Review of my new book by Robin Wright:

Posted byjimmcgarrahPosted inLiterary

You Can Never Go Back to the Turtle Back Inn (Rochak Publishing, 2022, 15.00 dollars) Available at Amazon or your local bookstore by order.

In Jim McGarrah’s sixth collection of poems, he questions what it means to be human by looking at the world around him, turning to memories, and searching his own mind and actions. The Prologue: “News of the World” sets up the reader with a juxtaposition of two views of what life is worth, using the weather to further establish his point. The first is a child in Sri Lanka carrying a goat who had just given birth down the side of a mountain during a snowstorm, her dog following with the baby kid on its back. He queries, “how long were the hours she struggled/with her assertion of worth in every life?” The second is of a woman in Texas who, after giving birth, is annoyed with her infant’s crying and so, “beat the thing to death and then threw/its lifeless form in the nearest garbage dump” on a day when the weather was perfect. McGarrah’s word choice when describing the actions of the mother from Texas is noteworthy. The baby is called a “thing” and saying “its lifeless form,” not his or her form, further establishes the attitude of the mother.

“Christmas Day” is a reflection on the memory of McGarrah’s father teaching him basketball moves and how those moves “have kept me dancing between pain and desire, past and present,/birth and death . . .” It has kept him “alive in a place of grace.” His hope for this “kind of kindness” is that “you can teach your child to share it in a world/that has not learned how compassion becomes life and finally/art.”

“Chipped” is a slice-of-life scene that seems to be a metaphor for humanity, knowing that we’re not perfect but not giving up on the human race. “It’s broken, which is not the same as useless.”

Not only does McGarrah take the reader through his questioning, searching, and learning, he does so with language that is lyrical and poignant. The Epilogue: “Taking Flight with Rahsaan Roland Kirk” is a sterling example, “Watch/the sky melt/into a velvet river.” These poems resonate and will be a collection to return to over and over.

Published by jimmcgarrah

Every single person on this planet is unique in many ways and yet, most people consider themselves normal (i.e. conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected). This dichotomy is how good writing works. It contains uniqueness in the characters or narrator and a normal progression of ideas in themes. Thus, a story will be appealing if it has unique specificity in a normalized world of some kind and that creates a universal connection between writer and reader. This symbiotic connection as an oxymoron, normal uniqueness, has always fascinated me, not only on the page but more importantly, in life. Over the past twenty years I have written a dozen books. None have made me famous or rich, but I am proud of the work. It has been published by respectable literary and university presses. My editors have been talented and conscientious and brought the best of what I do to the page. But publishing is not all of my writing life. I have long wanted a private space where I could more fully express this exploration between individuality and society normalcy without regard to the business of writing, the correction of images, the political implication of phrases, and while considering there might be an audience to some of what is written, not worrying about whether it would sell. Therefore, I give you my very first and likely last, public blog. It will explore whatever I feel like exploring at a given time in whatever form I choose—maybe a poem, maybe an essay, maybe a story, or possibly a simple “fuck you” to the world. Read at your own peril and comment whenever you want. I encourage dialogue as a learning tool for writer and reader alike. I do not expect agreement with all my ideas. That would eliminate the entire uniqueness side of my inquiry. This is a free space for us all.

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