Poetry review –NAMING A HURRICANE: Charles Rammelkamp is astonished by the forceful and personal poetry in Madeline Artenberg’s new collection
Naming a Hurricane
Madeline Artenberg
Pink Trees Press, 2023
ISBN: 978-1666400250
136 pages $15.00
Full of violence and longing, Madeline Artenberg’s Naming a Hurricane teems with life. Following the arc of a superstorm, this collection starts with “Disturbance” and proceeds through “Low Pressure,” “Storm” and “Hurricane” to its spent conclusion of “Dissipation.” Throughout, she exposes her fears, weaknesses and doubts before achieving a relative calm acceptance. Family is at the heart of the storm, though hardly a serene, tranquil “eye.”
The first poem, “Apostle,” begins as a sort of mock prayer, ‘Bless me Mother for you are gone; / I still sin in the hallowed halls of cinema.’ It’s a memory of going to the movies with her mother, the escape it offered. But the respite was always fleeting.
When the show was over,
I returned to wanting
what you could not reach,
returned to waiting,
waiting to live,
to sin….
The poet’s mother was volatile, unpredictable. In “After Death,” from the final section, Artenberg writes,
She was all kisses, all fists.
Fear was the boulder in the doorway,
fear was my surrogate mother.
Yet, I wept at her funeral,
wept on the road emptied of mother.
Throughout, her mother seems like something of a loose cannon, swayed by rage and unable to control her anger. In “Rock Chick Sonata,” a poem about her youthful rebellion, also from the “Dissipation” section, the poet remembers:
When mother’s tirades ended with my arms
scratched bloody, I squeezed the wounds,
dipped in a pinky, smeared on the bedroom wall
the words “Rock ’n’ Roll.”
In the poem “Offspring” from the first section, she writes:
On each birthday, she’d whisper:
“I wish you were
never born.” Other days,
she’d throw her body across mine
to block incoming sneeze.
A complicated relationship indeed. How was a dependent child supposed to react? On top of that there were her stern father (“From Nothing”: ‘Thank you, Father, for six months of silence / after I broke curfew.’) and her grandparents, Jewish immigrants. Her grandmother’s only words in English were Madeline’s name and “OK,” but she was a loving person, whispering sheine maidele (“beautiful girl”) to her granddaughter, offering sweets and comfort. But later, in “Role Model,” from the “Hurricane” section, Artenberg writes:
Mother, I knew your wrath, but not
your biggest secret: My sweet Grandma,
my rock, had made hell of your childhood.
Like mother like daughter. Artenberg remembers her Orthodox grandfather laying tefillin, unable to break the habit of writing from right to left when she tried to teach him English, being abandoned by him in the balcony of the synagogue, where men and women were seated separately. He also suffered from dementia as time went on. When his wife died before him, he forgot,
the police kept hauling him
lost and bewildered back to our house.
He crawled out again and again
to look for her.
In “The Tailor” we learn that her grandfather had a small business mending clothing. His clients were Holocaust survivors, women with tattoos on their arms. The poem begins ominously:
When Grandpa opened the small wooden drawers
under the Singer, buttons and thread tumbled
like starving refugees out of hay wagons,
after the “all clear.”
In the midst of all this, the poet was growing up. In “Trouble” she loses her virginity and her father won’t allow her in their home when she returns home late. ‘I sit bleeding in the cement stairwell / and I can’t tell dad I’ve been broken.’ In “A Kid and a Dog” her husband orders her to have an abortion. In “Brooklyn Rush Hour” she’s sexually assaulted on a subway train.
Her husband is another less than welcome character. Her poem, “The Poet” is full of bitter irony.
He said he’d read from the best
in his collection, “My pulsing
prick, her twat, my hot rod—
I fucked that cunt, that bitch’s
fucking cunt.”
He read another and another
and the cunts piled higher
as he flung each one
at the audience until he got
his poetical rocks off!
My ex-husband sure missed
his calling: He said those
very same words to me.
At the time, I didn’t know
it was poetry.
In “Hitching in Dallas” and “Control” she’s the victim of Southern anti-Semitic bigotry.
But not all the poems are personal, though most are violent, tragic. Naming a Hurricane includes several persona poems as well, including a poem in the voice of Mary Magdalene, a poem inspired by a sleeping bag project for the homeless in Manhattan, in the voice of a homeless person, another from the perspective of an itinerant farm laborer in Pamplona at the Running of the Bulls. Several poems read like biblical parables (“The Apple Merchant,” with Adam and Eve, “Lot’s Wife,” and the pillar of salt). There are violent poems of cruel torture, a Buddhist monk (“Tibet, Land of the Snows”), a nun in Guatemala (“Sister”). There are travel poems set in Paris, Crete, Greece, New Mexico, the Andes, Cuba. “The Crow” is a poem about Adolph Hitler.
We followed his shrapnel tracks
across Western Europe.
If only we could track back, his acts
might be undone; back to when he spoke
through an artist’s palette, not yet
with blood-soaked tongue.
But the poems about her mother are the most powerful. In “Ruse of the Flute” she writes, ‘Five-foot-one-Mother curses me
in Yiddish-English, eyes spinning, teeth
bared in a two-fisted drive to send me
back to unborn.
Whoa! These are some very powerful, very visceral poems. While there is an eponymous poem titled “Naming a Hurricane,” I like to think this collection could also be called Mapping Disaster. Artenberg certainly leaves the reader’s mouth hanging open. What better testimony to her genius with words and images?
