{"id":146060,"date":"2019-10-28T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=146060"},"modified":"2020-05-03T06:11:19","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T05:11:19","slug":"poet-inhabits-the-heart-of-jimmy-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/10\/poet-inhabits-the-heart-of-jimmy-carter\/","title":{"rendered":"Poet Inhabits the Heart of Jimmy Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Author\u2019s Note: <\/em>The 39th<\/sup> President of the United States (1977-1981), Jimmy Carter has been in the news recently, and we wish him well\u2026.\u00a0 I consider him one of the great people I\u2019ve had the honor of meeting.\u00a0 Following his too-brief tenure in the White House, Carter worked gratis<\/em> for decades with \u201cHabitat for Humanity,\u201d physically building and refurbishing houses for those in need\u2026. In these noisy days of sham journalists, virulent political wrangling and pontificating \u201ceducators\u201d\u2014on every side of the philosophical spectrum–we pause to acknowledge a man who strove for peace during his presidential term, built houses for the poor after he left office, and found truths to share in the perdurable gemstones of words.\u2014G.S.C.]<\/p>\n

***********************<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Review of \u201cAlways a Reckoning<\/em>\u201d by Jimmy Carter, Times Books<\/h3>\n

[Originally published in <\/em>The Atlanta-Journal-Constitution, 25 Dec 1994]\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>In the world of bluff and cant where politicians live, it\u2019s unusual to find the intricate workings of a singular heart revealed in memorable verse.\u00a0 Nevertheless, in his ninth book, former president Jimmy Carter takes a bold step to restore a measure of humanity to our public figures.\u00a0 He peels back layers of feeling in simple, heartfelt poems.<\/p>\n

There are two ways to look at this volume of 44 poems.\u00a0 The first is biographical: Any utterance of a famous personage, being part of the historical record, has intrinsic value as a personal, barometric reading of an era.\u00a0 The second approach is trickier: Forget the bio, forget the record\u2014do these poems sing <\/em>in and of themselves?<\/p>\n

Whichever highway or byway one chooses, we come to an auspicious destination here.\u00a0 Carter employs an easy, narrative, flowing line\u2014in the tradition of Robert Frost or Edgar Lee Masters.\u00a0 He writes with candor about his childhood–a favorite black teacher\/companion; his loving, disciplinarian father and kind-hearted mother, \u201cMiss Lillian\u201d; and about his wife and helpmate, Rosalynn:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019d pay to sit behind her, blind to what<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 was on the screen, and watch the image flicker<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 upon her hair.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reading these poems, we get a deeper sense of the man behind the \u201cpresidential\u201d image.\u00a0 Or, more to the point, we get a better sense of how much the man and his image melded.\u00a0 The Carter revealed here is the same man who tilled the soil for peace in the Middle East and made human rights the moral compass of his Administration.\u00a0 He is a man of sensitivity, boldness of vision, and basic decency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jimmy Carter<\/p><\/div>\n

But, is he a poet?\u00a0 The answer lies in the following lines from \u201cLight Comes in Turkey Country\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026dim tree limbs<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 fragment the barely luminescent sky,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a metronomic whipporwill<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wakes the distant, lonely doves.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>This is the best use of sound in the volume\u2014meanings and sensations crammed into a singing density.\u00a0 The \u201cm\u2019s\u201d knit with sibilant \u201cs\u2019s\u201d and liquid \u201cl\u2019s\u201d and \u201cr\u2019s\u201d that illuminate and particularize the mixed sensations of a morning hunt.\u00a0 This is what poets do by instinct and by training.<\/p>\n

As with any poet, there are lapses, as in the beginning of \u201cMister Woodruff and Old Bess\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Life was hard in those Depression years.<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Money was scarce, and swaps the way<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we had to trade.\u00a0 Mister Woodruff,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 at his stable, used to say<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that no one got the best of him.<\/em><\/p>\n

One wishes Mr. Woodruff had more to say or could have said it better!\u00a0 Likewise, the first line is a throw-away.\u00a0 There are poems in the volume that are too \u201ctalky\u201d and prosaic, too much like journal entries.\u00a0 \u201cArs longa, vita brevis,\u201d <\/em>the Romans used to say.\u00a0 Which roughly translates into: \u201cIt\u2019s pretty darn hard to get this stuff right!\u201d<\/p>\n

When Carter does get it right, his words deserve inclusion in any fine anthology of American verse.\u00a0 In \u201cA Reflection of Beauty in Washington,\u201d he renders what Robert Frost called \u201ca momentary stay against confusion.\u201d\u00a0 From the White House roof, under a dark<\/p>\n

sky: \u201csuddenly we heard a sound\/ primeval in its tone and rhythm.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>Turning, the writer espies: \u201clong-wavering v\u2019s\/ breasts transformed to brilliance\/ by the lights we would have dimmed.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perspective, specificity, apropos sounds and echoes are the hallmarks of poetry, and Carter demonstrates these qualities in \u201cLife on a Killer Submarine,\u201d turning the hunt around:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026in spite of everything<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we did to keep our sounds suppressed,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the gradient sea could focus, too,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 our muffled noise.<\/em><\/p>\n

I eagerly await more poems like this one, and the White House poems\u2014poems that effloresce out of Carter\u2019s extraordinary life.\u00a0 I hope he will continue to pull back layers of feeling about the great events he witnessed and shaped, and will continue to plumb his themes: digging for meanings hidden under surfaces, and justly reckoning accounts.<\/p>\n

Poetry is an oft-disparaged art today.\u00a0 But, in publishing this book\u2014handsomely illustrated by Sarah Elizabeth Chuldenko\u2014the president-poet from Plains claims for it the central place it once had in our lives, and claims for himself a mantle worthy of his office and the Ages.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr. Gary Corseri is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.<\/a> He <\/em>has published\/posted poems, articles, fiction and dramas at Transcend Media Service<\/a> and hundreds of publications and websites worldwide.\u00a0 He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta.\u00a0 He edited the \u201cManifestations\u201d literary anthology.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 poetry collections, has taught in US public schools and prisons and in US and Japanese universities. <\/em>Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 39th President of the United States (1977-1981), Jimmy Carter has been in the news recently, and we wish him well\u2026. I consider him one of the great people I\u2019ve had the honor of meeting. Following his too-brief tenure in the White House, Carter worked gratis for decades with \u201cHabitat for Humanity,\u201d physically building and refurbishing houses for those in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":146061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,65,67,208],"tags":[642,870,70],"class_list":["post-146060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","category-anglo-america","category-reviews","category-literature","tag-literature","tag-reviews","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}