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AERODROME ORION & Starry Messenger
by Susan Gevirtz Poems 2010, 80 pages $17.95 ISBN: 978-0-932716-71-2
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Gevirtz's text orchestrates the relationships between many different types of skies, among them: the technological sky as mapped by air traffic controllers, the sky stressed by the demands of our global economy, a politically charged sky, nature's sky as plotted by ancient astronomers, the swan sky of Hans Christian Andersen, and the starry sky that dazzles our romantic imaginations. Her poetry flies reconnaissance--into hurricanes--to open possibilities for what poetry can be--"a stolen guide for the farthest ocean"--or a set of instructions for navigating the jet stream of our personal and collective lives.
It’s not possible to be more phenomenologically direct than the poetry on these pages. This is removal of the obstacles of perception, beginning with perception, often by means of the obstacles themselves. This is what the sky is. All other skies in this one. There is a host of impossibilities to be found in AERODROME ORION & Starry Messenger. Susan Gevirtz’s page is both an inclusion of a scale too vast for inclusion and a selection of the minutiae that includes it. Someone might say “air.” She has said "astro stage." I’d introduce the Sanskrit term "akasa" (akasa is free or open space—the most primary and pervasive of elements—medium of life and sound). What is all over the place is normally not only beyond our grasp, it’s not even noticeable. A path is usually cut or carved. Yet her paths are melted into the medium that is itself the way. This is incredibly accurate with regard to consciousness when we are indeed conscious. Terribly limited terms are not only not obstacles, they’re instrumental and indispensable in opening the view—like little portals. Like latches. Like Lockheed’s P3 Orion 4 engine aircraft. Hers is a prosody that responds to the physical forces of flight. She measures in leap seconds (again, not possible). Just as she has asked of a feather, I can with like awe and admiration ask of each page of this work: "how can there be such a thing as."—Robert Kocik.