STEVE DALACHINSKY Reviews
Real Fire by Janet Hamill, with photographs by Richard Baron
(Alexandria Quarterly
Press, 2017)
The short bio in the back of her new book, Real Fire states that Janet Hamill is a
surrealist poet. I would say that she is more than that. To my mind I have
always felt her to be one of the last great romantics, a metaphysical poet (a
word echoed in the wonderful introduction by poet Maureen Owen) as well as a
symbolist. Labels, if we must resort to them, that both she and surrealism
embody. For without them there would be no surrealists. And they, being
hopeless romantics themselves, might deny or embrace that fact.
Real Fire is a
collaboration with photographer Richard Baron and both she and Baron express
this romance with the beyond-physical with their respective mediums and the
images/languages these mediums present.
But not to stray too far I will primarily concentrate on
Hamill and once you own this precious flame you can benefit by its full
intensity and warmth.
The prose piece “Fire Worshippers” is a kind of fable for grownups.
“The fire first came to people when a piece of star broke off and fell to
earth”, it proclaims. It then goes on to examine how with fire came increased
knowledge and exploration of origins and ideas while expanding people’s
intellects and curiosity thereby creating and altering pre-existing history and
beginning a so-called “civilization.” At some point the bad guys arrive and try
to destroy the fire-worshippers desires and their achievements. But why give
away what comes after the bad guys are literally put to sleep. It is a tale of
endurance and tradition with an important message.
In “PALMS OF WIND” “Each spark of fire is captivated by
love”. That love along with all the other intense images, in what is a mere 10
line ode, twists and alters like fire itself. We find other poems where lines
are repeated as if they were passageways into the fire we are so intently gazing
at (“Gazing into the fire…the beginning holds the seeds of all that follows…”),
which just as quickly morphs into other “seeds…”, “SPARKS” (“My happiness is
trampled each time I catch a spark… Voice, breath, sweat, essence. Do they rise
/ and multiply…?), new thoughts, “WHITE SMOKE” where “everything
disperses…burning words on paper…” then, FLAME (“freed of vanity nature ascends
in radiance”), cinders, “SOLAR FOOTPRINTS” (“…seeing blessings take shape in
shadows”), and “ASHES” (“A bundle weighing a thousand years…aromatic kindling
waiting to ignite…coded letters on stars.”
And then there is “L’UNIVERS”
for Rimbaud, “The equator has my neck in a noose. So get drunk! Be sloppy!
God damn the stains on your shirt fronts.”
Hamill and Baron are tied together throughout the work the
way fire and air are.
This book certainly does all that a collaboration can do and
more allowing for the artist as individual aas well as collective voice.
This is not the first and I’m sure won’t be the last collaborative
effort by Hamill, something she does to the optimum. Pick it up. Try not to
burn your fingers as these poems and images burn deep into your soul. “Real
fire is the central anthem.” So
“Flame up
flame up
flame up
*****
Poet/collagist Steve Dalachinsky was born in Brooklyn after the
last big war and has managed to survive lots of little wars. His book The
Final Nite (Ugly Duckling Presse) won the PEN Oakland National Book
Award. His latest cds are The Fallout of Dreams with Dave Liebman and
Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014) and ec(H)o-system with the French art-rock
group, the Snobs (Bambalam 2015). He has received both the Kafka and Acker
Awards and is a 2014 recipient of a Chevalier D’ le Ordre des Artes et Lettres.
His poem “Particle Fever” was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize. His most
recent books include Fools Gold (2014 feral press), a
superintendent's eyes (revised and expanded 2013/14 -
unbearable/autonomedia), flying home, a collaboration with German
visual artist Sig Bang Schmidt (Paris Lit Up Press 2015) and “The Invisible
Ray” (Overpass Press – 2016) with artwork by Shalom Neuman.
