In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson
When I was first contacted by Sevinj Huseynli at Plum White Press to review Frank Watson’s coming poetry book, In the Dark, Soft Earth, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. We are in a heavy time, and my mind is occupied with the devastation roiling across the United States. I checked out some of his work before I accepted. I followed him on Twitter and Instagram, and was hooked by his daily micro-poetry. The tiny haikuesque verses challenge their readers with the distilled ideas they present.
Fittingly, these words appeared yesterday:
strung up
for the redemption
of another man’s soul
Hard to ignore the evocative image of one man being sacrificed for another.
It is also hard to ignore the conversation happening in this book about connection to the natural world, loss of love and direction, and relationships we have with each other, nature, and the earth.
Watson set the collection up in 10 books. Reading the poems individually, it is hard to see the thread that makes them a unified collection, but taken in concert with the art and titles of books, a pattern emerges. Like his micro-poetry, there is a distilled thoughtfulness in the spare, lyrical poems. Like life, there is a randomness to Watson’s employment of capitalization and rhyme scheme — a mirroring of the human experience with its unpredictable rhythms and emotions.
In the Dark, Soft Earth opens with “The Promise,” painted by Eleanor Greenfield in 2019. Like the imagery of the painting, the poems seem to reach out to the natural world, offering a coupling with the Earth. Through the chosen art pieces and progression of poems, the story of earth paralleling the story of humanity emerges. As an English and Art History double major, the use of images as companions and catalysts for words spoke to me.
Each subsequent book progresses through Watson’s narrative of shared human experience in concert with the natural world and cycle of life. Book two makes the transition of all the history we have experienced but not really listened to with allusions to Native Americans, and African Americans in their, “...blood-soaked chains/ we strain to break their reign.” Book three introduces the concept of fragmentation through art and verse. We are disconnected pieces. Book four is a cacophony of poetic sound and image. Jazz enters the world, Picasso’s “Three Musicians” is present, and finally Kandinsky visually displays all the disconnected pieces moving towards a frenzied crescendo.
Book Five marks a turn towards sensuality. It opens with an image of a nude woman wrapped in whisper-thin gauze, dancing unabashedly. The verses that follow build the story of sultriness. The poems are about the dance of love, between people, and between man and nature. The poems hint at the sometimes ill-fated side of love with allusions to the historical lovers Tristan and Isolde, and Adam and Eve. This book closes with lovers drifting apart, disconnected from each other and nature.
Books Six and Seven tell the story of isolation from what we love, loss of spiritual guidance, loss of physical love, loss of connection to the earth, and each other. The iconic 1851 painting by John Everett Millais, “Ophelia,” makes its appearance in this section. The stark image of a dead Ophelia floating peacefully down a river surrounded by the beauty of nature suggests reconciliation with love and nature comes after this life. The title poem can also be found in this section. I was particularly struck by the lines:
leaves pile wet
where words have failed…
and I wait for you
in this life and the next
It is an apt transition into meditations on faith and spirituality, and the divergent paths fate can take us. This idea is reinforced by the multiple tarot card pieces included in Book Eight. The world offers, “...infinite paths/ in the garlands of fate — where home is an illusion…”. Books Nine and Ten bring us to the end/beginning of the circle of life. Book Nine opens with Bruegel the Elder’s “Tower of Babel” image representing the biblical story of miscommunication and strife as languages emerged to compete with each other. The poems that follow tell a different story of multicultural connection. Each one is modeled or inspired by a piece done by a creative from a different culture than Watson. Through the works in Book Nine he reveals how the melding of voices and cultures can weave a micro-tapestry of collaboration.
Book 10 brings us to the end, as well as back to the beginning. The circle of life completes when humans and nature rejoin in the earth. Watson ends the collection with “NightHawks” by Edward Hopper. It is an interesting choice. The piece is a study in manmade light like the poem immediately preceding it which discusses shade and light. The painting is set so the audience looks on a scene of togetherness and loneliness happening simultaneously. There is a hint of connection between the man and woman at the counter, hands almost touching, but there is also a distinct feeling of isolation among the diner patrons. The setting of the diner is at the intersection of two streets — a meeting of two paths.
For me the inclusion of this painting gives unity to Watson’s collection. Throughout, he has explored the relationship between man, the earth, nature, and what connects all those elements. There are nods to discovering the natural world, possessions born of hate and conquest, the dance of intimate corporeal love, the isolation that comes when those connections cannot be maintained, and eventually the meditations on the interconnectedness of the world, even through disparate locales, languages, faiths, and paths.
In the Dark, Soft Earth
by Frank Watson
2020. 232 pages
About Carrie Honaker
Carrie Honaker is a writer currently based in Panama City Beach, Florida. She is a voracious reader and kitchen sorcery addict who found her inner writer at the Blue Ridge Writing Project in 2010. Most days you can find her plowing through a book, writing or dabbling with a new recipe. Currently, she is working on a memoir encompassing themes of motherhood, food, and loss interspersed with family recipes. You can find her on Twitter: @writeonhonaker, Instagram: @corkdorkva, and on her blog Strawbabies and Chocolate Beer.
