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Raewyn Alexander reviews
Sundays on the Phone
by Mark Rudman
152pp $US22.95 Wesleyan University Press 0-8195-6785-X jacketed cloth
This review is about 5 printed pages long.
Poetry showing conversations is an excellent device for engaging a reader, when
the dialogue is intriguing yet believable like this work Rudman presents.
Dialogue-inspired free verse as well produced as this real and imagined
talk, brings a reader nearer to knowing the heart of things. Discussion
springs from the page, life unfolds, we may believe we hear tone of voice
or see the people.
Lovely to hold, this book with smooth pages and
the cover a clever montage photo also lovely, but a telling crease sits in
the corner. Usually, I wouldn’t comment on book design so early on
in a review but in this age of e-books and online zines, holding this
volume of free verse I realised again the importance of print.
Instantly I held the book, I loved it. It felt good. Obviously, the
writing then needed to measure up to my first impression, but those first
few moments did matter. The intriguing reworking on the cover of a black and white
photo from around the 1950s also got my interest.
The choice of fine paper gives a tangible mood to colour the
intimate discussions within, and the pale sepia colour is reminiscent of
days gone by. Time changes things. Likened to phone conversations, these
poems also benefit from their free form lending so much personality, and a
casual elegance in the variety and shape of the work.
The
complex nature of a mother and son’s relationship is evident in how much
ground this writing covers. The work begins in childhood and follows along
through time to Rudman’s mother’s recent death. What’s
hidden between the lines counts too, and many times I read delightedly
phrases like this -
Your immersion in attacking the canvas brought a fresh
gust of wind into the apartment. Along with your portable
forest.
I also read in wonder when he says his mother’s
‘bottle letter’ is beautiful, but she says she doesn’t
know about that. Then she asserts she married two bottles, and slowly the
mystery is unlocked as the poem moves along through mother and son talking
about the past.
Rudman states clearly what conversations sounded
like in his childhood or on the phone with his mother, so we may enter
their world as if it is a play. Now and then, an observer comments on
their relationship, and the reader could feel some empathy with those
people. For instance, when his stepson says he has never seen anybody
treat somebody else like that, after seeing mother and son together. A
series of exchanges and musings, these poems raise questions and paint scenarios that many of us could imagine when we wonder what our mothers
meant by something, or how a parent could get so close yet seem so
disconnected.
A pleasing sense of permission to share private
moments also adds to the delight and tenderness of this work, along with
upsets and shocks. Outsiders do not usually hear what a family discusses
when members are cloistered together, unless by accident or some devious
means. Rudman allows us in, we are invited and made welcome. This feels like a
special occasion, but may be uncomfortable.
I took some time to
get used to the wide spacing of mainly quotes, but gradually this device
made it clear that distance is a factor in these conversations. The format
also gave me a sense of expansiveness, or generosity. Now and again, I
also felt like things were falling apart and the way the poems are
formatted added to that feeling.
The poet uses straightforward
language in a flowing manner, strewn with references to American
Jewishness, giving a definite ethnic flavour. The collection begins decades before in childhood, and moves in linear time to his mother’s
recent demise. Perhaps, as many of us may do, he
recreated or invented these talks with his mother in his writing, to keep
her near since she had gone.
In some ways, anyone could have more
leeway when a parent or relative is no longer with them too, and openly
discuss some mystery, annoyances or scandal. The setting is Sundays on a
telephone, so I believed the writer felt relaxed and I could enjoy a sense
of repose. The circumstances then around these poems, and the setting, all
make for a promising session that could easily lead to revelations.
I kept yearning to read more, even when I felt shocked. Then Rudman
laid bare things his mother or he apparently said, so I felt like my own
house rang with their misunderstandings or accusations, their subtle
shifts of tone from innocuous remarks, then mild debate to needle sharp
digs or banter.
The juxtaposition of soft and hard, or easy
and difficult evoked an atmosphere of realism because people are a mixture of opposites so
often, especially when we have a bond with them. Close to someone, we may
see them at every extreme as well as the scale in between.
These poems show people flawed, struggling, in pain at times or
deliberately annoying and obtuse, yet always loving behind it, somewhere.
Rudman looks at what a person may choose and what circumstances may appear
to make them do. But he recognises limitations, too.
‘The Albuquerque Interventions’ begins with a phone conversation, quotes from
two people in turn -
“Why Switzerland? What’s all this sudden interest
in skiing?”
“I’ve no burning desire to go.
I was charmed by an email.”
This somehow leads to talk of family, and fathers, then to his mother’s life as a girl and the repression she endured. Glimpses of neighbourhood or routine are mentioned throughout. Here’s a glimpse the mother’s opinion of her writer son, never earning enough:
“Of course if you want a fancy car it helps
to have a real job, do you know how much the doctors
around here pull in now, they have separate cars
for all different kinds of driving,
town cars, jeeps, and two seaters for when
they can leave the kids at home.”
