Kirby, David The Winter Dance Party: Poems, 1983-2023, Louisiana State University Press 2024. 280 pp. $34.95

One of the most valuable lessons I took in from my first creative writing class was also one of the most direct: Pay Attention. Paying attention wasn’t like depositing a check or withdrawing crisp green bills, but its value went beyond any of that because it was your way of saying Hey, I’m here and I got you. This seemingly simple lesson, when applied to the poetry of David Kirby, shows us how he carves an understanding of love through his attention to detail and narrative direction. This is explored time and time again through expansiveness of his lines and ideas, and oh yes, the humor and the humanity of it all, too. It’s as though David Kirby and his poems invite us in, sit us down at the dinner table, and catch up with us like an old friend—but also encourage us to look out the window, look for our breath a little, and revel in the great unknown.

To begin, I’d actually like to start at the end of the Party, in his closing essay “Is this a saxifrage I see before me? Or my problem with the truth (Bonus Track).” David Kirby leads his readers on a Melvillian-like adventure in discussing the truth in writing. As explained in the essay, Saxifraga, which comes from Latin, literally means “stone-breaker”; it is a type of flower known for not just surviving, but living in harsh, stony elements.

In this closing essay, Kirby shares much wisdom, such as this: “[T]he unknowable is built into the art by the art itself and not by the artist.” As writers, there’s a hope something we’ll say is immortalized forever, but Kirby stunningly turns that idea on its head a bit, and challenges the perspective from the ground up. Continuing, Kirby says “Every crack in your orderly process is an opportunity for the saxifrage to break through and burst into bloom.” Now there’s a line: break through and burst into bloom. And with these ideas serving as lanterns, let us venture into the bloom that is David Kirby’s poetry.

Written across nine sections, David Kirby’s poetry takes its readers on an adventure ranging from No One Knew Where I Was, Including Myself to You’re Alone by Yourself Now, Still Important to Friend, Let’s Go There – each section containing no less than five poems which speaks to the sheer volume of Kirby’s poetic output. In the very first poem of the book, “Taking It Home to Jerome,” Kirby shares an enduring idea at the end that also brightens our poetic path:

…Sometimes, when I’m writing a poem,

I feel as though I’m operating that crusher that turns

a full-size car into a metal cube the size of a suitcase.

At other times, I’m just a secretary: the world has so much

to say, and I’m writing it down. This great tenderness.

I find the use of couplets particularly fascinating; they build in power and focus, and invite us into Kirby’s world of words surrounded by imagery and influence, especially as the poem “takes it home to Jerome.”

A great strength in David Kirby’s poetry is his ability to weave and braid narratives that begin on one line and leave them hooked with timely punctuation that unfurls the line into a longer connective thread of the poem. Kirby illustrates this time and time again, but incredibly well in his poem “More Than This.” Here’s the opening:

When you tell me that a woman is visiting the grave

of her college friend and she’s trying not to get irritated

at the man in the red truck…

Right from the beginning, a duality occurs – the poem sets it up by two individuals doing a very individual thing: grief. Compared to the woman visiting the grave, what does the man in the red truck do? He “listens to a pro football/game…much too loud.” The contrast allows readers to see the multiplicity of the grief’s grip in real time. The poem, housed little more than halfway through the book, serves as embodiment of Kirby’s genius; he weaves the joy and the terror, the clarity and the confusion. The poem picks up steam:

…When the young men died in the mud

of Flanders, the headmaster called their brothers out

of the classroom one by one, but when the older brothers

began to die by the hundreds every day, they simply handed

the child a note as he did his lessons, and of course the boy

wouldn’t cry in front of the others, though at night

the halls were filled with the sound of schoolboys sobbing

for the dead, young men slightly older than themselves.

The lull rhymes of headmaster and classroom, die and by, cry and night all push forth this section with powerful, calculated nuance. The poem, written in a single stanza, also shows how the horror of war can exist where “the world’s beauty breaks our heart as well.” With that line, Kirby’s poem makes its next move:

the old cowboy is riding along and looks down

at his dog and realizes she died a long time ago

and that his horse did as well, and this makes him

wonder if he’s dead, too, as he’s thinking this

he comes to a big shiny gate that opens onto a golden

highway…

Here the use of assonance pushes the poem further: down and dog and ago, his and this – the poetic maneuver effectively entangles the reader in the narrative further. Then a twist happens: “there’s a man in a robe and white wings… tells him it’s heaven…though he says animals aren’t allowed,” – what?

