Poetry review – THE UNDER HUM: Charles Rammelkamp admires the range and virtuosity of a new collection by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White
The Under Hum
Simone Muench and Jackie K. White
Black Lawrence Press, 2024
ISBN: 978-1625570703
70 pages $17.95
Not only is this exquisite collection a collaborative effort between two master poets, Simone Muench and Jackie K. White, it also incorporates voices from the whole universe of poetry. It features centos (the Latin word for “patchwork,” collage poems composed of lines from poems by other poets) along with ten “”Self-Portrait” poems (“Self-Portrait Lined by…” Anna Akhmatova, Alejandra Pizarnik, Mina Loy, Rosario Castellanos, Bella Akhmadulina, Dahla Ravikovitch, Eavan Boland, Tomas Tranströmer, Odysseas Elytis, Christina Rossetti). On top of that, it presents “Elegy” poems (“Elegy Lined by…” Robert Desnos, Maxine Kumin, Attila József, Wallace Stevens, Vicente Huidobro), and other splendid offerings, such as “The Bright Obvious,” “Light in a Dead Hour” and “Of Salt and ache and Rendering.” The Under Hum is, indeed, a buzzing hive of bards, singers, thinkers, visionaries. The poem “Cleave” is “on a line by Pablo Neruda.” “Rotation” is “on a line by Adam Zagajewski.” The hum grows louder with each poem.
Language is a key concept here, the hum amplified by this multitude of voices. Indeed, the first poem, “Scorch,” states the terms. ‘Inside // my mouth a word grows,’ they write, and the poem concludes in a defiant tone:
When silence seeks to sear all
into withering, when the withheld
is about to sour, and what was dulled
or tamed clamors for vibrancy, for verb
fusing the full one that I am, sending
the next arrow sharp and fiery,
I spit it out: first effigy, then electricity.
This word. This gold wattage. This
fierce and untethered being.
You want to stand up and applaud! Indeed, The Under Hum is full of violent imagery, suggesting there are forces out there in the zeitgeist trying to suppress this very self-expression – the patriarchy for one. The poem, “Against Teleology,” begins at the beginning: ‘They made Eve an event, a teleology / we’ve teethed too many mouths upon’ and goes on, ‘Enough gnawing // on our bones by canonized men,’ and in verse echoing the major theme, that hum:
Let bees shimmer inside our eyes instead
of men’s glory. Let’s mouth a modern story
revise every exodus, each line of dread
they put upon us in sackcloth or satin.
In so many poems the violence against women is truly disturbing. “Portrait as Landscape: Dear Dark Garden” seems to be about a rape. ‘The suburban silent about ruin,’ they write,
But the girls speak—of shatter, of strangle.
Of broken teeth. Of more danger. The body
bent acutely into shame. Dear dark garden,
where you buried me, where you watched my bare
feet slipping, his ropy arms grabbing, his full
body falling on my trunk…
“Sea-Sprung” also depicts violence against women: ‘Her body // leashed to a chalk outline,’ which is the very image of a dead person, violently attacked, body chalked on the pavement. “Tense,” a Golden Shovel, begins grimly:
Horror seeps across every screen, and even if
you surf for camp or kittens, there’s someone
lurking dead in the creases.
“Abecedarian for the Walking Woman” spells it out, A to Z: ‘Alleys never. Boulevards maybe. But only in daylight. / Corners: not without a label. Dead end to end up dead.’ All the way to the end: ‘Wending: still not allowed. Yonder: ziptied.’ “Portrait as Landscape: Of Grisly, Of Lovely” is another among the many poems that address this violence.
Against all this ferocious aggression, the suppression of women, their voices, the poets proclaim their agency. In the sonnet, “Portrait as a Landscape: Scale,” they write: “Time to edit the ledger.
We’re the space between coil & strike, snaking
free of doublespeak, venom in the yolk.
Doublespeak is the Orwellian term for gaslighting, coming from the 1984 concepts of “doublethink” and “newspeak,” political speech that obscures and distorts reality. As they write in “Self-Portrait Lined by Eavan Boland”: ‘Better to burn it all clear: forest, furrow / and garden. There will be no obituary.’ For as they write in “Pressed”:
This is the season of the scalpel, not nostalgia.
This is the year of scraping out hauntings.
I said no. Now I shove that ghost into the fold,
press back, iron the sheets of my choosing.
‘You and I were told to swallow / our hexed howling,’ they write in “Hex & Howl,” to be ‘cow-eyed, with a roundness eager / for petting.’ But instead, ‘Now, we do the refusing; now
we flame in the celluloid dark, a primal
rewinding where the wolf and the lizard
let loose the elemental code to our riling.
We are no longer asking for permission! The defiant tone at the heart of these poems might best be captured in the poem from which the book’s title comes, “”Elegy Lined by Maxine Kumin”:
Honeysuckle stings the humid air as if
henbane, punctuating what we don’t say:
there is no cooling what touch sets the tongue
to sear, no rephrasing the under hum.
The Under Hum is also a master class of formal poetry. In addition to the five centos and the four Golden Shovels, there are, by my count, twenty-two sonnets, and the lines in all of the poems are simply gorgeous to read, the imagery fresh and vivid. Take ‘meaning shifts against a chilled glass // of wishfulness,’ as the poets write in “Portrait as Landscape: Seam.” How lovely is that? Or take “Rebuttal”: ‘our sound surges through / hex into galloping hymn.’ That hymn is the hum, and it’s loud. It gallops.
