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Epiphanies & Elegies
Very Short Stories
By Brian Doyle
Sheed & Ward, 2007. 143 pages.
Reviewed by Michael Wilt
Several years ago Brian Doyle told me that he’d like to publish, when he’s about eighty years old, a collection of the little poems he has made and found and tossed into the ether over the years but that won’t amount to a critical mass worth publishing till he’s at least that old. Apparently someone talked him into pulling those pages together about thirty years ahead of schedule, and we should be glad they did.
Epiphanies & Elegies: Very Short Stories is actually a collection of distinctive and unusual poems. Some of these tell stories, some sing praises, some recite litanies, some bring tears or laughter or both. Most if not all are deeply moving, as heartfelt by the reader as by the poet. Whether he is writing about his own or other people’s children, or animals, or people in war zones, or people who have died, Doyle speaks from the center of his being. Every word has been weighed and measured and found to be the right word, which makes the reading effortless and pleasing even as the images arrest the heart and take away the breath.
I could quote and quote and quote lines and verses from these poems, but that would not do them justice. Poems called “Goose Arrested at Corner of Winter & Summer” or “Four Crows Written Like the Notes of a Song on the Wires of a Fence” or “The Way that Fathers of the Girls Named Goalkeeper Drift Casually Down the Sideline to Stand Behind the Goal Net” or “His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Manifestation of Chenrezig, Boddhisatva of Compassion, Stops the Car along the Road to Watch Children Play Soccer” will just have to wait for you to get this book into your hands. (The Dalai Lama poem, paired with another, first appeared here at Nimble Spirit, so you can get a sneak preview.) Doyle’s insights come from unusual angles and his work thus shares the spirit of the work of poets such as Nancy Willard, Mary Oliver, and John Updike when he’s at his whimsical best.
Epiphanies & Elegies is yet another fine book from the pen of a writer who has no category but who will make you glad you learned to read.
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