Sharp and direct though some lines are, the verses also take
side-steps. Rudman provides sound effects or awkward moments, as when
his mother asks if he is fiddling with the tape recorder. So real and at
times uneasy, vivid yet subtle, writing with many facets.
The
poem ends with talk of holidays, just as it began with the mention of
skiing somewhere far away. Throughout, without explicitly saying so,
Rudman gives a sense of wanting to escape or leave but not wishing to say
so obviously. He captures how we may dodge some topics or ease out of
difficult moods to save someone else or ourselves pain. Perhaps he is also
saying that with people we know well, we may also openly show our more
curious or peculiar aspects. In starting and ending with mention of a
change, he wraps it all up in a mood of restlessness.
Poems
dance and hum the way a phone conversation may, then snap or fall flat,
only to change tack and catch some air again. Perhaps this collection
shows how the point is the talking together and not what we think nor do
afterwards. The poems celebrate conversation mainly, no matter what is
said.
The effort of guiding his thoughts into producing such a fine
book speaks to the writer’s regard for his mother, while the words
also speak of his bewilderment and some wounds still hurt. His examinings
and revelations bring his life into focus — but then maybe that is not what
is needed?
Not that there is no secret to the universe,
but the secret may not be one
we want to hear.
Mistakes feature, over again and again. Free verse points up how random life may be. The form emphasises a sense of pain, confusion and fretting about what has gone, while also by arranging memories in this apparently fresh manner, the people appear so alive that hope gleams on every page. Life answers itself, that is all.
I know from my own family phone conversations that much of what is said
is not overly important nor ground-shaking. Then again, when
family do discuss something that really matters, few words are wasted on
niceties. One of the best and worst things, these poems appear to say, is
how we may be honest with those who share our blood.
I read quickly, and prefer writing that allows me to do so. I like to race through words and let them flow, the
way breath and blood also generate energy. These poems let me dance and
sprint, circle and leap. I enjoyed their simplicity and depth. It may
appear easy to write such verse, but I know it is not.
Every piece of writing about
any aspect of family inevitably draws the reader to consider their own
situation. One thing everyone has in common is they are shaped by their
family, or lack of one, and how that is noticed. Many people appear to wish
they had another family at times.
This collection,
‘Sundays on the Phone’, evokes a mixed set of emotions, which could be
likened to jewellery. If the poet displays life a little shinier, or a
touch more dramatically or somewhat idiosyncratically, polishing words,
then they could be said to design moods and ideas. Poetry exists for
consideration like a necklace, brooch or ring and brings with it all the
wonder and puzzlement that admiring artistry attracts.
The
elements shown as vital for mother and son to get along are love (of
course), distance and individual control, (the latter like a pin is needed
for a brooch to work). But another reader could gather a different
message.
Perhaps, Rudman says it is simply inescapable where you
came from, and you must make something good where possible, with for
instance any bond between son and mother. It is up to you what you display
to the world.
Many times in these poems, Rudman mixes up the sense
of whether his mother is really there or already gone. He also digresses,
as when the action moves away to a place in the woods or on the
internet, and he finds himself in a cinema muddling actors’ names.
His mother never curtailed his life or stopped
the choices he made from bearing fruit, but she diminished the satisfaction he took
from it. She explains her own days and nights, and it appears his mother
dwelt on disappointment as being inevitable. At least, she seems to say, ruin
and error are definitely there even if she imagined so much more, so much
better.
Rudman for his part seems to accept his mother, while also
knowing he spent a lot of time overcoming and adjusting, trying to find a
way to live outside her influence or far from it. He wonders how his life
would work if his mother had not said one thing or another. Then too, he
ponders how her life could have held more personal satisfaction.
The poems often end on an actual view, a concrete image, a person
saying something or a wish for the future, so fact always seems to conquer
the ‘what if’ game about the past. Hope manifests then, and a
kind of confidence.
Rudman explores his insights with consideration,
flair and wit, along with a clarity that’s impressive.
but I was tempted to come back with her
Nikon, take some black and white
photos of the site and interview
the unkempt yet handsome black man who’d sat
motionless underneath the fabulous
display of hubcaps strung along the wall
until a kid appeared with a damaged bicycle;
it was just the kind of thing I would have done with her
— from ‘Photographs not taken of Hubcaps, Florence, South Carolina’
A touching collection, well written with a generous scope considering the poems are about two people talking on the phone, and thoughts arising from memories of their conversations. Sundays on the Phone is the last book in the ‘Rider Quintet,’ including the award winning Rider (about his rabbi stepfather), also The Millennium Hotel, Provoked in Venice, and The Couple. The poetry in this collection celebrates how a man may be with his mother, and yet also well apart.