Where We Live: Poetry of New Mexico

By R.W. French

Valerie Martínez: Absence, Luminescent

First it must be said that the poetry of Absence, Luminescent is like no one else's. If any names of comparable poets come to mind, they might be Jorie Graham, Carolyn Forché, or Charles Wright, but that's only to place the work of Valerie Martínez in its proper company, not to suggest close likenesses. This poetry is of itself and all its own, the voice distinctive, the artistry unique.

The dominant music of these poems is deep and thoughtful, complex and resonant, densely textured and intricately woven; there are, indeed, times when it suggest the spiritual orchestrations of, say, Wagner or Bruckner. These are not poems that encourage quotation, for each is a distinct continuity; nor is this is a poetry of memorable phrase or vivid metaphor; rather, poems demand to be read as totalities. No part is sufficient when detached from its context. There is much of beauty in these poems—see, for example, the delightfully lyrical "Meagen's Flute"—and it is a beauty of harmonious wholes and exquisite craftsmanship.

The poems of Absence, Luminescent find their unity in the flow of intense meditation. They focus deeply inward. Seldom do we find ourselves in any recognizable place; the landscape is interior. Nevertheless, at any moment the poems may turn out to the world—often violent and threatening—that forces itself into consciousness. We are made to confront, for example, such victims as the political prisoner in a cramped Beijing cell, chicken of the "disappeared" in Argentina, the woman in a broken-down car during a blackout, the mob threatening. The calm of the meditative voice in these poems stands frequently in marked, ironic contrast to the subjects of its discourse.

The poems of Absence, Luminescent often present themselves in the manner of meditations overheard, phrases barely within reach:"luminescent" indeed, spoken in evocative whispers, as befits a poetry that deals so often with themes of absence and loss. The language is probing and evanescent, as through searching to express the inexpressible. Here are the opening lines of "The New World":

You are the kind of beauty

which delivers me up to some

midnight vision of water—

dark, enigmatic, moving

with figures so exotic

they must be ancient animals.

Somehow it happens

that the new world emerges

out of restlessness, the sleepless

turning of colors in darkness.

Often, indeed, these poems come to the reader as waking dreams, revelations in the process of being discovered. These are poems of apprehension, not of statement; “meaning” seems to rise to the surface from sources unknown and deeply mysterious. Consider, for example, the first section of the title poem:

Arch inverted: white peony

and stamens, yellow. Center

of the body. Imagines.

Who is absent.

Fingers in my mouth—memory.

Dragonfly so blue in the head.

Orange, as fire, in the body.

Wings, transparence. Disappearing arms.

The space where he was. Aureole.

The space he is, she was.

And the opposite.

Defines the dragon which flies.

Iridescent where it was.

Echo of hued wings.

The poem seems to be willing itself into being even as we read.