ANXIOUS
MUSIC
By April Ossmann
Reviewed by
Kenny Brechner
Virginia Woolf, in her memorable anti-introduction to Mrs. Dalloway, makes the following argument. “The author's mind has another peculiarity which is also hostile to introductions. It is as inhospitable to its offspring as the hen sparrow is to hers. Once the young birds can fly, fly they must; and by the time they have fluttered out of the nest the mother bird has begun to think perhaps of another brood. In the same way once a book is printed and published it ceases to be the property of the author; he commits it to the care of other people; all his attention is claimed by some new book which not only thrusts its predecessor from the next but has a way of subtly blackening its character in comparison with its own.”
Though one is ordinarily inclined
to view Woolf’s proclamations on the human condition as infallible, one is
inclined to question whether authors are not, in point of fact, a bit more
sentimental than hen sparrows are. Truth to say, in considering local author
April Ossmann’s newly published collection of poems, Anxious Music, one
positively hopes they are. The reason for our hope is that Ossmann, the long
time director of Farmington based, and nationally celebrated Alice James Books,
has been something of a day care provider, foster parent, and tutor, to the
chicks of so many other birds, that we cannot help but hope that the publication
of a volume of her own verse is the source of some lingering, and well deserved
pleasure.
Known in the industry as an excellent editor, we are not surprised to find
Ossmann’s Anxious Music an extremely taut and well crafted volume. Known in
the industry as an excellent publicist, it is not surprising that those of us
who are aware of Ossmann’s yeoman work on the behalf of others find ourselves
inclined to promote her work in return. Known personally as an extremely sound
and delightful egg, one can’t but help wish April well with her new book. Nor
is Ossmann’s likeability and depth irrelevant depth, for her poems are
personal and direct. Their strength is her strength, their depth her depth,
their humor her humor. Anxious Music is not so much a persona of Ossmann’s but
Ossmann in person, an acquaintance anyone who enjoys good company would do well
to make.
What:
Anxious Music, April Ossmann
Four Way Books, $15.95, 9781884800818
What Happens
The Stairs are there every moonless two a.m.,
Same as they are inlight. It happens
When my legs and feet know this,
while my mind seems to sleep.
My mind wants to know
how I do it, why I don’t
stop, turn on the light-
but my unwondering feet
descend calmly in darkness,
each cell with its memory of stairs
and stars-each sure of its aim and intent
to pull me as smoothly along-
unwilling, inept, and unsure.
