Best Book (Best of 2009 Blog Challenge)

On April 27th, my friend Craig Arnold went missing. I had taken the author photo for his book “Made Flesh,” but I was so caught up in grad school drama that I never bought a copy. When Made Flesh arrived at my home this year, it took me a while to pick it up and start reading. I missed him terribly and when I did crave his words, I went to the blog that he had started to document his volcano contemplations, Volcano Pilgrim. When I finally was able to look at Made Flesh, I was completely blown away. Craig has always been an exceptional poet. Though I had no idea of his talent when he taught me (he shied away from even telling his class that he had a book), over the years I became accustomed to his beautiful and sharp words. He simultaneously shied away from and embraced his sharp tongue: he would give an intoxicated recitation of “The Power Grip” at parties, but the raw weight of his words about his son in “Transparent” made it too difficult for him to read aloud.

There are plenty of reviews of Craig’s book on the internets, so I just want to put in one of my favorite moments here to share with you guys. It is stunning and deceptively simple and makes my soul want to explode each time I read it. The end of “Couple from Hell”:

Here is a small café
opening for breakfast
a zinc counter catching the light
at every angle in bright rings of glitter
A cup of black coffee is placed before you
brimming with rainbow-colored foam
a packet of sugar       a pat of butter
a split roll of bread
scored and toasted and still warm.
The butter is just soft enough to spread
the coffee hot and sugared to perfect sweetness
the bread grilled to the palest brown
crisp but not quite dry
You tear it neatly into pieces
eat them slowly          when you finish
you are exactly full


Here are bread butter and coffee
Here you are      your own body
eating and drinking what you are given
and that is all      You were never the lord of a lightless kingdom  any more
than she has ever been its queen
and the world you talked into a prison
suddenly seems to be made of glass
and your eyes see clear to the horizon
and you feel the molecules of air
part like a curtain        as if to let you pass