Contemporary Poetry

: a web symposium  |  Spring 2006

Spell by Dan Beachy-Quick
Ahsahta Press, 2004

The more time moves forward the more that is left to the past. As contemporary poetry continues to re-invent itself so too the identity of the contemporary poet and the body of the contemporary poet’s work also evolves and changes. In today’s world of poetry the contemporary has a tendency to reject not only the intellectual style and general formality of the distant fore-fathers, but also the radical abandonment of said intellectual style and formality of the not so distant, but no longer contemporary masters. Somewhere in-between the formal and the radical of the past comes a poet of the future- Dan Beachy-Quick. Beachy-Quick is poet deeply inspired by both his distant fore-fathers and more recent predecessors. With severe regard for tradition and violent admiration of the “classics” Beachy-Quick finds his footing, however, Beachy-Quick radically rejects the generally casual, conversational style of many of his peers by diving into a project that embraces the idea of committing to a certain style, concept, and content and then truly ruminating- completely contemplating said style, concept and content therefore meeting the goals outlined in the project’s structure. He finds a way to write poetry that is painfully personal and introspective and yet, somehow, is not about his own life or the “commonplace events made extraordinary” that occupy the content of most poets’ work today. Beachy-Quick does just this in his second published collection Spell.

Spell is built upon the back of the great literary classic Moby Dick. In six unique concept-driven chapters Spell seeks to walk just off the page of Moby Dick, to ride the wave of the already illustrated characters, events, and themes beyond the crest upon which they reside in Moby Dick itself. In choosing to have such a set structure Beachy-Quick actually frees himself in certain ways. He is not charged with the task of inventing characters, setting, or even imagery for that matter- which gives him the freedom to really “go wild” conceptually. He is not limited by the need to create a beautiful image here or there, or articulate a narrator or persona; he has the freedom to start right where the fresh ideas begin, without having to do the work of setting up these ideas. This is quite possibly one of the biggest reasons why Beachy-Quick’s work is so conceptually profound, so intellectually beautiful and yet it is not pretentious or guarded- any reader, no matter how versed they are in classic literature or Moby Dick for that matter can enjoy what is linguistically and stylistically beautiful about his work. In other words, though the content is quite lofty, it is made readily available because the reader is given the tool of simply beautiful language.

In Chapter One: A Valiant He (Wherein Each Speaks in His Own Voice (Others May Intrude)) Beachy-Quick explores the internal narratives of several characters. This chapter is a good representation of Beachy-Quick’s ardent admiration for the classic, the clean, that which reeks of intellect. Each Character’s “section” is lettered beginning with “A. Exegesis of The First Words Spoken (Ishmael).” (p.5) The section then continues on in this academic style- almost looking like an outline, this section finds much of it’s rhythm, or many times, anti-rhythm in its use of indentation, italics, etc. “Scholar-on-waves, a water-gazer,/ call me / Ishmael. Re-enter my own life. / Waves: they murmur, babble, waves/ Do not articulate what the ocean/ turning in its bed thinks: what must be said. / “(p.5) The language in itself, the placement of words, the conceptual imagery is all beautiful and fresh and yet it is all framed by Beachy-Quick’s clean structure, and un-apologetically academic content.

As Chapter one illustrates Beachy-Quick’s homage to formality, intellect and structure- chapter four delves more into Quick’s departure from the ordinary and takes us deep into his world of poetic concept and radical language. “Halt (naive) (In which I see our condition is as Ishmael’s who says: ‘Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine.’ We examine the qualities of the White Whale to understand that feud- no, I mean the quenchlessness.” The section explores Ahab’s eternal pursuit and often makes vague suggestions about how, we as readers might apply this pursuit to our own realities. Many times Beachy-Quick’s language has a nature that alludes to his desire to step beyond the page- to continue the discussion that Moby Dick began by extending it. “A prophet is a man with a river-bed / For a face and no water.” (p.67) Here we can see clearly that this sort of line, this concept, reaches backwards into the text and style of Moby Dick, while also reaching forwards and allowing for application to many other abstract situations.

Chapter six seems to tie these two elements of Beachy-Quick’s style neatly in to a bow. “Then Avail (In which we find destinations of those to whom we’ve been introduced)” Chapter six seeks to take us past the text of Moby Dick and farther into the lives of its characters. It is sort of an extended poetic epilogue. This chapter is formal in its structure, but again radical in its language. With verse that goes from traditional stanzas to broken halves of dialogues this section is a spectrum of the many styles in which the previous chapters have dabbled. At one point in Starbuck’s poem it is written “The lisping-God that in the heart murmurs, / is heart’s murmur, / blood-BLOOD, blood BLOOD/.” (p.93) Here we see abstraction and not only intriguing word-choice, but intriguing physical set-up as well. The line “blood-BLOOD, blood-BLOOD” is set alone a line down from the quietly indented previous line. Here we see Beachy-Quick truly branching out and painting vivid new strokes; we forget that this piece is speaking of, to, and from an already created voice. And this is the true beauty, not only of Spell, but of Beahcy-Quick’s work in general.

Beachy-Quick is a poet to be read carefully, precisely, but at the same time he is a poet to be considered with emotion, enjoyed in an almost casual manner. Though upon first glance the content of Spell might seem too academically inspired and not available enough, if read carefully and with much consideration we find that Beachy-Quick is coming at this bouquet of concepts from a casual angle. Reading and re-reading this verse in our head we can find both rich meaning and profound content and also simply lyrical verse and beautiful dialogue and imagery. The content of Spell is elevated with an understanding of the text of Moby Dick but the style of Spell’s language stands all on its own, without any reading of Moby Dick any reader can relate, enjoy and admire Beachy-Quick’s work if only they choose to look at the text as one would look at a painting or any sort of visual art. Spend time with it, enjoy all that you can see with your own eyes and what emotions are inspired in you as a reader, but also find joy in all of the delicious depth that stands just beneath the surface, even if you don’t know who the people portrayed in a painting are, that doesn’t stop them from being beautiful. Beachy-Quick’s writing is available to all because it is both familiar in its footing, but not stale, and profound in it’s innovation, but not overly radical. Beachy-Quick is endowed with an eye for the seeds of fresh that are planted discreetly in the soil of stale.

Further Reading

By

Beachy-Quick, Dan. "Co-Temporary/ Contemporary on Martin Corless-Smith." Jacket Magazine . 29 Apr. 2006     http://jacketmagazine.com/25/beach-corle.html

Beachy-Quick. “ The Speaking Ear; Radi Os Ronald Johnson.” Boston Review. March/April 2006
http://www. bostonreview.net/BR31.2/beachyquick.html

Beachy-Quick, Dan. North True South Bright . : Alice James Books, 2003.    

About

The Lannan Foundation and Ahshata Press provide, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago provide biographical information on the poet.