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Book: Devoted Creatures
Written by Bill Van Every (Tupelo Press)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz
A regional eye, shrewdly hazarding observations, unleashing torrents of memories, characterizes Bill Van Every's collection of poems, Devoted Creatures, detailing flora and particularly the unique fauna of the desert southwest. Winner of the 2002 Tupelo Press Judge's Prize awarded annually to new and establishing authors, it is a solemn assortment of extraordinarily visceral, touching poems penned while the author lived in Tucson Arizona. The epiphanies contained come frequently as celebrations of small and profound wonderments
This regional gaze transcends simple tender remembrances and doe-eyed nostalgia; it is eclectic, capable of surreal bits as well, evidenced by "Amphibians" drummed from a game of soft toss. Only baseballs aren't being tossed in the adolescent play described, they are frogs, and when Van Every writes about "the solid contact between stick and frog" he derives a fretful sense of divinity. It is with this type of neat, linguistic control that images in Devoted Creatures are presented from beginning to end. The language in "Photograph of a Man and a Tiger Shark" is so obedient to Van Every's obsession with eviscerating his topic - "The knife moves forward from the pisshole, / slitting a twelve-foot smile through pectoral fins" - that once its cut is complete, the sprawled entrails bleed rich red into the two tone black and white of the page.
In conjunction with this literary taxidermy, Van Every has also been bold enough to choose his own God, a choice that informs almost every line contained in Devoted Creatures. Although he lacks the iconoclastic reverence of a heretic, Van Every dictates in clear and simple terms that holy moments are his own creation. The author's voice in "Dangerous Baby" is fully cut free from preconceived dogmas and rituals when he writes of "...the un-drowning / two hands pulling my head from the waves / and God / with an eye for nakedness." Notions of an unconventional God - especially that of his being an entity "with an eye for nakedness" - seem derived from a sincere achievement of individual insight. The poems in Devoted Creatures aren't necessarily meant to impart a "Eureka" moment on its readers; more accurately, the poet seems to exist in serene comfort at his capacity at having made such a choice.
Some readers might find Van Every's style invasive, entering his subject's physical being casually, only to probe there for secret chambers. This trait can hardly be considered a fault though, leading to sublime moments of revelation as in "Exchanging Glances" when that moment forcefully drops all guardedness and the magic of language intervenes. If there is a flaw in Van Every's work, it might be that afore mentioned ease of physical and mystical penetration. While other poets gather a sense of toil around their work like rusty haloes, the poems in Devoted Creatures lack a certain sense of mystery.
Bill Van Every's language is clean and affable, and his collection of work admirable. Like so few other poets, his craft all at once bears incredible room for growth and feels like tempting works in progress.
© 2004 - Erick Mertz