{"id":21397,"date":"2013-06-06T12:05:28","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T18:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=21397"},"modified":"2023-11-13T16:51:27","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T22:51:27","slug":"lance-larsens-genius-loci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/lance-larsens-genius-loci\/","title":{"rendered":"Lance Larsen’s Genius Loci"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lancelarsen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the wake of a spate of articles and rebuttals on the \u201cdeath\u201d and usefulness of poetry, on its accessibility, and other catalysts of infighting amongst schools of poets, Lance Larsen\u2019s new collection,\u00a0Genius Loci,\u00a0<\/em>came as welcome relief. Many of Larsen\u2019s poems transcend such specialization and erudition. They are a reminder of what drew me to poetry in the first place \u2013 the nearly alchemical power of pointed observation and comparison, the irrepressible urge to make the unexplainable one\u2019s own.\u00a0 So it was appropriate that he should include the poem \u201cTo Alchemy\u201d amongst a section of odes in the book, which begins:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Salt crystals turning into sea monkeys, salamanders<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0into witches,\u2026<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026Here I am, middle-aged<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and mortgaged, and still I believe.<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sitting down to play Chopin, I hope<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to be converted into electric mist<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or a flock of wrens. When my father died,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I went bowling\u2014anything to transform<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the avalanche behind my breastbone<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0into crashes I could hear.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is a rare poet that can make such self-effacing transformations routine, but that is one hallmark of\u00a0Genius Loci<\/em>. However, it is the less monumental moments\u2013 the \u201cserenely electric body of a nursing mother at Denny\u2019s,\u201d the passive acquiescence of riders to an escalating domestic dispute on their bus, the \u201cspoon carrying gruel to the dowager\u2019s mouth\u201d that becomes the heart of an ode \u2013 that, like those mourning pins, offer the hard crashing of one thing into another but result in quiet, nuanced examinations of human weakness and compassion.<\/p>\n

Given the current dearth of Latin education, using the word\u00a0genius\u00a0<\/em>in one\u2019s book title, particularly a book of poetry, could be easily construed as a particularly ostentatious move. Even this reader, who should know better, paused for a moment at the title before going back to my OED (most online dictionaries can\u2019t even be bothered with etymologies anymore) to remind myself of all the connotations of that word. That moment of refamiliarizing myself with protective spirits and generative powers\u00a0 inherent to\u00a0genius\u00a0<\/em>reminded me of a characteristic of Larsen\u2019s work as a whole \u2013 there is no pretense in these poems but their simplicity cannot be taken for granted either.<\/p>\n

The incarnations and guardians that populate the places of Larsen\u2019s poems are rarely the anthropomorphic beings of classic literature. More often they are animals, both wild with life and bloated and dismembered in death. Their perpetual presence is a fact Larsen self-consciously notes, as illustrated by the book\u2019s second poem \u201cWhy Do You Keep Putting Animals in Your Poems?,\u201d but not before opening the collection with a collection of stunning animal scenes, \u201crituals\u201d of place to which we have largely lost access:<\/p>\n

Horses are praying the old-fashioned way, trotting<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a fenced field at twilight under a towel\u00a0 of moon\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like the owl, I\u2019ll take my wages in mice and falling<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 stars, take my midnights in the middle of the day.<\/em><\/p>\n

The animals of these poems go about their business, largely unconcerned and unaware of their human spectators, despite the figurative roles their appetites and instincts play in shedding light on our own baffling human inconsistencies. Even when the human and animal paths intersect, as they do in \u201cOwning the Snake,\u201d it is clear that it is far easier to superimpose their morals upon our lives than it is to impose ours upon theirs. After relenting to his daughter\u2019s cries when she witnesses a snake devouring two chicks from a bird\u2019s nest, the speaker yanks the snake from the tree, only to spare his life, admitting that \u201cthis serpent I thought I owned, taking \/ some swallowed part of us into a darker fold.\u201d The opening of this same poem is but one example of how easy it is to wish that all naturalists and biologists possessed Larsen\u2019s lyricism after he begins:<\/p>\n

Gorgeous and unnerving, the way he laddered<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 his body, all six feet of him, up to the first branch,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 then used the collateral of his own sinewy loops<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 to cantilever himself higher, limb by limb,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0rising in the pear tree like some highly evolved law<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of deceit: awe zeroing my blood, sun dropping,<\/em><\/p>\n

