Yes and No

I picked up Alison Hawthorne Deming's Genius Loci after reading nice things about it on Simmons B. Buntin's blog, a place I frequent to enjoy his wonderful Arizona pictures. I'm half way through the book, which is probably too soon to write any sort of commentary, but I'll throw my two cents in anyway. She has a couple of pieces that intrigue me, like this excerpt from "The Yaak," a piece she dedicated to Rick Bass:

------------I like to think
my animal presence
is equal to being
predator or prey, no agent
only of dominion, rather
subject to the rule
of violent need--all I might
inflict might be inflicted
on me. But truth is harder
than desire. The human mind
makes seeds that spew and drift
and carry us far from will
or wish to be benign. Most of what
we generate floats
through neurological space,
making us confuse what
we dream with how we live.

*

More often, however, Deming's pieces lack mystery and grace and come off heavy handed in my eyes. I found this excerpt from "Wild Fruit" to be such an example:

The blackberry is like
a person who puts off
saying the thing
she most wants to say
so that finally
the words blurt
too large and clumsy.

The blackberry puts off
making its fruit
until its canes
tower and arc
over those
which have expended
themselves early in summer
and winter is just about
to wrap its hands
around the stalks.

After spending so long
making itself strong
it cannot promise
that its fruit,
gravel seeded,
will always be sweet,
All it can promise
is abundance.

*

It's good, though, to read a book that in my opinion succeeds and fails. I should note that Buntin loved "Wild Fruit," so he sees something vastly different than I do. Regardless, something valuable is learned.