Stranger on the Shore
Stranger on the Shore
by Patricia Carragon
Human Error Publishing
“At a bar off Waverly Place/ I sat by myself,/ imbibed gin and tonic thoughts,/ stared at solitary candles.”
One of my earliest memories includes the Stevie Wonder classic “I Just Called To Say I Love You." In the memory, my mom is driving us somewhere in her grey Dodge Omni, which I remember as being only slightly larger than my three-year-old self. The seats were roasting the back of my legs, the way they did in the mid-80’s before most cars had AC. Mom is driving fast for reasons lost to time and we are both stressed out. Suddenly, this Stevie Wonder song comes on the radio and starting with just the first few notes I feel inexplicably happy and at peace, like everything is going to be ok. The music even seems to cool my body. Whenever I hear this song, it still has the ability to calm me. This is the undeniable power of music; to recall, to reflect, to calm. Maybe this is why Nietzsche said, “without music, life would be a mistake.” This immense power of music is something Patricia Carragon explores in her new book, Stranger on the Shore.
Jazz is the music that Carragon concerns herself with, that great American artform that has inspired so much of our finest verse. The first thing you’ll notice in the book is that the titles of many poems harken back to jazz standards. Everyone from Billie Holiday to Miles Davis to Sade is referenced here. In this way, she pays homage to the masters and steeps the collection in the lore of the greats.
But Carragon is not only concerned with the artists who made it big. The most interesting characters in the book are those who aren’t famous, those who struggle every day just to be close to the music they love. People like this, “after putting in eight hours/ he’d venture below 14th Street/ play his trumpet/ at a local bar or café.” These are the real heroes of jazz. The unsung, those brokenhearted masses seeking solace in a sax. Like much in America these days, this “lifestyle is under siege/ by an urban plague./ The Village is dying.” Gentrification has displaced communities, and the rising cost of household essentials has made it almost impossible for the urban artist to make a living. These are some of the realities mourned in the more sorrowful tones of Carragon’s collection.
And yet, our urban lives march forward. As an urban poet myself, I appreciated how Carragon represented fast-paced city life through jazz and poetry. You could feel the pulse of the city in these poems, like hearing my favorite jazz drummer Art Blakey beating away on the sticks with a midnight quintet. With lines like “ready to take five,/ she lights another cigarette/ before boarding the IND/ to Greenwich Village” the frantic excitement of urban life rushes over you. In other poems, the tempo slows down to describe messy relationships with all the soaring melancholy of a sax solo, “her Elijah never came,/ dumped her for a Scarsdale beauty/ alone at the age of thirty-five,/ sexuality craved attention.” On display is the poet’s true temporal virtuosity.
In the end, what I found most interesting about Stranger on the Shore were the connections Carragon wove between music, human life, and our perception of the world. “I refilled my glass,/ let thoughts slow dance/ with the clarinet/ as I lounged in midnight hues.” Just like my three-year-old self finding joy in Stevie Wonder’s harmonies to forget about the hot car and the anxious drive, the heart of the narrator is moving about on currents of clarinet, far outside the limits of monotonous daily life. The world we experience every day around us is shaped by the music we hear. “Nina Simone sang ‘I Put A Spell On You’/ November’s fierce wind persisted/ emotions become icicle tears under lock and key,/ invoked the approaching December storm.” How many summer sunsets are shaped by a pop song? How many road trip highways run through the chords of a classic rock hit? After reading Carragon’s new book I was inspired to dust off and play an old Charles Mingus LP as I ran a load of laundry, and let me tell you, those clothes never spun so good!
Benjamin Schmitt
Benjamin Schmitt is the author of four books, most recently The Saints of Capitalism and Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sojourners, Antioch Review, The Good Men Project, Hobart, Columbia Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. He lives in Seattle with his two children.