Maestro of Solitude: New Poems & Poetics
by Robert Bonazzi
9780916727437 || 978-0-916727-43-7 Cost: $16.00
Paperback , 116 pages
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ePub ISBN: 978-1-60940-084-2
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Above: Robert Bonazzi reads from Maestro of Solitude at the 2010 San Antonio Luminaria. Video by Public Studio.
Author of the critically-acclaimed biography, Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me, Robert Bonazzi's Maestro of Solitude: New Poems & Poetics is his fifth book of poems but first in 20 years. It highlights work from the 1990s into the new millennium.
These are dialogues between the clockwork of ego and timeless solitude, between earthly intimacy and the death of loved ones; lucid discourses on global politics and besieged communities; and witty takes on poetics and the arts. Never sanctimonious or glib, these spare, well-crafted poems draw upon the slow gathering wisdom of late middle age. "The soul's solitude is keenly felt in Bonazzi's poetry, especially his newer work," writes literary critic Paul Christensen in West of the American Dream. "He was following arguments that go back to roots of modernist experiment which turn on a profound distrust of words as having been appropriated for political and commercial use. Language was no longer the medium of free expression but an exploited means for showing the workings of one's consciousness. Some words didn't work any longer, like freedom, justice, truth, even love. The challenge was to not only loosen syntax from its old eloquent formulas, but to space out the words, calling attention to their peculiarities, their density and life as objects, as things, and not as the subservient noises by which self made its claims. One thing you hear most insistently in Bonazzi's lyric impulse is the desire to escape from self, to liberate language from its entrapments in selfish, instrumental logic."
Christensen ranks Bonazzi among the unsung heroes of modern American poetry: "If one were to attempt to put Bonazzi somewhere in the literary mountain, you would have to assign him a place near the peak, where the air is thinner and the paths are all trod by mountain goats and a few wizards and geniuses. He has taken poetry to its limits of subtlety, where sense nearly but not quite gives out into silence and awe. He is a Yield sign to those who might otherwise want to step on it and hog the road and declare self the triumphant virtue. He says no, and he points the way toward the ascetic life, and to his own, which is austere without being self-consciously hermetic or saintly."
Praised by poets Mark Van Doren, Thomas Merton, Guy Davenport, Robert Peters and Naomi Shihab Nye, as well as in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Poetry Now, Choice, The Texas Observer, Dallas Morning News and Austin American-Statesman, Bonazzi's new book sails beyond his earlier poetic efforts.
Critical Praise for Maestro of Solitude: New Poems & Poetics
Author of the critically-acclaimed biography, Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me, Robert Bonazzi's Maestro of Solitude This fifth book of poems but first in twenty years, highlights work from the 1990s into the new millennium.
These are dialogues between the clockwork of ego and timeless solitude, between earthly intimacy and the death of loved ones; lucid discourses on global politics and besieged communities; and witty takes on poetics and the arts. Never sanctimonious or glib, these spare, well-crafted poems draw upon the slow gathering wisdom of late middle age. "The soul's solitude is keenly felt in Bonazzi's poetry, especially his newer work," writes literary critic Paul Christensen in West of the American Dream. "He was following arguments that go back to roots of modernist experiment which turn on a profound distrust of words as having been appropriated for political and commercial use. Language was no longer the medium of free expression but an exploited means for showing the workings of one's consciousness. Some words didn't work any longer, like freedom, justice, truth, even love. The challenge was to not only loosen syntax from its old eloquent formulas, but to space out the words, calling attention to their peculiarities, their density and life as objects, as things, and not as the subservient noises by which self made its claims. One thing you hear most insistently in Bonazzi's lyric impulse is the desire to escape from self, to liberate language from its entrapments in selfish, instrumental logic."
Christensen ranks Bonazzi among the unsung heroes of modern American poetry: "If one were to attempt to put Bonazzi somewhere in the literary mountain, you would have to assign him a place near the peak, where the air is thinner and the paths are all trod by mountain goats and a few wizards and geniuses. He has taken poetry to its limits of subtlety, where sense nearly but not quite gives out into silence and awe. He is a Yield sign to those who might otherwise want to step on it and hog the road and declare self the triumphant virtue. He says no, and he points the way toward the ascetic life, and to his own, which is austere without being self-consciously hermetic or saintly."
Praised by poets Mark Van Doren, Thomas Merton, Guy Davenport, Robert Peters and Naomi Shihab Nye, as well as in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Poetry Now, Choice, The Texas Observer, Dallas Morning News and Austin American-Statesman, Bonazzi's new book sails beyond his earlier poetic efforts.
—
"Robert Bonazzi is a legendary figure in Texas letters and longtime publisher of Latitudes Press. . . . Bonazzi, whom I met in 1974, has inspired many of us over the years with his deeply honest literary life, his integrity, authenticity, and caring, disciplined work. His poems are a gift to our pages, and he has always been a gift to this state."
— Naomi Shihab Nye
Reviews
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'Maestro' plays up various poetic styles
San Antonio Express-News
Maestro of Solitude is Robert Bonazzi's fourth book of poetry, which includes several brief articles on poetics. He is also known for his critically-acclaimed biography of John Howard Griffin, his essays, reviews and short stories, his "Poetry Diversity" column for the San Antonio Express-News, not to mention his work as editor and publisher of Latitudes Press from 1966 to 2000.
As his ironic and somewhat ambivalent title suggests, Bonazzi often brings the reader into an interior world, which he references in "Unframed Portraits": "Forgive me if I seem to be/talking to myself—/I do not write for an ideal reader/or contemplate a classic muse."
One of his more challenging, hermetic poems ("Cantos of Particles and Waves") begins, "Alive/in perpetual thesis/anti-thesis expanding endlessly/ outside parentheses marking past/horizon eternally afloat/in a circular word-play/inscribed on a page/or merely functional/speech bled silently/to oneself."
But Bonazzi offers a variety of poetic styles, such as the very "accessible" poem (to use the controversial "a"-word) "Ways to Cross the River," which compares prose and poetry and the two cultures they symbolize. "Prose designs a suspension bridge/replete with rails and signs/Poetry swims underwater/reads currents and depths/breathes through a reed." He then places this observation into a satisfying, mystical perspective: "Silence sails beyond clouds/contains infinite horizons/bends to an unseen wave."
In "Border Crossings," Bonazzi describes a holiday trip across the Rio Grande, shedding "habits of logic and limb/suddenly overtaken by the spectacle/ of an articulate face./Silent allegory of elegant elders/inhabiting a stone bench." On his return, "Energetic ink of transformation/balances memory and forgetfulness/breathes in this instrument who writes," and we see that poetry is another kind of border crossing—from direct experience to a new, reshaped life.
He often describes the pain of personal loss, as in "Widower": "He's surrounded by death/they murmured to themselves,/or whispered to each other" and he thinks, 'No, not death/but by her life am I surrounded.'" In "The Empty House," he writes that while "Life will be less beautiful without her voice" [and] "Nothing can be healed/by all this scribbling," he cherishes his wound, "traveling this unbroken line to be near you/in our laughter on the other side."
There is great tenderness and intelligence here, including some interesting thoughts on poetry. In "Poetics as Self-Criticism," he talks of the need to complete a poem—not to achieve an elusive perfection but "because writing creates a deep personal continuity, a sense of a less transitory mode of existence."
I highly recommend Robert Bonazzi's poetry, which in its contemplation of life and art, playful language and overall craftsmanship will never be transitory.
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John Hammond, a poet and critic, was the long-time director of public relations at San Antonio College.
About This Author
Read more about Robert Bonazzi HERE.
