{"id":836,"date":"2017-03-02T01:19:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T01:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/?p=836"},"modified":"2017-03-02T01:19:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T01:19:18","slug":"on-scott-edward-andersons-fallow-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/2017\/03\/02\/on-scott-edward-andersons-fallow-field\/","title":{"rendered":"On Scott Edward Anderson’s Fallow Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aldrich Press, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by\u00a0Christopher Cadra<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When I read the poems of Scott Edward Anderson\u2019s Fallow Field<\/em>, I envision a Romantic poet standing on the bridge between William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg. If that sounds odd, let me explain. A Romantic influence reveals itself as the pulse of Anderson\u2019s Fallow Field<\/em>. But American poets, American poetry, from the Modern era up to the Beats, show up in lesser but sundry ways throughout the work. And not just American poets, as various quotes (from Pessoa, Coelho, and others) throughout the work show Anderson is not limited to the Romantics, American poets, either or both.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019d be tough to offer a way in which he is limited. This is not to say he\u2019s an omnipotent, superhuman poet, it\u2019s simply to say he appears to be able to be influenced without anxiety, without being hampered down by his influencers as are so many. He is an unshackled poet, his own unique voice resonating throughout his work.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s second poem, \u201cNaming,\u201d features some \u201cChuck, Chuck, Chuck<\/em>[ing]\u201d of great-tailed grackles, and some \u201cMeg, Meg, Meg<\/em>[ing]\u201d of magpies. Anderson\u2019s chirping birds reminded me of Coleridge (his \u201cTu\u2014whit! Tu-Whoo!\u201d from \u201cChristabel\u201d) and Eliot (his \u201cCo co rico co co rico\u201d from The Waste Land<\/em>). But it wasn\u2019t simply the onomatopoeia and bird sounds that reminded me of these poets. The reminder of Coleridge would make immediate sense to anyone who reads Anderson, at least in my opinion, due to what I read as Anderson\u2019s clear affinity to the Romantics, especially Coleridge and Wordsworth.<\/p>\n

The reminder of Eliot, on the otherhand, may at first seem odd or whimsical. But regarding Eliot, I\u2019ve come to agree with Professor Bloom when he states, \u201cAgainst his will, Eliot was a belated Romantic poet.\u201d And whether the idea of Eliot as Romantic was latent in my mind or Bloom put the idea in there, Bloom\u2019s words have regardless affected my view of Eliot, and I\u2019ve since read him as Bloom imagines him. One must, however, differentiate between the against-his-will Romantic (Eliot) and what I read as the arms-wide-open Romantic of Fallow Field<\/em>.<\/p>\n

More than simply a Romantic, and certainly more than a simple Romantic, Anderson is a poet of his time and place, and this being the case, comparisons to Coleridge and Wordsworth, along with the Romantic Eliot, will not suffice. In fact, any one comparison to any one poet, or even a school of poetry, will not suffice. Even a vague mention of the Romantic era offers only hints at influence and perhaps literary forefathers.<\/p>\n

I mentioned the Modern era and a poet from that era in the first paragraph. That is, William Carlos Williams. Of course, I also mentioned Eliot, whom some consider to be the most important Modern poet, unanimously considered to have written some of the most important poems of the era, but again, I mention Eliot here as a belated Romantic, and I mention the Modern era, here, as veering away from Eliot\u2019s esotericism toward William\u2019s approachability. Anderson\u2019s poems don\u2019t feature myriad languages and impossible allusions, like The Waste Land<\/em>. For the most part, Anderson shares with Williams a colloquialism (for lack of a better term) that leads one to feel they\u2019re having a conversation with the poet, or at least listening to the poet speak in a way that isn\u2019t meant to be puzzling but understood and appreciated.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite things about Anderson is he\u2019s unquestionably erudite and packs an enormous vocabulary but never shoves it in your face. Perhaps a student of Hemingway\u2019s \u201ciceberg theory,\u201d Anderson has enough confidence to know he doesn\u2019t have to show off. He manages to write pretty without writing purple. Sometimes this will result in a big word being used, but it\u2019s never arbitrary, and the \u201cbig word\u201d only appears to be used when it\u2019s the best word, not the least known, least used. When reading, I felt every word was chosen with deliberation, never caprice. And so, unlike when you come across five languages in one of Pound\u2019s Cantos, you never feel as though you\u2019re reading an encyclopedia, or an encyclopedic poem, and you feel always as though you\u2019re reading, perhaps learning, about things you couldn\u2019t find in an encyclopedia anyway.<\/p>\n

