagistic fashion that I imagine Ezra Pound, were he still around, would admire. Pound’s haunting, two-line poem, “In A Station of the Metro” has always stayed with me –– “the apparition of these faces in the crowd/ petals on a wet black bough” –– with its multiple possible associations in much the same way as “Little Orange Horse” does.
I’m driving north, yes, listening
to Miles play “Yesternow”
& searching for the red-tailed hawk
that’s followed me for days.
So many things to admire in this stanza: how it eschews going for a BIG final line yet achieves lasting resonance none-the-less, how “Yesternow” is combined with “the red-tailed hawk” that’s been following him for days, and how the entire poem blends a highly personal reminiscence with the changes that time and perspective have brought while bringing the speaker (and reader) back to the present with a fuller understanding of what Miles might have had in mind.
In his second poem, the ending is equally memorable but with an added measure of hope.
A better world?
Someday, an old white man
like me will seem exotic.
One of my favorites, and certainly the most audaciously original poem in this collection is called “The Grilling Dead.” It goes like this:
Did you hear? A COVID victim
Came back to life in a Denver mortuary
& bit several attendants –
a joke posted on social media,
but over 70 million Americans
panicked, fortified their homes,
hoarded hazmat suits & assault rifles
& reported their neighbors, who
grilling peculiar cuts of meat
over cold coals, cried as they ate.
Don’t panic, fellow citizens,
Proud Boys & Proud Girls!
Ever hear of Bogorad syndrome?
A condition that causes you to cry
while you’re eating, a reflex
of regenerating autonomic fibers, not
zombie guilt over eating the relatives.
Anyway, that’s science.
Speaking of which,
To quote the last words
Of another dying anti-vaxxer,
“you do you, I’ll do me.”
What really gets me about this poem is that in today’s America where a totally corrupt nutjob like ex-president Drunk can actually rise in the poles with each criminal indictment, the absurdity that “over 70 million Americans panicked, fortified their homes, hoarded hazmat suits & assault rifles…” does not seem all that far-fetched! Carter, by simply being true to himself and following his instincts, has invented a poetic vernacular that matches, while at the same time makes fun of, the totally insane beliefs of your average “Proud Boy and Proud Girl,” as well as rising alt-right, political wannabe maniacs like Vivek Ramaswamy. After reading the above poem, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see a macho, muscle truck with an American flag flapping like Tucker Carlson’s mouth in the back with a Maga flag right next to it proclaiming, as if ambiguity was an unknown term to the driver (which I’m sure it is) “you do you, I’ll do me.”
Another admirable quality of Carter’s poetry is that he is not afraid to laugh at himself. Take, for example, a poem called “Boomer” where he self-effacingly and hilariously attempts to justify himself to his hyper-critical, now grown son who accused him of being soft on white supremacists by asking,
Didn’t I March on Birmingham
with Dr, King? Didn’t I triage
Those students at Kent State?
Didn’t I chain myself to that smokestack
in Alberta? Well, no, I didn’t.
But I was there in spirit.
Carter also takes on the at times painful subject of growing old with a poignant honesty:
“When did everything
become so unbearably sad?
(from “Thin Skin”)
And, from “Shotgun”:
My hearing’s gone,
my eyesight’s going
as if my body wants to say
farewell before I’m ready.
Getting old’s a bore. Hearing or
writing about it, even worse.
Ask Hemingway, who ate his shotgun
As if growing old
Doesn’t beat the alternative.
Sometimes I feel
like a Family Dollar store
in a dying strip mall.
But why dwell on it?
Oh, look! A roadrunner!
Yesternow rewards a second or third reading and offers poetic respite to those who enjoy the playful use of language and a love for the outrageous. The poems celebrate the fact that in this home of the stout and land of the of the numb, stupidity will never go out of style.
Yesternow
After reading Jefferson Carter’s latest poetry collection, Yesternow, I sense he hates political correctness as much as I do. And he’s not afraid to show his anger, another quality I admire! Example: he starts one of his poems with
My yoga must be working,
I haven’t wanted to punch anyone
In the mouth for weeks.
I define political correctness as idiot code for saying only inoffensive things to everyone –– a guarantee for extreme self-consciousness guarded by a self-censorship which disallows humor and the free exploration of differences of opinion. So that instead of a society of courageous people who dare to be vulnerable and express their thoughts and feelings openly with others, we have a whole generation of well-mannered, cheerful, device carrying, distraction seekers who blindly adhere to what Herman Melville described in Moby Dick as a “genteel society,” people who unconsciously abide by a gospel of “unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.”
Jefferson Carter’s poetry, among other things, is a highly inventive, satirical slap in the face to such nonsense.
Political correctness would presumably also mean saying only what has been said (and approved) before. If that is true, then all good poetry is politically incorrect.
Carter’s poems have definitely not been said before and like other poets worth reading, his nearly always irreverent voice is immediately recognizable. His meanings, though, are not, another thing I admire.
