Home » Reading & Literature » Modern U.S. Poetry » Review: A Southern Line and Other Poems

Review: A Southern Line and Other Poems

© Linda Sue Grimes

Thomas James Martin's poems invite you into the life of the speaker, sharing his moments, offering us his observations as he travels through his life. Unlike so much contemporary poetry that wants to startle us into some distorted way of viewing the things around us, these poems are as natural and unassuming as a shadow. They gently take us by the hand or point with an accurate finger to the things that have moved the speaker.

In the opening poem "A Southern Line," the speaker tells us, "Feelings caught in my heart / like a fish bone in the throat." In the preface the poet has told us that he always struggled to finish his poems; he collected interesting lines but the ability to make them "poetic" in a completed poem had eluded him. But luckily for the poems' speaker and for us, the poet ultimately managed to dislodge that "fish bone" and now his poems flow freely from his, no doubt, satisfied muse.

In addition to honesty about his poetic growth, the speaker of these poems knows how to show his reader a good time. In a graceful, concrete style, the speaker entertains us with "Two for the Concrete: Ars Poetica," snaking us along the page and pulling us up as we follow the lines. Then he reminds us of E. E. Cummings as he relates the events of "One Enchanted April."

My favorite poem is the beautiful and spiritual "Hummingbird Summer"; here is a sample:

And soaring on some liquor divine
Divinely mad!
A fool with wings!

For now is the time
Stopped and still in golden air
I see myself shining everywhere.

One can't help thinking of Emily Dickinson's "I taste a liquor never brewed," and seeing the "little Tippler / Leaning against - the Sun." The speaker is so identified with the hummingbird that he can make it clear to us what the hummingbird must be experiencing, like his own soul mad with divine ardor.

The section called "Prayers to a Playful God" (variations on "Now I lay me down to sleep") is delightful. The speaker seeks to allay the fears that the original "Now I lay me down to sleep" aroused in him. The result is wonderfully childlike and spiritually uplifting. Plus he adds two final versions just for the fun of it.

The innovative sonnet "Making the Dawn" again brings E. E Cummings to mind as it complements a more traditional sonnet "The Most Arrogant Steed." Both sonnets convince us that the poet has indeed dislodged that fish bone for good and is finding that his struggles with the muse have been replaced with a fruitful cooperation.

The copyright of the article Review: A Southern Line and Other Poems in Modern U.S. Poetry is owned by . Permission to republish Review: A Southern Line and Other Poems in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.