Can you imagine that? A move that turns heaven on its head a bit. Why wouldn’t a place that promises forever graces and freedoms not allow pets? And yet, Kirby dares not stop the narrative, the poem continues:

…so the cowboy keeps going till he comes

to an old rusty gate with a road full of weeds and potholes

on the other side and a guy on a tractor, and the guy

wipes his brow and says you three must be thirsty

come in and get a drink, and the cowboy says okay,

but what is this place, and the guy says it’s heaven,

Okay, now you’re probably wondering, what about the earlier moment with the tried and true imagery – robe, wings – reader, stay with me. Once again, lull rhyme and Kirby’s long line illustrates the poem’s strength. For example, side and guy, three and thirsty, okay and place. Pushing forward:

…and the cowboy says then what’s that place down

the road with the shiny gate and the golden highway,

and when the guy says oh, that’s hell, the cowboy

says doesn’t it make you mad that they’re pretending

to be you, and the guy on the tractor says no,

we like it that they screen out the folks who’d desert

their friends.

When I tell you I couldn’t find my breath, what I mean is I didn’t breathe right for days; this moment shows us how, to quote the poem earlier, “the world’s beauty breaks our hearts as well.” It’s a stunning poetic move, and once again, Kirby’s narrative is woven with effective punctuation. A period! His speaker wants to stop and take in that moment. And boy do we take in that moment!

Whew.

Remember the poem’s actors in the beginning? The man and the woman come back:

…your friend can’t take it

any more, and she turns to confront the man

who’s making all the noise, to beg him to leave her alone

with her grief, and that’s when she sees he’s been

putting up a Christmas tree on his son’s grave

and that he’s grieving, too, in his own way,

one that is not better or worse than the woman’s

just different, the kind of grief that says the world

is so beautiful, that it will give you no peace.

What an ending. No words except: Wow! Incredible! Amazing!

One of the many joys of David Kirby poems is how they serve as a study in poetics, too, and one of the best examples of this comes from the poem “Stanza.” Located in the section What Are They Up To Now, Kirby serves up a powerhouse of a poem in one stanza riddled and rhymed with genius and grace. The poem begins:

It means room in Italian, but room itself

means both enclosed area and open space,

means confinement as well as freedom.

Right off the bat, Kirby’s focus and word choice is an unfolding flower bud revealing new color and texture right before our eyes. Kirby brings everything to focus with some magic from Milosz:

… “in the very

essence of poetry there is something indecent,”

says Milosz for “a thing is brought forth

which we didn’t know we had in us,”

and we jump back “as if a tiger had sprung

out / and stood in the light, lashing its tail

The push and pull of finding exactness in language and animalistic movement is clever – it speaks to the duality inside of poet’s decision-making and the response itself from those decisions. Kirby, snapping us into attention, writes “Poet, listen to your poem!” The directness is exactly what makes the line all the more authoritative. That authority is then, just like the tiger prior, given into nature, starting with water:

a stanza like a waterfall toward which

the reader floats unknowing. First there is

the river, tree lined and tranquil, then

the boulders that churn the water and whiten

it with rage, then the precipice itself,

and after that, the long flight through a mist

that hides a future of which you know nothing…

By using a standalone stanza, similar to the forementioned “More Than This,” Kirby’s precision and focus gives way to how things can comingle in creative, thought-provoking ways. The river gives way to the tree gives way to boulders give way to a new way of seeing (and feeling) water. It’s like a wide-action shot in film, the focus begins on one thing, then by the end of the shot, as viewers we are able to take in all the differing elements that come together in one piece. It’s truly a remarkable move. I don’t want to spoil all the fun of this poem but I will say that “Stanza” is a dizzying poem, and its ending is a testament to David Kirby’s skill to hone in to focus and attention. Its reward is nourishing long after the read.

The Winter Dance Party is generous in its scope, allows a full breadth of David Kirby’s immense poetic output and, at the end of the day, his poetry is a gift that opens with each read.