Cracks in the Invisible (review)

Most readers may find a dictionary, and a solid knowledge of St. Paul and the canon of English literature to be helpful in grasping the subtleties of Stephen Kampa's first book. But fear not, lest this intimidate you—these poems are neither dense nor abstruse. Rather, they are as quick-witted and lithe on the page as the girl-next-door, who collects her sky-blue socks, / Kicks out the window screen, / And wiggles through ("Being Undressed"). They are as radiant and elegantly constructed as lightning bolts that weave / With phosphorescent spiderwebs of light / The temporary tapestries ("Nocturne in the Key of Water").

Kampa possesses a Byronic delight in and virtuosity with rhyme. There's the surprising (And then by Christian ["Doctor will be in / Shortly . . ."] inspecting him for venial sin); the impressive (I seen a Martian / One night while I was driving past a marsh in / Northeastern Florida); the generational (I've ditched love, lust, and even innuendo / And now devote myself to my Nintendo); and the just plain fun (It's spookier, it's sexier—it's spectacular . . . Strangled on-screen, the scene so cold, so—Dracular?). Indeed, "Masterpiece Interrupted by Hobo, Park Bench, 1999" is one of the most gratifying sestinas I've seen. None of the six end-words are safe from Kampa's dexterity. Horizon becomes her eyes in becomes hair-raising becomes choir-raising. Marcian becomes ça marche in becomes Martian becomes marsh in becomes Omar's shin becomes march in. Marseilles becomes Mars, eh? becomes Omar say becomes mercy. And that's only half of them.

In one of his longer, sectional poems, "Domestic Operetta for One Voice," from which he draws his book title, we see again this knack for transforming language. Even these couplets, whose rhymes are less crackerjack, though they often rhyme internally, too, sing with a natural ease:

I pour the water. Sara, let's be clear,Now that we're near my vision's end, that here—

Wherever here is—is where I will beShould you decide you want this cup of tea;

And I will wait here, as our tea leaves steep,Content to keep whatever we can keep

Together as our cups release their pairOf mist-skinned tendrils curling through the air,

Vaporous cracks in the invisibleWall that divides us, loose threads time will pull,

Sweet incense smoke that means we can redeemAll we have lost in sarabands of steam.

The simple juxtaposition of that first line prepares us to associate the speaker and his former lover, Sara, with water, but when, by the last line, what they've lost becomes sarabands of steam, the poet's agility shines forth.

But for all Kampa's erudition and virtuosity, which are remarkable, he carries his talents lightly. One never senses a swagger behind the lines. He, like the anonymous medieval cathedral artisan, builds the more elaborate cupola because he can, because he understands the importance of a beautiful and well-made thing. And Kampa's combination of witty self-effacement (I've got one cycle: Blather, Wince, Repeat) and playful self-examination (I've run the gamut from gemütlichkeit / To spite, and nothing works) charms throughout the collection.

As a professional musician and prodigious harmonica player, Kampa weaves musical experience into most of his poems. Often, this experience not only blends with a sacred one, but is synonymous. In "Autobiography," the speaker, playing with a half-jazz, half-blues band, so loses himself in the perfect music, that by the penultimate stanza he's convinced us that he is, in fact, remembering the beatific vision. He ends "Soul," a poem in memoriam of Ray Charles, with:

Brother Ray, remind me that Jesus made youKeys of pearl and strings of the finest substanceEver known, that now you compose and play pitch-    Perfect arrangements;

Tell me how the riffs you let rip on earth areNothing next to heavenly scales, how musicSounds to someone who is at last no longer    Paying the piper;

Tell me...