TWO BOOKS by MICHAEL DENNIS

RICHARD LOPEZ Reviews

missing the kisses of eloquence by Michael Dennis

(GSPH, Ontario, Canada, 1994)

Coming Ashore on Fire by Michael Dennis

(Burnt Wine Press, Ottawa, Canada, 2009)

Some poets you admire for their talent and technique. Other poets you respect for their humanity. Michael Dennis is a poet who is the whole large thing, head, heart, talent and goodness. I admire and love his work, and I love him as a person. For Dennis is that rare bird in poetry world: a good, kind person.

Don’t take my word for it. Read his poems. Read his poetry review blog, michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com, where Dennis publishes reviews of poetry books with such great art, I mean heart, I mean both art and heart. Dennis’ work should be taken wholly and completely. Whether in prose or verse Michael Dennis’ goodness shines forth. The two books under review are published 15 years apart. No matter. They are written by the same large spirit with a style that is ageless.

For Michael Dennis is a domestic bohemian. The subjects of his poems are often about travel, quotidian experiences, work that we do for money, his long and happy marriage, and the ordinary fumbles of living in this world as a thinking human being. I will treat these books under review as a single work. If that may not be fair to the individual books I make up for treating Dennis’ poetry as a totality. As the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva said, some poets have history and some poets do not. Michael Dennis, as far as I have read his work, does not have history. He began writing with full force and great maturity.  The only change I can tell is that his earlier work was often printed lower-case and unpunctuated. Later poems stay unpunctuated but have standard capitalization. But all of his poetry have the same warmth, humor and humility.

Take this poem for example

          the smartest person on the street

         walking my short legged walk down main street

          and thinking about nothing but the weather

          it is fall, my favorite season

          except when it is winter, spring or summer

          i enjoy the edge in the air

          and the hot sun in the cool sky

          the streets are busy with no end

          to the nickle and dimers standing on corners

          making their sad faces and small change transactions

          i cross from one corner to another

          and a woman almost my age

          turns to ask for what i can spare

          the words barely out of her mouth when she smiles

          and without a trace of malice

          says

          “hell, you’re not rich, are you”

          in a rhetorical way

          and she is right

          i am wearing old boots that are cracked

          but still warm and comfortable

          they are sixteen years old

          and have done me well

          i’m hoping for at least one more season

          my pants are clean but have some paint stains

          i live with a painter

          and sometimes help him in his studio

          my jacket is out of fashion

          but it fits me fine with good big pockets

          because they are the best

          i am wearing a beret

          even though some don’t like it

          i started wearing it years ago

          and my poor fat head feels naked without it

          i am not insulted and she knows that too

          if i had money i’d pass some on

          and she seems to understand

          instead we share a smile and the weather

          she turns to more important business

          i keep walking

Here is the delight of the poet who loves fall, but winter, summer and spring too. He shares poverty with the subject of the poem but I would call it a cosmic poverty like the poverty of a saint. For both the speaker and the subject knows what it takes to survive in this world but they also know it does not take money to be rich in health and experience.  To exist is more than enough of such riches.

Michael Dennis’ poetry is mostly narrative. He is a wonderful storyteller. If you look for it on youtube you can find the poet reading ‘The Hockey Poem” that is a masterpiece of performance. You will also crack a rib from laughing hard for the poem is that funny.

As I age I value generosity and kindness as the greatest values. One does not need to be nice to be a good writer but for me practicing goodness and good writing are inseparable.  When Michael Dennis gives advice to younger poets he says, “I tell them that writing isn’t as important/as being a good person.” Which shocks in its declarative simplicity. It shouldn’t. Poetic myth of the last two hundred years or so elevates the selfish and the greedy. Dennis is destroying that myth. 

Another great theme of Dennis’ poetry is the happy marriage. Why should that be so strange? For health and happiness are standard bearers for civilization and are not incompatible with poetry.

          summer windows

          putting up plastic over summer windows

          i sentence our chimes to a winter’s silence

          in an attempt to reduce the onslaught

          of what snow, wind and rain can do

          it is an act of maturity unimagined

          in the dreams i dreamt in my youth

          i notice dust under furniture

          and remember to take meat out of the fridge

          we are attempting to have a child

          like everyone else we imagine

          we can undo our childish pain

          in the perfection of a new born

          unclear, unfocussed, untainted

          a life to mold with our perfect kindness

          and our un-realized dreams

          we monitor the geography of my wife’s body

          marking each month a season

          framed by the blood of a promise

          we think in the future tense

          during the moments we consider children

          the rest of the time

          my wife does her work

          and i do mine

          some nights we dine with friends

          we watch movies, dance

          the housework gets done

          along with the waiting

          responsibility closes in like the weather

          irrevocable, irresistible, undeniable

          feared and cherished

          welcomed

The stress of domestic life is welcomed along with its pleasures. These are quiet triumphs of spirit. A domestic bohemia. 

Here is another poem of love in a long marriage

          this simple life

          it is ten forty P.M. on a Sunday

          my wife is snoring

          in our marriage bed

          earlier tonight, while playing Scrabble

          she made me laugh out loud

          she was in denial

          farting loudly 

          denying louder

          we had our first BBQ

          of the season tonight

          nothing fancy

          as there is still snow on the ground

          steak with an Argentinean red

          earlier today she went to yoga

          on her way home

          bought our groceries for the week

          we have been married a long time

          but not long enough for me

          in time

          I’ll be able to say it properly

          precisely

          how I find her finer than air

          more necessary

          to my breathing

“[W]e have been married a long time/but not long enough for me.”  beautiful! 

Finally, Michael Dennis is a poet of the elements. His metaphysics are grounded in the things he can touch, taste, see and feel. Love for him is a physical law. Goodness is a fundamental human right. For these qualities, and so much more, I deeply love and admire this poet. 

*****

richard lopez was born in the summer of love in a hospital where the late poet/short story writer raymond carver worked as a janitor.  current projects include a collaboration with the poet lars palm and co-editing an anthology of demotic haiku with this partner in rhyme jonathan hayes.  he published poems, essays, interviews and reviews in, among others, cordite, jacket and dwang.