Lost and Certain of It
by Bryce Milligan
1899179992 Cost: $14.00
Die-cut cover, printed in two colors on parchment,
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Critical Praise for Lost and Certain of It
"These are powerful, lyrical poems that often take flight. . . ."
— San Antonio Express News
The first work by Bryce Milligan I read was Working the Stone in the mid-1990s. I was moved then by the lyricism of his language, his aesthetic commitment, and the honesty of of his political stance. Subsequently, I have read more of his work, heard him read his poetry, heard him sing songs he has written, and heard him play musical instruments Milligan is a true bard-poet, in short a troubador. In 2003, I published Milligan's Alms for Oblivion as part of the Aark Arts "Contemporary World Poetry" Series. This 500-line poem in seven parts is like a medieval Rajasthani miniature painting Miltonic in ambition and expanse, yet understated and image-packed like a Japanese haiku. It is an oratorical tour de force haunting, cadenced, mythic, and lyrical. This is a classic "quest poem" where the muse-poet abandons everything intellect, practicality, passion only to lose himself in the very same things, things that are the ultimate essentials of artistic breathing, creation, and life. Orchestral in scope and shape, Milligan's Alms for Oblivion is a little gem of an epic. As Texas critic Dr. Paul Christensen wrote, this "important poem . . . breaks new ground for the contemporary long poem, and shows us love as it evanesces into dreamworlds and underworlds of longing."
Lost and Certain of It is another kind of gem: a collection of Milligan's lyric and narrative poems and songs. This new work is simultaneously personal and universal, lyrical and imagistic. Milligan's work functions as a crossover between poetry, music and art, where the word, phrase, line, and idea on the page meet the highly practised tenor of orality and vocal modulation. Too often what might sound acceptable on stage, when read privately by an unbiased reader, falls flat on the page because the writing quality is poorer than the quality of speech delivery and does not stand up to the fanfare the performer poet might create on stage. Bryce Milligan's works transcend these limitations and coalesce many traditions and genres beautifully. Lost and Certain of It is a book to rejoice in and savour.
— Sudeep Sen, author of Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins). Publisher of Aark Arts, New Delhi & London
Reviews
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San Antonio Express-NewsFebruary 19, 2006
Reviewed by John HammondMusic is a recurring subject in many of Bryce Milligan's poems in this new collection, which also includes several song lyrics. The emotive quality of music is also a source of energy for Milligan, in keeping with the fact that he is not only a writer and the publisher of Sna Antonio's Wings Press, but also an award-winning songwriter and a maker / repairer of stringed instruments.
Appropriately, the title poem "Lost and Certain of It" is a villanelle, an old form made new in our time, with its repeating choral lines that accrue new meaning as the poem moves forward. As a variation on Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the speaker in Milligan's poem is not choosing between well- or less-traveled paths, but instead finds himself lost ("the woods crowd in") and feels the pull of the wilderness: "Let the woods crowd out / all that is clear and broad and well traveled."
The themes of music and nature come together in Milligan's poem, "Wild Mustard," which describes a visit with Texas blues great Mance Lipscomb some 30 years ago in the Navasota bottomlands. The experience of "a day of stories / and guitar licks I would never get right" combines in his memory with the smell of wild mustard in the surrounding fields, steaming in the sunlight.
In "Summers in the Country," he is conscious of his own urban outsider's understanding of the world as a young city boy from Dallas visiting the farm where one of his parents grew up. He feels out of sync with the country boys, who wonder why he would want "to get it all down on a back pocket steno pad." But he comes to appreciate the dignity of the field hands he sees from inside his grandfather's air-conditioned tractor: they are "sometimes singing chopping cotton always sweating / every one of them a philosopher of labor / a poet of the machete an Odysseus making his way back home."
On the other hand, his poem "The Silence Inside the City" is an energetic celebration of city life and its own kind of music. He waits for sleep "like some late bus" with his windows "opened wide to the night," hearing jazz from "the neon-drenched cafes / and acid-thin guitar licks / sizzle down from some radio / and some woman's talking / too loud to God / while a dumpster lid / screeches open / and shut / open and / shut."
Fueled by the primal forces of nature, human longing and music, Bryce Milligan's poems often become a kind of spiritual journey, a way to understand how our lives are balanced among various tensions. In "Between One Crack and Another," he describes these tensions in the experience of climbing a rock face -- where staying in control is the difference between life and death, falling and flying, knowing our limitations and our possibilities, as he makes his way "sensing he difference between talon and wingtip."
These are powerful, lyrical poems that often take flight, and I highly recommend them.
John Hammond is a poet, critic, and director of public relations at San Antonio College.
About This Author
Read more about Bryce Milligan HERE.