I used to tell my poetry and literature students that if I could fully understand a poem the first time I read it, then it was probably not worth reading. “I’m attracted to poems I don’t understand,” I would say. To this, I would be met by dumbfounded looks of non-comprehension and skepticism as though I couldn’t possibly be serious! I’d quickly add that it was the “fresh, unusual imagery and the sound and rhythm that pull me into a poem, and that much like music, it is the feelings evoked that sweep me away.” An oversimplification, no doubt, but one that got my point across. The poems I most enjoy are sensual-emotional experiences, not intellectual constructions. It is poems that express their meaning in unusual, imaginative ways that make me want to read them again. Tony Hoagland addresses this in his book, The Art of Voice: “The role of voice in poetry,” he says, “is to deliver the paradoxical facts of life with elan, humor, intelligence and wildness.” Many of Carter’s poems do exactly that!
In the past, I’ve characterized Carter’s poetry as Zen moments with a comic punch. His latest book, Yesternow, continues this with perhaps even more mystery; that is, with images that leave the astute reader wondering about various possible connections of what has been described but also left unsaid. The first two poems in his current collection aptly demonstrate this. In “Little Orange Horse” past and present, yesterday and today, are presented without comment or commentary in a pure, imagistic fashion that I imagine Ezra Pound, were he still around, would admire. Pound’s haunting, two-line poem, “In A Station of the Metro” has always stayed with me –– “the apparition of these faces in the crowd/ petals on a wet black bough” –– with its multiple possible associations in much the same way as “Little Orange Horse” does.
I’m driving north, yes, listening
to Miles play “Yesternow”
& searching for the red-tailed hawk
that’s followed me for days.
So many things to admire in this stanza: how it eschews going for a BIG final line yet achieves lasting resonance none-the-less, how “Yesternow” is combined with “the red-tailed hawk” that’s been following him for days, and how the entire poem blends a highly personal reminiscence with the changes that time and perspective have brought while bringing the speaker (and reader) back to the present with a fuller understanding of what Miles might have had in mind.
In his second poem, the ending is equally memorable but with an added measure of hope.
A better world?
Someday, an old white man
like me will seem exotic.
One of my favorites, and certainly the most audaciously original poem in this collection is called “The Grilling Dead.” It goes like this:
Did you hear? A COVID victim
Came back to life in a Denver mortuary
& bit several attendants –
a joke posted on social media,
but over 70 million Americans
panicked, fortified their homes,
hoarded hazmat suits & assault rifles
& reported their neighbors, who
grilling peculiar cuts of meat
over cold coals, cried as they ate.
Don’t panic, fellow citizens,
Proud Boys & Proud Girls!
Ever hear of Bogorad syndrome?
A condition that causes you to cry
while you’re eating, a reflex
of regenerating autonomic fibers, not
zombie guilt over eating the relatives.
Anyway, that’s science.
Speaking of which,
To quote the last words
Of another dying anti-vaxxer,
“you do you, I’ll do me.”
What really gets me about this poem is that in today’s America where a totally corrupt nutjob like ex-president Drunk can actually rise in the poles with each criminal indictment, the absurdity that “over 70 million Americans panicked, fortified their homes, hoarded hazmat suits & assault rifles…” does not seem all that far-fetched! Carter, by simply being true to himself and following his instincts, has invented a poetic vernacular that matches, while at the same time makes fun of, the totally insane beliefs of your average “Proud Boy and Proud Girl,” as well as rising alt-right, political wannabe maniacs like Vivek Ramaswamy. After reading the above poem, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see a macho, muscle truck with an American flag flapping like Tucker Carlson’s mouth in the back with a Maga flag right next to it proclaiming, as if ambiguity was an unknown term to the driver (which I’m sure it is) “you do you, I’ll do me.”
Another admirable quality of Carter’s poetry is that he is not afraid to laugh at himself. Take, for example, a poem called “Boomer” where he self-effacingly and hilariously attempts to justify himself to his hyper-critical, now grown son who accused him of being soft on white supremacists by asking,
Didn’t I March on Birmingham
with Dr, King? Didn’t I triage
Those students at Kent State?
Didn’t I chain myself to that smokestack
in Alberta? Well, no, I didn’t.
But I was there in spirit.
Carter also takes on the at times painful subject of growing old with a poignant honesty:
“When did everything
become so unbearably sad?
(from “Thin Skin”)
And, from “Shotgun”:
My hearing’s gone,
my eyesight’s going
as if my body wants to say
farewell before I’m ready.
Getting old’s a bore. Hearing or
writing about it, even worse.
Ask Hemingway, who ate his shotgun
As if growing old
Doesn’t beat the alternative.
Sometimes I feel
like a Family Dollar store
in a dying strip mall.
But why dwell on it?
Oh, look! A roadrunner!
Yesternow rewards a second or third reading and offers poetic respite to those who enjoy the playful use of language and a love for the outrageous. The poems celebrate the fact that in this home of the stout and land of the of the numb, stupidity will never go out of style.