There are moments when the metaphors in the poems pile up, when the lyricism threatens to topple the work entirely into sentiment, as in \u201cThe Most Spider Part of Me,\u201d in which the apotheosis of a spider (and its conflation with the speaker) extends a few sections too far, or in \u201cTo Duende,\u201d where the ethereal ending overrides a powerful earthly experience (and Lorca makes a predictable appearance). But more often than not, Larsen deftly maintains a balance between such moments and moments of grounding and humor that consistently unravel seemingly established patterns. Often these moments appear in lists and litanies, favorite forms of Larsen in the book, including \u201cNothing Happy,\u201d in which the speaker numbers unmet expectations, noting that \u201cWe are each a bingo parlor \/ dreaming of a knife fight, a worn copy of\u00a0Ulysses\u00a0<\/em>hoping \/ to be burned\u201d only to end in a couplet on the separation of body and soul at death that is equally humorous and tragic:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Blood says, I\u2019ve always wanted to travel by myself.<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spirit whispers, finally a chance to grow my own fur.<\/em><\/p>\n

Likewise, in\u00a0\u201cTired,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>a long list of things that exhaust the speaker is dismantled in the closing stanzas by a moment that simultaneously illustrates the deceptively simple observational prowess of Larsen\u2019s work and the antithesis of such a skill, a deficiency all too familiar to those of us living ever-online lives:<\/p>\n

Texting beside his rest home bed,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 when she should have memorized\u00a0<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the stale air, bruises on his arm linked<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like the Great Lakes,<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the orange pad on the floor in case he rolled off,<\/em><\/p>\n

Lest the excerpts in this review misrepresent the tone of the book as a whole, it should be noted that though Larsen writes exquisitely about the loss and deaths of loved ones and even animals,\u00a0Genius Loci\u00a0<\/em>is by no means a eulogy or a book of mourning. It is alive and fluid and blossoming at every turn, be it children jouncing and gyrating \u201cas if trying to coax rain out of the wispy clouds\u201d or a geriatric marathon runner who nears the finish line and, as if \u201cpeering out at a new world, he tipped \/ back his head as if drinking the sky and he howled.\u201d Larsen\u2019s poems possess a startling clarity that creates broad vistas of longing and living from the briefest of moments.\u00a0 Here it is genius that is in the details, the protective force rooted firmly in both our most perceptible and our most vulnerable of places. Like the dancing grandniece at the funeral in \u201cBetween the Heaves of the Storm,\u201d Larsen\u2019s poems leave \u201cAny worries about the next life set spinning \/ for now in reassuring orbits, rattly pink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Genius Loci<\/em>
\nby Lance Larsen
\nUniversity of Tampa Press (2013)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note:\u00a0 Lance Larsen will be the keynote speaker June 20th at the annual\u00a0Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers\u00a0Conference at the Waterford School in Sandy. The event is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n

Lance Larsen\u2019s poetry collections include Backyard Alchemy (2009), In All Their Animal Brilliance (2005), and Erasable Walls (1998) and\u00a0Genius Loci\u00a0(2013).\u00a0 He holds a PhD from the University of Houston.\u00a0 His work appears widely, in such venues as Georgia Review, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, River Styx, Orion, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Poetry 2009, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.\u00a0 His nonfiction has twice made the Notable Essay list in Best American Essays.\u00a0 Since 1993 he has taught literature and creative writing at Brigham Young University where he currently serves as MFA Coordinator.\u00a0 In 2012, he was named to a five-year term as\u00a0Utah Poet Laureate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of a spate of articles and rebuttals on the \u201cdeath\u201d and usefulness of poetry, on its accessibility, and other catalysts of infighting amongst schools of poets, Lance Larsen\u2019s new collection,\u00a0Genius Loci,\u00a0came as welcome relief. Many of Larsen\u2019s poems transcend such specialization and erudition. They are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1638,"featured_media":21398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2589,35],"tags":[880],"class_list":["post-21397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews-literary-arts","category-literary-arts","tag-lance-larsen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/lancelarsen.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-09 13:38:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1638"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21397"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71020,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21397\/revisions\/71020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}