Rick Simonson

From Buzz to NBA: Time and Materials
November 21, 2007

Up in this neck of the woods, most of the noise subsequent to last week's National Book Award announcements has naturally centered around Sherman Alexie and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian., and well they should.

One other award-winner, though, near and dear to this reader's inclinations, was Robert Hass, who received the honors for his recent collection of poetry, Time and Materials. The appearance of this, of any new collection by Hass is something of an event, of the once-in-a-decade or more variety. It had been eleven years, since Sun Under Wood, his most recent. Starting in 1973, when Field Guide was selected for the Yale Younger Poets series, there have been but four other books of Hass' own verse, including Time and Materials. Five books in thirty-four years? That's pacing yourself.

The time taken shows in Hass' careful, thoughtful (literally and metaphorically) work, more given to the meditative, the ruminated sentence, quietly laid and played out. There's not much quick, hither and yon  darting about. There's a tendency to prose, really, long lines, sentences working their way out. Layers of life, of history, the world are worked through, carefully. There's a leisureliness and intimacy in the voice, and often in the subject matter. In one of his earlier books - Praise, I would guess - there was the pace to stop and include a recipe. (This was before it became someting of a staple in novels.) Cook with him. Make a meal. Enjoy together.

Bob Hass has been busy, his own poems aside: there was his 1995 - 1997 stint as U.S. Poet Laureate, a role he took on seriously and energetically. His Poet's Choice columns made for both an anthology of poems and a selection of essays. There have also been his efforts, working with and translating others, most notably the late Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz.

Dan Halpern has been publishing Hass' poetry since Praise, his second book was published in 1979. And it was Dan Halpern, with Ecco now in its Harper mode of existence, who made ripples at this past year's BEA talking about Time and Materials. It was the annual editors' buzz panel - which many people I knew missed, as the show conditions that day made taking showers and changing clothes mandatory if one was to be socially acceptable anywhere that evening - but clearly people were there. The buzz from the buzz panel was that Dan Halpern had talked at considerable length. About which book? Robert Hass' Time and Materials. This had to be a first for the buzz panel, a book of poems, and the irony that this would be long talk. But so long it had been.

Praise - and 'vindication' - be. May it not be another eleven years now, please.   

Posted by Rick Simonson on November 21, 2007 | Comments (0)