THE BODY HE LEFT BEHIND by REESE CONNER

Reading by Aloysiusi Polintan

 The Body He Left Behind by Reese Conner

(Cider Press Review, 2020)

 

Flash Book Review No. 236: "It's easy to aim at an unnamed thing." There can be shame and guilt of familiarity when one writes about a loved one whose connection with the writer has been tarnished, from time to time alienating. But this is quite an irony in Reese Conner's debut collection The Body He Left Behind (2020, Cider Press Review), for the poet reverberated in each line all the familiarity, love, and adoration he may have possessed for his father, mother, and cats (owned and stray alike). The wisdom his father exemplified, who he believes has always been "intent / on the expectation / of broken things," has aided him in his practice of intimacy and his occasional acceptance of the fact of isolation. Conner, with his commanding and sensuous diction and his exultations on the domestication of cats bordering on the existential and supernatural, brought to life on the page truths about ourselves that we seldom read about or that we intend not to confront. These truths, intercepted with ekphrastic poems that signaled the poet's potential for greatness in the craft, are laid before us in bits and pieces, not in a bigger picture whose impetus we hardly digest. Declaring himself "the curator of unwanted things," Conner admits in one of his poems, "but there is blackmail in nostalgia." Poets are cautioned with, but never disenfranchised from, the ease of familiarity. And so are the readers, whose vicarious experiences may lead them to write their own lives and confront the many haunts in the process. All it takes is courage and, of course, serenity, tantamount to all the bravery mustered in front of a blank page.

*****

Since 2016, Aloysiusi Polintan has worked as a Senior High School Principal in Divina Pastora College. He started scribbling poems and essays when he was 17 years old. These poems are still kept in a notebook and wait to be revised for future publication. This notebook will be revived and will give birth to language already "lived." That is why his blog is named "Renaissance of a Notebook," a blog of poems, personal and academic essays, and flash movie reviews. His book reviews, which are published and featured in The Halo-Halo Review and Galatea Resurrects, are also to be found on the blog, under the series title "Mesmerized." He believes that the ability to judge or critique a literary piece starts with the reader's being moved and mesmerized by the artful arrangement of words articulating some longing for freedom and individuality. He's now working on a manuscript of 50 poems, with a working title of Brittle Sounds.