by Paul Zimmer
University of Georgia Press 2007
Reviewed by Melinda Wilson

Think “Harry” from Harry & Tonto

It is not often that a “new and selected” documents the progressions, departures, and returns of a writer’s consciousness as lucidly and profoundly as Paul Zimmer’s Crossing to Sunlight Revisited (the long-awaited sequel to 1996’s Crossing to Sunlight: Selected Poems). Zimmer’s newer poems are at the start of the book; they chronicle his ascension into, what seems to be, comfortable old age. Note that “old” is not my word here; in fact, in his preface, Zimmer informs us that he is “no longer an aging poet or an older poet.” He says, “I am an old poet.” 

So, what does it mean to be an old poet? The opening poem in Crossing to Sunlight suggests that to be an old poet means to finally understand one’s place among other lives, or at least to feel comfortable in it. The poem that begins the book, “Because I am Heir to Many Things:,” speaks to the idea of fitting one’s hollow perfectly. The narrator describes a grouse as “just another brother” reflecting a soul that feels at peace with his fellow lives. He deems every life equal and thus has nothing to envy; rather, he has an immense sense of brotherhood.

Zimmer’s identification with other creatures manifests itself successfully in these new poems not only because it is unifying, but also because it beautifully defines Zimmer as an individual. This self-definition is a constant throughout the book, appearing in both new poems and old. As connected as all things are, they are equally separate. For instance, in “Zimmer Lurches from Chair to Chair,” the narrator states, “Zimmer speaks bravely to his body, / addressing it from forehead to toes.” Here, the same respect that is given to the grouse is given to his own body as an individual and distinct entity. It has its own life, separate from Zimmer, but it is also a part of him and under his control, also like the grouse, which, it seems worth mentioning, is primarily a game bird.

But more than just living elements are rewarded such immense respect from Zimmer. He praises the intangible elements as well; in “The Moment,” he likens silence to a worshipful ceremony: “I come upon three solemn yearlings / attending the silence.” The word “attending” here allows the reader to understand silence in a new way. Silence is often thought of as nothing, but here it is observed as though it were a holy presence. Zimmer subtly points out that in this way, animals can often be highly perceptive, perhaps more so than humans. These yearlings—deer I think—have an obviously acute sense of the spiritual even if they are not cognizant of it as such.

The respect that Zimmer displays for other living beings goes beyond appreciation; it is often homage or admiration. This is the case in my favorite poem of the collection, “Dog Music.” I give you the whole of the first stanza:

Amongst dogs are listeners and singers.
My big dog sang with me so purely,
puckering her ruffled lips into an O,
beginning with small, swallowing sounds
like Coltrane musing, then rising to power
and resonance, gulping air to continue—
her passion and sense of flawless form—
singing with me, but mostly for the art of dogs.

I love this poem. Again, the concept of interspecies unity surfaces. The dog takes pride in howling for and with her master. Singing the duet allows the dog to be both a lone wolf and a pack animal. She is not singing for her master alone, but for herself and “the art of dogs.” Nevertheless, the man and the dog are not independent of one another; they have become a pack, a herd, a flock, a team.

The understanding and appreciation for life that is present in Zimmer’s newer poems is in its larval stage in his older poems. Instead of the comfort with mortality that we see in the last lines of a newer poem, “Desiderium” (“The unfaltering sunlit parade / Of faithful moving toward God” reminiscent of, though contrasting Sexton’s The Awful Rowing Towards God), we see a fear of death or growing old that precedes its acceptance.

If one fears death and death is inevitably set into motion by the maker, then God himself is death—and to be feared. From “Zimmer in Grade School”: “I feared everything: God…” And later in “What Zimmer Would Be”: “I saw my aunt die slowly of cancer / And a man struck down by a car.”

One of the most chilling poems in the collection is an older one. It’s called “The Brain of the Spider.” The spider is bloodcurdling enough, but that’s not enough for Zimmer, who goes on to the brain.  Consider the final three lines:

The unnerving grayness of its patience,
White speed of its sudden charges,
The raven segment it maintains for death.

The spider too will die and maybe it unaccountably recognizes this, reserves a certain portion of its awareness for something like departure, perhaps extermination. Either way, whatever fear I had of spiders before reading this poem has only been compounded by the idea that somewhere in its tiny head it has a brain somehow similar to my own— even if only in the fact that we refer to it as a “brain.”

Raven segment or not, death quickly takes its place as the central force in the older poems and though I realize that many New and Selected collections are organized with the newer poems at the front and the others in later sections, I feel that this might not have been the wisest decision for Zimmer’s book. A more interesting arc would have been to mirror the very arc of life that is spoken to so eloquently throughout these poems. I say start with the old, terrifying poems, build up the fear of death and slowly move into its acceptance. Then end with “Because I Am Heir to Many Things:.” Maybe I am only saying this because I desire a successful model for aging.

Unfortunately, if Zimmer’s aged wisdom proves apt in displaying human-to-human and human-to-animal relationships, the animal-to-animal relationships leave him with the full blown preciousness he’s usually able to keep at bay. Two horses who “rub muzzles” are particularly disappointing victims:

Together they prance to
The choicest pasture,
Standing together and apart,
To be glad until
They can no longer be glad.

You should never speak the word “prance,” let alone write it in a poem.

Despite my opposition to the book’s arrangement, the final poem works well as a closer. Again a grand similitude is made—the universe within an apple. I’ll leave you with the last stanza of “In Apple Country”:

I lean back in my garden chair and watch
The great harvests turn slowly in vast distances—
Red, yellow, green, their blemishes and tiny wormholes
Revolving in the October sky all the way
Out to the round ends of the universe.

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