Poetry review – BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO LOSS IN THE MULTIVERSE: Charles Rammelkamp studies Claudine Nash‘s sympathetic and light-touch guide to coping with bereavement
Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse
Claudine Nash
Blue Light Press, 2021
ISBN: 978-1421836690
72 pages $15.95
It’s clear from the very title of Claudine Nash’s Blue Light Press Book Award-winning collection that she has a subtle sense of humor. The title, of course, plays on Douglas Adams’ whimsical comedy science fiction classic, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But loss is also at the center of this collection, and loss is never funny. It’s the attitude that counts, the perspective! While not necessarily a “how-to / self-help” book, Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse weaves emotions throughout a fragmented reality that combines “possible” and “real” in a narrative of wish-fulfillment, fully acknowledging longing but never dwelling in self-pity. Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse is, indeed, a sensitive love song.
Each of the thirty-two poems in this book is located in a different numbered universe – one of them, “Unlike Here, Universe 12,146,091,” even requiring up into eight digits! The collection begins in #415. “Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse, Universe 415” orients us to the situation:
I accept this challenge
of surrendering
all of you, every
notion of us
that could exist
in some other time
or space…
While the “story” remains abstract, almost theoretical, the sensuality is always immediate, visceral, as in “Pretend that You are Talking Universe 3,082,018”:
You can
bring your
lips near
and let the
dark
slip
into my
ear.
Nash writes in clear, short lines, often just a word or two long. The effect is like slipping a needle into the reader’s eye, heart, putting such emphasis on individual words. (Has “into my” ever been more erotic?) The penultimate poem of the first of the four parts into which these poems are divided, “Worse Off Universe 12,147,046,” includes these lines that almost make the longing manifest, a pulsing throb:
I know
there are worse things
in the world than wanting you
this way….
And the final poem in the first section? Reading it, we “get” the sly humor that underlies Nash’s tone throughout, undercutting any hint of self-absorbed misery. The images are still so very sensuous, but the suggestion of space-fantasy aliens is vivid and amusing.
When we lie down
in what looks like grass
you braid my
hair or tentacles,
I run my lips
along your forehead,
the arcs of each
of your six
eyebrows.
The short second part of Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse is called “Magnolias,” containing just four poems, “Magnolias Universe 1,071,” “Magnolias Universe 1,072,” “Magnolias Universe 1,073,” and “Magnolias Universe 1,074.” Nash uses the magnolia – a landscape of magnolias – as a potent symbol of love. “Magnolias Universe 1,072” spells it out:
I look at you
and at once
all the gaps
and restless
spaces in me
settle into this
landscape,
I drift home
wrapped
in a blanket
of magnolias
The final two sections of the book are rooted in memory. “Entanglement” is the title of the third part, including two poems with that title, “Entanglement Universe 191,177” and “Entanglement Universe 191,178.” In the prose poem called “Gut Instinct” Nash writes:
Perhaps an entangled particle settles onto the tip of your finger and you
touch a trace of a moment you’ve seen somewhere else or you converse
with a stranger in a tea shop and you know at once you’ve swapped blends
with a kindred spirit. Imagine if you perceived that same insistent murmur
the day I weighed the space between your arms and my torso swore “this,
this is where I fit.
The final section, “A Stunning Matter,” begins with the poem, “The Making of Memory Universe 101,177,” and already the situation starts to feel “retrospective,” but then, since we’re always dealing with parallel universes here, in which time is not necessarily continuous, each moment discrete, disconnected, is anything really in the rearview? But still, it all feels “settled” now, in some way.
Nash’s sense of humor comes out again in “How I Lost All Interest in Telekinesis Universe 2,013,051.” The poem ends:
I’m starting to think this
telekinetic, parapsychological
phenomenon is a
pseudoscientific myth,
because if I had any real
remote mental influence,
with all my wishing and wanting
and directed conscious intent,
you should have popped in
aeons ago.
“How Not to Flirt in the Multiverse Universe 771,199,” which follows, continues to bring a smile. This poem ends:
Though
seriously,
all I really
want from
you is “yes”
or “now” or
alternatively
just a plain
old “infinite”
will more
than likely
do.
Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse is at once tender and speculative, not actually “heartbreaking,” even as it deals with a broken heart; the reader is more sympathetic than pitying, for sure, charmed by Nash’s humor. Face it, when it comes to loss, we’re all rank beginners.
Dec 17 2021
London Grip Poetry Review – Claudine Nash
Poetry review – BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO LOSS IN THE MULTIVERSE: Charles Rammelkamp studies Claudine Nash‘s sympathetic and light-touch guide to coping with bereavement
It’s clear from the very title of Claudine Nash’s Blue Light Press Book Award-winning collection that she has a subtle sense of humor. The title, of course, plays on Douglas Adams’ whimsical comedy science fiction classic, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But loss is also at the center of this collection, and loss is never funny. It’s the attitude that counts, the perspective! While not necessarily a “how-to / self-help” book, Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse weaves emotions throughout a fragmented reality that combines “possible” and “real” in a narrative of wish-fulfillment, fully acknowledging longing but never dwelling in self-pity. Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse is, indeed, a sensitive love song.
Each of the thirty-two poems in this book is located in a different numbered universe – one of them, “Unlike Here, Universe 12,146,091,” even requiring up into eight digits! The collection begins in #415. “Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse, Universe 415” orients us to the situation:
I accept this challenge of surrendering all of you, every notion of us that could exist in some other time or space…While the “story” remains abstract, almost theoretical, the sensuality is always immediate, visceral, as in “Pretend that You are Talking Universe 3,082,018”:
Nash writes in clear, short lines, often just a word or two long. The effect is like slipping a needle into the reader’s eye, heart, putting such emphasis on individual words. (Has “into my” ever been more erotic?) The penultimate poem of the first of the four parts into which these poems are divided, “Worse Off Universe 12,147,046,” includes these lines that almost make the longing manifest, a pulsing throb:
And the final poem in the first section? Reading it, we “get” the sly humor that underlies Nash’s tone throughout, undercutting any hint of self-absorbed misery. The images are still so very sensuous, but the suggestion of space-fantasy aliens is vivid and amusing.
The short second part of Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse is called “Magnolias,” containing just four poems, “Magnolias Universe 1,071,” “Magnolias Universe 1,072,” “Magnolias Universe 1,073,” and “Magnolias Universe 1,074.” Nash uses the magnolia – a landscape of magnolias – as a potent symbol of love. “Magnolias Universe 1,072” spells it out:
The final two sections of the book are rooted in memory. “Entanglement” is the title of the third part, including two poems with that title, “Entanglement Universe 191,177” and “Entanglement Universe 191,178.” In the prose poem called “Gut Instinct” Nash writes:
The final section, “A Stunning Matter,” begins with the poem, “The Making of Memory Universe 101,177,” and already the situation starts to feel “retrospective,” but then, since we’re always dealing with parallel universes here, in which time is not necessarily continuous, each moment discrete, disconnected, is anything really in the rearview? But still, it all feels “settled” now, in some way.
Nash’s sense of humor comes out again in “How I Lost All Interest in Telekinesis Universe 2,013,051.” The poem ends:
“How Not to Flirt in the Multiverse Universe 771,199,” which follows, continues to bring a smile. This poem ends:
Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse is at once tender and speculative, not actually “heartbreaking,” even as it deals with a broken heart; the reader is more sympathetic than pitying, for sure, charmed by Nash’s humor. Face it, when it comes to loss, we’re all rank beginners.