William Carlos Williams wrote about Eliot and The Waste Land<\/em>, saying, \u201cI\u00a0felt at once that\u00a0The Waste Land<\/em>\u00a0had set me back twenty years and I’m sure it did. Critically, Eliot returned us to the classroom just at the moment when I felt we were on a point to escape to matters much closer to the essence of a new art form itself\u2014rooted in the locality which should give it fruit.\u201d And here is where the aforementioned bridge between Williams and Ginsberg comes into play. I mentioned it because, unlike Williams, Ginsberg, a student of Williams, was part of a school, the Beats, that didn\u2019t seem to have all that much interest in heading back to the classroom.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read the Beats were out in search of Whitman\u2019s America. But I think it\u2019d be more accurate to say, the Beats, inspired by Whitman, were out in search of their own America. What one could say, I think justly, about Anderson is that he isn\u2019t out in search of Wordsworth\u2019s Romanticism. Rather, inspired by Wordsworth, he\u2019s out in search of his own Romanticism. And in my opinion, he managed to find what he was looking for.<\/p>\n

A Wordsworth quote before Fallow Field<\/em>\u2019s last poem (a terrific poem called, \u201cThe Postlude, or How I Became a Poet,\u201d no less) solidifies Anderson\u2019s Romantic allegiance, but by the time one comes around to the poem, the Wordsworth quote is all but expected. What was of most interest to me, as I was reading and rereading Fallow Field<\/em>, is what helped foster Anderson\u2019s work beyond<\/em> the Romantics. Someone who mentions the Rumble in the Jungle in a line prior to a mention of Troy, who quotes George Jones, is not stuck in the Romantic era of Wordsworth, Coleridge, et al., no matter how much debt and influence is owed.<\/p>\n

And I say that because Anderson is most certainly contemporary, and to be a real deal Romantic in contemporary times is not as easy as it was in Byron\u2019s day. One figures if Lord Byron were around \u201cTo sit on rocks, to muse o\u2019er flood and fell, \/ To slowly trace the forest\u2019s shady scene\u2026\u201d and attempted that real, true solitude, he would at the very least, in the world of social media and Google Earth, be limited in his capacity to do so. Thus when I call Anderson a Romantic and more, it\u2019s because he reads like a true Romantic, but one in touch with our current society.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t so difficult to harken back to Williams and Ginsberg, but I believe it\u2019s incredibly difficult to harken back to the Romantics. The fact that Anderson pulls off such a feat without forcing it or seeming at all unnatural is a testament to his talent. And though \u201ccontemporary Romanticism\u201d may sound odd, a \u201ccontemporary Romantic\u201d is oddly palatable. Or at least it becomes so after reading Fallow Field<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aldrich Press, 2013 Reviewed by\u00a0Christopher Cadra \u00a0 When I read the poems of Scott Edward Anderson\u2019s Fallow Field, I envision a Romantic poet standing on the bridge between William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg. If that sounds odd, let me explain. A Romantic influence reveals itself as the pulse of Anderson\u2019s Fallow Field. But American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[160,158,157,159,150],"class_list":["post-836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-contemporary-american-poetry","tag-fallow-field","tag-nature-poetry","tag-romanticism","tag-scott-edward-adnerson"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836\/revisions\/837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/basalt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}