Poetry isn’t a staple here at the Trout Underground, and if my high school English teacher was right, it’s because I lack the genes needed to correctly interpret it.
Still, when I posted (long ago) about David Fraser’s Killing Trout and Other Love Poems, I was interested enough to dip my beautifully manicured manscaped toe back in poetry’s metaphor-rich waters.
Fraser’s a fly fisherman and outdoorsman, and not surprisingly, the outdoors occupy a high profile in most of his poems.
Interestingly, this collection of spare, direct poems were compiled over several decades, and in places, you glimpse the progression of Fraser’s life.
The result is a collection of sharp, all-literary-encumbrances-removed poems that reminded me of John Gierach’s little-seen, pre-Trout Bum Signs of Life poetry collection.
Fraser doesn’t burden his poems with overripe metaphor or literary pretense. His is the art of carving away all that isn’t essential, and the result is a series of visceral glimpses into a life lived largely outdoors:
In Canoeing After Midnight, Fraser:
There are moments under
the full moon when there are clouds
and trees, and Octobers
and warm south winds
and the broad river
kicks up and everything else
is subdued but the sounds
and I point the canoe into the wind
and I am challenging the wind
and the river when I should be sleeping.
a fool again, with one paddle, huddled
in the reeds on the far side of the river,
always traveling to that other side to rest.
always knowing there will be no rest
until I get back, the bow cutting
through the bullshit and the boredom
Killing Trout’s 35 poems range from fun to darkly observant, and a few truly stand out.
Poets and poetry fanatics will want to lay their hands on this volume – as will anyone interested enough in poetry to have dug up Gierach’s first book of poems.
This book is also the first from an independent press largely powered by its online presence, and frankly, that’s a trend I’d like to encourage.
Speaking as an absolute novice in the field of poetry criticism, I’m giving Fraser’s Killing Trout & Other Love Poems two fins up, if only because I “got” it. And liked it.
See you in the coffeehouse, Tom Chandler
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