Nov 17 2024
London Grip Poetry Review – Madeline Artenberg
Poetry review –NAMING A HURRICANE: Charles Rammelkamp is astonished by the forceful and personal poetry in Madeline Artenberg’s new collection
Full of violence and longing, Madeline Artenberg’s Naming a Hurricane teems with life. Following the arc of a superstorm, this collection starts with “Disturbance” and proceeds through “Low Pressure,” “Storm” and “Hurricane” to its spent conclusion of “Dissipation.” Throughout, she exposes her fears, weaknesses and doubts before achieving a relative calm acceptance. Family is at the heart of the storm, though hardly a serene, tranquil “eye.”
The first poem, “Apostle,” begins as a sort of mock prayer, ‘Bless me Mother for you are gone; / I still sin in the hallowed halls of cinema.’ It’s a memory of going to the movies with her mother, the escape it offered. But the respite was always fleeting.
When the show was over, I returned to wanting what you could not reach, returned to waiting, waiting to live, to sin….The poet’s mother was volatile, unpredictable. In “After Death,” from the final section, Artenberg writes,
She was all kisses, all fists. Fear was the boulder in the doorway, fear was my surrogate mother. Yet, I wept at her funeral, wept on the road emptied of mother.Throughout, her mother seems like something of a loose cannon, swayed by rage and unable to control her anger. In “Rock Chick Sonata,” a poem about her youthful rebellion, also from the “Dissipation” section, the poet remembers:
When mother’s tirades ended with my arms scratched bloody, I squeezed the wounds, dipped in a pinky, smeared on the bedroom wall the words “Rock ’n’ Roll.”In the poem “Offspring” from the first section, she writes:
On each birthday, she’d whisper: “I wish you were never born.” Other days, she’d throw her body across mine to block incoming sneeze.A complicated relationship indeed. How was a dependent child supposed to react? On top of that there were her stern father (“From Nothing”: ‘Thank you, Father, for six months of silence / after I broke curfew.’) and her grandparents, Jewish immigrants. Her grandmother’s only words in English were Madeline’s name and “OK,” but she was a loving person, whispering sheine maidele (“beautiful girl”) to her granddaughter, offering sweets and comfort. But later, in “Role Model,” from the “Hurricane” section, Artenberg writes:
Mother, I knew your wrath, but not your biggest secret: My sweet Grandma, my rock, had made hell of your childhood.Like mother like daughter. Artenberg remembers her Orthodox grandfather laying tefillin, unable to break the habit of writing from right to left when she tried to teach him English, being abandoned by him in the balcony of the synagogue, where men and women were seated separately. He also suffered from dementia as time went on. When his wife died before him, he forgot,
the police kept hauling him lost and bewildered back to our house. He crawled out again and again to look for her.In “The Tailor” we learn that her grandfather had a small business mending clothing. His clients were Holocaust survivors, women with tattoos on their arms. The poem begins ominously:
When Grandpa opened the small wooden drawers under the Singer, buttons and thread tumbled like starving refugees out of hay wagons, after the “all clear.”In the midst of all this, the poet was growing up. In “Trouble” she loses her virginity and her father won’t allow her in their home when she returns home late. ‘I sit bleeding in the cement stairwell / and I can’t tell dad I’ve been broken.’ In “A Kid and a Dog” her husband orders her to have an abortion. In “Brooklyn Rush Hour” she’s sexually assaulted on a subway train.
Her husband is another less than welcome character. Her poem, “The Poet” is full of bitter irony.
He said he’d read from the best in his collection, “My pulsing prick, her twat, my hot rod— I fucked that cunt, that bitch’s fucking cunt.” He read another and another and the cunts piled higher as he flung each one at the audience until he got his poetical rocks off! My ex-husband sure missed his calling: He said those very same words to me. At the time, I didn’t know it was poetry.In “Hitching in Dallas” and “Control” she’s the victim of Southern anti-Semitic bigotry.
But not all the poems are personal, though most are violent, tragic. Naming a Hurricane includes several persona poems as well, including a poem in the voice of Mary Magdalene, a poem inspired by a sleeping bag project for the homeless in Manhattan, in the voice of a homeless person, another from the perspective of an itinerant farm laborer in Pamplona at the Running of the Bulls. Several poems read like biblical parables (“The Apple Merchant,” with Adam and Eve, “Lot’s Wife,” and the pillar of salt). There are violent poems of cruel torture, a Buddhist monk (“Tibet, Land of the Snows”), a nun in Guatemala (“Sister”). There are travel poems set in Paris, Crete, Greece, New Mexico, the Andes, Cuba. “The Crow” is a poem about Adolph Hitler.
We followed his shrapnel tracks across Western Europe. If only we could track back, his acts might be undone; back to when he spoke through an artist’s palette, not yet with blood-soaked tongue.But the poems about her mother are the most powerful. In “Ruse of the Flute” she writes, ‘Five-foot-one-Mother curses me
in Yiddish-English, eyes spinning, teeth bared in a two-fisted drive to send me back to unborn.Whoa! These are some very powerful, very visceral poems. While there is an eponymous poem titled “Naming a Hurricane,” I like to think this collection could also be called Mapping Disaster. Artenberg certainly leaves the reader’s mouth hanging open. What better testimony to her genius with words and images?