Mixing world mythology, scientific observation, meditative thought, and personal outlooks in one book of poetry can be tricky, but Southwestern writer Steven P. Klepeis threads this needle to create a lucid, multi-layered collection of poems. The book, with the rather pedestrian title, New Poems, is published by Resource Publications (an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2023) from Eugene, Oregon. The more I reflected on the title, the more I thought this was a suitable name. Too often, writers and poets are cleverer with their titles than they are with the text inside the covers. It was refreshing to read a title that held no pretention, although perhaps an equally simple subtitle might set up what is to come.
/////
New Poems is divided into five separate and distinct sections: “December”, a poem a day marking the end of year; “Ravens”, a deep study of this mythic bird; “The Planets”, a tour through our solar system; “In Respect of Theodore Roethke, a study of the 20th century poet and responses by Mr. Klepeis; and “Various”, eleven personal reflections that bring the volume to a close.
Mr. Klepeis has thrown a wide net here but into a singular poetic ocean. His voice and point of view both skates along the surface and then takes deep dives, but it is always clear who is command of the vessel. As with most books of poetry, there are pieces that are accessible immediately while others that need several readings to gain what the poem is offering. But, like any notable book, this is one of its pleasures, the ability to revisit and discover the nuances that were previously missed.
/////
I especially enjoyed the “Ravens” section. The poet grasps the bird (or its mythic image) as a raw gemstone and then finely cuts it so that we are left with a polished jewel of sixteen facets, each poem catching the light in a different way and with a different intensity. This is also the section where the poet brings in an array of world mythic figures (and artists) to narrate or to participate in each of the poems. We are propelled into the presence of Noah, Cain, Van Gogh, Haida among others.
From “Raven”
Their one of thirty calls,/ in fives, sixes or fours,/ grittier than a crow’s/
in an atmosphere of straight falling snow.
They can imitate a human voice./ Sixty-seven million years / of Syrinx, bereft/
and crying from their throats.
/////
What I also admire about writers is their ability to direct me into further study. Mr. Klepeis’s works guided me to look up more about ravens where I found that a grouping of ravens is called “an unkindness.” These groups have also been called: “a clamor, a parliament, a rave,” and a “conspiracy.” After leaning this, I went back to read the “Ravens” section again, with even deeper thoughts and appreciation.
/////
The opening “December” section is a more introspective view of a month’s passing. These are short and expressive meditations, with world mythologies again filtering through the stanzas. I got a true sense of the bleakness of winter approaching, but not a wallowing in the usual lack of daylight that we so often feel, but rather a connection with the rhythm with the cosmos. I felt I was reading a poet who allowed himself to immerse in the dimming light of the end of year and all its revelations.
From “December 2”
Jupiter, December
sky father, lightning, eagle and the oak,
you will die, gratefully,
before your children,
in the frost wind,
in the dead of night, asking from a hospital bed
a window be opened.
/////
“The Planets” section is a more tradition observation, but still holds the poet’s unique voice and point of view which brings a freshness to subject matter that has been explored over the centuries.
“In Respect of Theodore Roethke”, the penultimate section, might at first be construed as an homage to the influential, Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, 1908-1963. Mr. Klepeis has no doubt been influenced by Mr. Roethke but has created his own existential investigation into the nature of being. The poems here are accessible, moving from the natural world to personal mindscape. The section begins with the poem “Roethke”, which sets up a free-spirited journey for the reader.
“After twenty years on a long green street / you stumble in, coughing,/ believing you had touched,/ once or twice, the well-worded/ bubble in your blood,/ believing the leaves could remain dry/on the surface of that much trouble. “
/////
The poems in this section move the reader sometimes to abstract concepts, but they follow a path that keeps the reader grounded. Here is the opening of “One is One”:
One is one, but /two are one, and /three are one, and/so on.
Paradox/ reverses / an atom’s/ finality.
/////
The final section, “Various” is a compilation of eleven poems, with a wide subject matter and tone. Many seem to be stand-alone poems, but also connect with ideas and thematic content. This section also has some of the strongest poems, including the five-part “The New Bestiary” and “Requiescat”. These poems create a more intimate feel, as if the poet, after taking us on a long journey, can now settle in and speak to us personally.
/////
As Lightwood reviewer, I communicated with poet Steven Klepeis as I was reading his work. I specifically asked about the last section of poems being called “Various”; he addressed this and a few other ideas which I thought Lightwood readers might appreciate.
Steven Klepeis:
“Whereas all the other poems in the other sections are macroscopically “topical,” for lack of a better word, with regard to the names of those sections, I thought a reader might experience some discontinuity in visiting the last section, as it is, simply, various. Internally, themes repeat or are revisited or are newly developed throughout, without regard to section names. I believe I write, typically, experience-centered short lyric poems which engage narrative as structure. The narrative persona is free to control what you may come away with, or (the reader) may eschew control implicitly or explicitly, yielding to the power of the poem’s own central core or dynamic. So, section names set the stage for the group and allow the poems in the section to each start from that stability.
I first learned that narrative lyrics could together create a lyric narrative from John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs. As an essentially confessional poet, Berryman’s unique narrative persona maintained a dramatic distance which intensified the core of each poem. Ted Hughes did this in an entirely different and formal way, and I learned narrative voice mainly from Hughes, but the technique first from Berryman and then later discovering it throughout the major poets here and there.”
/////
This book, New Poems, is a wonderful multilayered collection with lasting rewards for the reader, and I know that Mr. Klepeis will offer many more rich and lasting works for a long time to come.
L. Carr, Lightwood Publisher
/////
Steven P. Klepeis grew up in upstate New York and holds an M.A.T. from SUNY, New Paltz, NY (1982.) After working many years in Risk Management in New York and Louisiana, he followed a job to New Mexico in 2016 where he currently resides. He started writing poetry seriously in the early 1970’s and has published Brooklyn and After and Poems 1973-1987 (2021,) and Eighty-One Plus One (2022.) He wrote New Poems, his third book, over 2021-22. His fourth book, El Rio, a collection of physical and spiritual adventures while fishing and exploring various rivers, creeks and streams in the Northern, Southern and Western U.S., will publish in the summer of 2023.
Lightwood 