Pearl Pirie reviews Hailey Higdon’s The State in Which (2013)

Pearl Pirie was good enough to discuss Hailey Higdon’s The State in Which (2013) in her “95books” project over at her blog. Thanks much! Although it is a bit disappointing to realize one of the pages got flipped (I’ll have to get her a replacement copy). This is actually the third review of Higdon’s chapbook, after Edric Mesmer discussed such over at Yellow Field, and Ryan Pratt discussed it over at the ottawa poetry newsletter.

211. The State in Which by Hailey Higdon (above/ground, 2013)

This was a project to write one poem per month. My copy of the chapbook was assembled wrong somehow so continuity was mussed in June and July. It was kind of diary and self-conscious of writing as writing. It fell in and out of focus. For example, the first half of December,

so many people are ok

with not being the best

versions of themselves

it was a million domestic

situations that made me

choose from one thing to the next

rebel, this is what I did

I stopped the idle, saying

yes, so much more often, so much more, storing up, collecting yeses,

risk, but the inverse

of take it and move on, I used to

keep repeating the same mistake–

quitting days, I know better now

The first three lines sound promising. Then its structured as stream of consciousness. Why not take the time to untangle. Part of it is the chaotic surge forward of life “I am looking for jobs, trying to locate the future perfect. How poinsettias arrive in the grocery story each year, looking so consistently identical, you can’t help staring.”

Pearl Pirie reviews Elizabeth Robinson's Simplified Holy Passage (2015)

Pearl Pirie was good enough to provide the first review for Elizabeth Robinson's Simplified Holy Passage (2015) as #100 in her "95 Books" list. Thanks so much! See the original review here.

And of course, her chapbook is still very much available! As she writes:

Got as part of my above/ground subscription, this was a pleasure to read and re-read. Teasing apart ideas, returning, squeezing and tugging again. Meditation/reflection over a couple dozen days. As a long thought, turned over and over, how to excerpt? Part of the beauty is in how it moves, doubles back, picks up some thoughts from before, re-examines and finds new things. It suggests walking along a beach looking for the best shell, assessing the pocketed ones, throwing some back, upgrading, and walking more.

day 5

The question is how can one pick up a process and continue it after an interruption. If that is even possible.

Interruption being, after all, the most holy passage.

If not the most simple.

A bit fey and may not make sense when feeling expedient yet with a bigger view and slower mood, it seems a question that’s reasonable. It’s similar to someone admonishing “you can’t do that” while it is in the process of being done— it’s rhetorical more than real inquiry. There is only interruption and continuing. What are the holy passages in life? Can we step outside any? Some seem more soft-box and Seeming to Signify. If we are rushing past the glorious and peeved at the beautiful it doesn’t erase the beauty, just eclipse it for us by our gestures. In the garage, day 7

The man says that he thinks they can repair the leak soon.

I am not sure where I want to go, except away from here
(and that’s a metaphysical issue). Sitting beside an
as for a car battery called “Power Pro”

Being aware of the moment we are in with peripheral vision of what’s coming in, where we’ve been and self-aware enough to distinguish between inward and outward, that’s doing good work in poetry.