"The Gospel According to Garcia" by Ariel Dorfman

This story can be found in the November 2, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

This review can also be found at The Mookse and the Gripes.

First Line: "We watched him come in, how his steps faltered at the threshold of the classroom, how he just stood there, his first mistake, giving us enough time to size him up, not enough time for him to figure out who we were, what strategy might win us over."

Last Line: "We remain absolutely still and wait."

I do not like stories that have a moral as their purpose - that have a message as their medium - that have a point that may be categorized as political.  I like stories that let me find my own joy or sorrow in the plot and characters.

Ariel Dorfman has written a piece that feels like I am to read it for homework and come into class prepared to discuss the themes and how they apply to our lives - here and now.  I felt 16 again, anxious to get it "right", get my A, and feel a bit intellectual in the process.

Which is to say "kudos!" to Mr. Dorfman.  The first person narrator is plural.  We are supposed to feel part of a nameless, faceless group of students, feeling intellectual and wise, and unsure when a new teacher takes the place of  the beloved.  We feel their uneasiness - we feel our own mind dart in and out of old thought patterns and new ideas.  They do not know what has happened to the man that could lead them, nor do we.  We just sit and watch and wait, as they do, to see what the new teacher can pull from the group.

There is great symbolism (the title, for instance) and deep philosophical questions ("Why is indifference worse than murder?").  There are fantastic images ("...with a bird in a nearby tree watching the snow cover his body...") and the length is perfect for its politics (5 pages when I printed it up).  

But I love the connection with one or two characters - I don't care about how the group feels.  A group is made of individuals, but even here that is cleaned and refined by Garcia.  He claims to have taught them to rebel, but here they sit, unsure of what that rebellion should look like to their former instructor, not to themselves.  

I like the examination of the individual and the only place I found it here was: "...he was not disappointed when somebody asked, this time I am sure it was not me, 'Does that mean we should never love intensely, give ourselves entirely to another human being?'"  This was in response to Garcia's comment: "Remember that he who loves more in a relationship always ends up screwed."  We see the one narrator speaking for all. And we see that Garcia is not just the "resistance leader of the week" - we see that somehow, his heart was broken.  And that is not politics.

It is well-written and conveyed with great skill.  It just isn't my cup of tea.  The brush strokes paint a beautiful nose, but I prefer teeth.

Photo credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/DorfmanA1.jpg/250px-DorfmanA1.jpg

Its Day Being Gone by Rose McLarney

This review can also be found in The Canon City Daily Record.


Its Day Being Gone, by Rose McLarney, is the latest National Poetry Series winner. A slim volume awaits those willing to give this art form a fair shot. 

My experience with poetry began in elementary school with Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky." In later years, we began to read, reread, and pick apart poems, seeking for symbols and hidden meanings. We were encouraged to write our own poems. I was published in my high school and college literary magazines, was invited to read for presentations and also competed in statewide poetry slams. 

But I don't read poetry like academics. That's too daunting and uncomfortable to me. And it takes me too far from my own experience of the poem. I could attend lectures and read scholarly articles about Van Gogh's painting, "The Starry Night," but that would color my own encounter, my unique observations. The undertaking would no longer be mine alone, the piece reduced to mere critiqued paint strokes. Likewise, I don't want to reduce a poem to mere explained words.

Rose McLarney is an assistant professor of poetry at Auburn University and a prolific poet. There is something about the simplicity of her work that reaches me. The events of the poetry are simple, common moments in time, and any complexity lies in the emotion felt by the subject of the piece, as well as the reader. Sensations linger like fog in the morning before the day turns bright hot.

 

The poems in "Its Day Being Gone" concern the land and the people tied to it. McLarney introduces us to rural Appalachia and rural South America, places where rivers and waterways are sources of human and ecological vitality. Themes of loss are distinct, divided loosely into grief and relief. Myths and legends, folktales and traditions, merge into mankind's common experience. 

 

"Story With a Real Beast and a Little Blood in It" enchanted me:

The night the bull broke loose,
there was much to learn.

Immediately I was curious. What was there to learn? I read it silently to become acquainted with McLarney's rhythm and style. Then I read it aloud, listening to the author. I looked for patterns, themes, repeating ideas. And then I let it sit for a while, let it digest. I began to understand what needed to be learned. When I go back and reread the piece, there is always more to see and connect with.

Paying attention to how I feel when reading poetry is more important than having full understanding of themes or even what occurs in the poem.

But let's not look to make allegories,
for any meaning beyond the marvel
of a bull, tangled in a broken rope ...

Even the poet suggests just "marveling" at the images and the sensations they awaken in us as readers.

In Its Day Being Gone there are many opportunities to see and feel through the simplicity of a poem.



You can hear Rose McLarney read "Story With a Real Beast and a Little Blood in It" here.

Photo credits:  http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lmo6tdgQwrg/maxresdefault.jpg and http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sKDh%2BsY%2BL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Authors thank reviewers: Joanne Harris

The review for Five Quarters of the Orange can be found here.