B.H. Fairchild. Usher.

Shook, David

B. H. Fairchild. Usher. New York. W. W. Norton. 2009. 122 pages. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-393-06575-6

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B. H. Fairchild has written another perfectly considered reflection on the nature of the body, thick with philosophical allusion and spiritual meditation. His subject matter is sometimes more metropolitan than in previous collections, though he still includes a fair number of poems set in the Midwest. It is also his collection that most deeply explores the dramatic monologue, containing poems written from the perspectives of Frieda Pushnik, member of a circus freak-show troupe; Nathan Gold, a young Manhattan seminarian and theater usher; and poet Hart Crane.

The Hart Crane poems are framed as postcards from Havana the day before he leaped overboard to his death from the Orizaba, and they are among the best in the book:

 Dear Lotte,
 Holed up in a hotel bar, I think
 Cleveland Charlotte knows me
 well as anyone,
 and when I wrote to you, "The
 true idea of God
 is the only road to happiness,"
 or something close
 to that, please tell me what I
 meant. One morning,
 drunk, Cathedral Santa Prisca,
 I climbed the tower,
 rang the bell-rope that gathers God
 at dawn
, though
 no God, no waking pilgrims,
 just the local Law
 and, I confess, a music, triple-tongued
 vowels
 inside of vowels, a kind of
 happiness.
 Love, Hart. 

Fairchild offers a "Key to Hart Crane in Havana," immediately following the poem, but deems it necessary to unpack the wealth of allusions contained within. Still, for avid readers of American poetry, only some notes are necessary. With some knowledge of Hart Crane's life, Fairchild's references to Winters and Allen are easily identified as Yvor Winters and Allen Tate; others, like Minsky's ("The famous Manhattan burlesque" Hart frequented) and Lotte (Charlotte Rychtarik, a friend from Cleveland) would benefit from a gloss.

The book's other poems are less conversational in tone, more familiarly Fairchild. Usher is a collection dense with imagery and philosophy articulated through the everyday, and it should age well.

David Shook

Los Angeles