SO QUIETLY THE EARTH, by David Lee, Copper Canyon Press, 127 pages, $15, softbound.
David Lee, well-known for his lively narrative poetry, much of it brimming with humor, has taken a serious turn with his 16th volume of poetry, "So Quietly the Earth."
The book is divided into the four archetypal elements of Earth — fire, water and air. Each section is designed to begin at dawn and "walk" through the day. It opens and closes with requiems, while the poetry between examines the beauty and destruction of a dying planet.
If this sounds morbid, it isn't. The voice throughout is unwavering and commanding, but it is softened with peculiar artistry.
Even if the reader is expecting another David Lee than they find here, his creations are unmistakably bursting with life and meaning and are intensely provocative. His poetic structure varies widely, including many poems not more than a line or two long, but others that go on for several pages, with mixed meters.
The elegiac feelings of this work are philosophical, theological and oratorical. The oratory is eloquent. Sometimes it speaks so forcefully that it seems to be emanating from a real person standing at a pulpit. The poet's clear intention is to speak in defense of the Earth — most notably that exemplified by the southern Utah the poet knows so well.
He deplores the dumping-ground approach so often taken by the U.S. government as it looks to Utah as a home for waste or a place to conduct test-
ing of a variety of explosives — something that has happened since the 1950s with measurable ill effects. Lee cleverly mocks the governmental term "low use population" as a way to identify portions of the Earth he considers to be the epitome of beauty.
Some of the poems are so substantial that they seem to mysteriously turn into essays instead of poems. From Lee's point of view, they are the result of his observations and conversations with his young son, when he was between 3 and 5 years old, as they walked through the stunning rocks of Southern Utah.
When Lee performs public readings of these poems, the audience favorites are "Aspen Pole Fence," "Yovimpa Point," "On the Drowned Town of Thistle," "Dead Horse Point" and the very long rain poem, "Rhapsody in Sliprock." Each is masterful.
Beginning on Page 91, Lee writes about Paragonah Canyon, using a mind-boggling variety of styles, and returning to his signature use of humor. Amid the description, he inserts excerpts of conversation among the people of his own town, either real or imagined. The conversations are to the point, but they vividly represent the stereotypical southern Utah biases and ways of speaking:
"We can't be letting these foreigners or them environmentalists in Washington tell us what to do with our land. Our water. We own it, we can do whatever we want to do with it. That's our business, not theirs. That's our decision. And we don't need their help making it. We don't need them bringing in their ideas on how we're supposed to live. We don't need them bringing in nothing."
The collection is compelling and lively. It personifies a newly matured David Lee, who writes with a cause but without losing the most memorable and most human aspects of his work.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com