Aug 26 2024
London Grip Poetry Review – Simone Muench & Jackie K. White
Poetry review – THE UNDER HUM: Charles Rammelkamp admires the range and virtuosity of a new collection by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White
Not only is this exquisite collection a collaborative effort between two master poets, Simone Muench and Jackie K. White, it also incorporates voices from the whole universe of poetry. It features centos (the Latin word for “patchwork,” collage poems composed of lines from poems by other poets) along with ten “”Self-Portrait” poems (“Self-Portrait Lined by…” Anna Akhmatova, Alejandra Pizarnik, Mina Loy, Rosario Castellanos, Bella Akhmadulina, Dahla Ravikovitch, Eavan Boland, Tomas Tranströmer, Odysseas Elytis, Christina Rossetti). On top of that, it presents “Elegy” poems (“Elegy Lined by…” Robert Desnos, Maxine Kumin, Attila József, Wallace Stevens, Vicente Huidobro), and other splendid offerings, such as “The Bright Obvious,” “Light in a Dead Hour” and “Of Salt and ache and Rendering.” The Under Hum is, indeed, a buzzing hive of bards, singers, thinkers, visionaries. The poem “Cleave” is “on a line by Pablo Neruda.” “Rotation” is “on a line by Adam Zagajewski.” The hum grows louder with each poem.
Language is a key concept here, the hum amplified by this multitude of voices. Indeed, the first poem, “Scorch,” states the terms. ‘Inside // my mouth a word grows,’ they write, and the poem concludes in a defiant tone:
When silence seeks to sear all into withering, when the withheld is about to sour, and what was dulled or tamed clamors for vibrancy, for verb fusing the full one that I am, sending the next arrow sharp and fiery, I spit it out: first effigy, then electricity. This word. This gold wattage. This fierce and untethered being.You want to stand up and applaud! Indeed, The Under Hum is full of violent imagery, suggesting there are forces out there in the zeitgeist trying to suppress this very self-expression – the patriarchy for one. The poem, “Against Teleology,” begins at the beginning: ‘They made Eve an event, a teleology / we’ve teethed too many mouths upon’ and goes on, ‘Enough gnawing // on our bones by canonized men,’ and in verse echoing the major theme, that hum:
Let bees shimmer inside our eyes instead of men’s glory. Let’s mouth a modern story revise every exodus, each line of dread they put upon us in sackcloth or satin.In so many poems the violence against women is truly disturbing. “Portrait as Landscape: Dear Dark Garden” seems to be about a rape. ‘The suburban silent about ruin,’ they write,
But the girls speak—of shatter, of strangle. Of broken teeth. Of more danger. The body bent acutely into shame. Dear dark garden, where you buried me, where you watched my bare feet slipping, his ropy arms grabbing, his full body falling on my trunk…“Sea-Sprung” also depicts violence against women: ‘Her body // leashed to a chalk outline,’ which is the very image of a dead person, violently attacked, body chalked on the pavement. “Tense,” a Golden Shovel, begins grimly:
Horror seeps across every screen, and even if you surf for camp or kittens, there’s someone lurking dead in the creases.“Abecedarian for the Walking Woman” spells it out, A to Z: ‘Alleys never. Boulevards maybe. But only in daylight. / Corners: not without a label. Dead end to end up dead.’ All the way to the end: ‘Wending: still not allowed. Yonder: ziptied.’ “Portrait as Landscape: Of Grisly, Of Lovely” is another among the many poems that address this violence.
Against all this ferocious aggression, the suppression of women, their voices, the poets proclaim their agency. In the sonnet, “Portrait as a Landscape: Scale,” they write: “Time to edit the ledger.
We’re the space between coil & strike, snaking free of doublespeak, venom in the yolk.Doublespeak is the Orwellian term for gaslighting, coming from the 1984 concepts of “doublethink” and “newspeak,” political speech that obscures and distorts reality. As they write in “Self-Portrait Lined by Eavan Boland”: ‘Better to burn it all clear: forest, furrow / and garden. There will be no obituary.’ For as they write in “Pressed”:
This is the season of the scalpel, not nostalgia. This is the year of scraping out hauntings. I said no. Now I shove that ghost into the fold, press back, iron the sheets of my choosing.‘You and I were told to swallow / our hexed howling,’ they write in “Hex & Howl,” to be ‘cow-eyed, with a roundness eager / for petting.’ But instead, ‘Now, we do the refusing; now
we flame in the celluloid dark, a primal rewinding where the wolf and the lizard let loose the elemental code to our riling.We are no longer asking for permission! The defiant tone at the heart of these poems might best be captured in the poem from which the book’s title comes, “”Elegy Lined by Maxine Kumin”:
Honeysuckle stings the humid air as if henbane, punctuating what we don’t say: there is no cooling what touch sets the tongue to sear, no rephrasing the under hum.The Under Hum is also a master class of formal poetry. In addition to the five centos and the four Golden Shovels, there are, by my count, twenty-two sonnets, and the lines in all of the poems are simply gorgeous to read, the imagery fresh and vivid. Take ‘meaning shifts against a chilled glass // of wishfulness,’ as the poets write in “Portrait as Landscape: Seam.” How lovely is that? Or take “Rebuttal”: ‘our sound surges through / hex into galloping hymn.’ That hymn is the hum, and it’s loud. It gallops.