CONSTANCE ADLER Reviews
In Praise of Absolute Interpretation
by Felino A. Soriano
(Desperanto, 2010)
Upon opening
In Praise of Absolute Interpretation,
we read the words of Miles Davis:
“Don't
play what's there, play what's not there.”
Felino A.
Soriano’s book takes the reader into a rarefied realm of sensory awareness,
into alterity and the creative process. In poetic responses to great jazz,
fantastic tableaus are created. But Soriano ~ arguably the greatest ekphrastic
poet of the modern era ~ does far more than interpret these liquid
performances. Following Davis’ mandate to every artist, his work searches and
finds the ‘between spaces’ ~ the unexplored corridors where symbiosis takes
place; where moment happens.
An excerpt
from the first poem in the collection “—after John Coltrane’s, Something I Dreamed of Last Night” is
illustrative:
Across
from
the vision of my moment’s predetermined happiness,
lover
of blond silk-twists, resting
under
rose fabric beret
highlighting
complexion of her
winter
physiognomy.
Here there
is a languid conjunction; ‘my moment’s predetermined happiness’. She is answer
and every detail saturates: her hair, a roseate hat, her fairness. In prosodic
mastery ~ flat o ‘lover/blond’ elides into the soft e ~‘fabric/beret’, and come
to close on the matte tin i: ‘winter/physiognomy’. Listen to the piece: a low
trumpet flows into deep bass and a barely audible of triangle wisp. All of it
is there in Soriano’s language mastery.
Soriano’s
‘necessary esoteric approach to language’ is bedrock to the metaphysical
vantage point which impels his art. As he discusses, every poem is a tapestry
of re-visioning:
A
thing, say, a beautiful dragonfly, is not simply the manmade definition of a
dragonfly. There is a beautified, colored texture, a hyper-motional wing
activity, an ensuing vanish. These qualities may or may not be visible to the
onlooker, and it is therefore my responsibility to posit these interpretations
of what a dragonfly is/can become. There are too many top-layer definitions of
surroundings, of existence. Thus, I investigate the possible layers residing
beneath, and posit through my brand of language, poetic occurrences that are
not readily available, unless examined.[1]
In this way,
following Deleuze, jazz as art form is fully realized as the embodiment of free
experimentation that informs all organic art and philosophy.
This notion
of potentiality, ‘what a thing can become’, is seen in deft and delicate
imagery which in turn expands the interpretive threshold of the reader. The
reader progressively moves through the poems as visionary risk-taker. Often
titles and text play with the mind in a creative continuum, to no sense of
‘resolve’:
—after
Bill Charlap’s One Morning in May
Dust
delivered
gray-delicate
conceptual
morning, slight
whisper
told evaporating eyes
nothing
here,
—after
Miles Davis’ Stella by Starlight
White
glove, sequin
covering
longest, most enticing brand
of
tired touch
—after
Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly
Glass
of stained
goldenrod
twists
enwrapping
black halos
In a recent
assessment of Soriano’s poetry, Hala Hoagland discusses the potency of
his imagery:
Felino’s
images feel like an internal light through which letters come through as
contrasting sprites of a developing spirit, undertaking such beauty that we
have to take a seat beside him. His lines and shapes change as he jumps inside
each new work. Felino isn’t following some outdated form, he is making form.
[2]
This work
requires time and full engagement, immersion; the reward immense. While theme,
texture, tone and emotional coloratura are all aspects of his art, in these
reconceptualizations, theme is a derivative composite. The parallels with such
jazz elements as blue notes,
polyrhythms and syncopation are striking.
The parallelism between the essential element of improvisation and the poet’s
use of white space underscores the level of creative multiplicities.
We see, we
feel this so clearly in his —after Tim Berne’s Now Then:
Or
now
when
does
the body soar
liquid
carrier
beyond
tears
or
tears of emotional
prose
From an
ascending moment, the return is a staircase to a state ‘beyond tears’. Much as
Mallarmé, Soriano makes profound connections to silence in the use of whiteness
as a compositional element. The elongation and stillness of that critical line
of transition is deafening in its haunting.
With over 35
books (since 2008) and 2,200 poems published (since 2006), the work of Felino
A. Soriano resounds. It’s a voice as unique as it is towering. This is
brilliantly seen in his stunning tour de force, “—after Branford Marsalis’ The
Nearness of You”
Together
shadow
and oak, origin
first
known, brilliant
banter
within wind’s hazy glide
of
leave’s precocious wave, shadow’s
looking
north, portion of relevance
highest
known among answers,
yes,
the grandest must eventually
subside.
What does
nearness mean? After ‘other’ has been recognized? What happens after that
moment of ‘knowing’?
We revel in
that discovery, in that finding, but, yes, even as we are enveloped:
the
grandest must eventually subside.
________
[1]Felino Soriano discusses his poetry with Kane X. Faucher, Ditch, March, 2009
http://www.ditchpoetry.com/Felino%20Soriano%20Interview.pdf
[2]A Journey Across Borders :a review of Felino A. Soriano's Apperceptions of Reinterpretations, Leaf
Garden Press, Issue 10, http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_68/9223000/9223929/1/print/9223929.pdf
*****
Constance Stadler has been writing, publishing and editing poetry from the prehistoric epoch of print journals to the modern e-zine. She is a former editor of South and West and the e-zine Eviscerator Heaven. Having published over 250 poems and three chapbooks in her ‘first manifestation’ as a poet when doing readings with poets such as Sharon Olds and Galway Kinnell, recent years have evoked several new works. Featured poet in several publications, and an Erbacce finalist and Pushcart nominee, her background has served in reviewing several volumes of poetry and prose as well as a long career in college teaching.
No comments:
Post a Comment