{"id":52882,"date":"2020-03-22T06:07:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T12:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=52882"},"modified":"2020-03-27T13:04:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T19:04:14","slug":"david-lees-newest-collection-mines-the-gems-and-the-dross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/david-lees-newest-collection-mines-the-gems-and-the-dross\/","title":{"rendered":"David Lee’s Newest Collection Mines the Gems and the Dross"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>David Lee, the first Poet Laureate of Utah and a retired professor of English literature, has published over 20 books of poetry, two of which have been nominated for a Pulitzer and one for the National Book Award. His newest collection of poetry, <\/span>Mine Tailings, <\/span><\/i>is a dynamic amalgam of meditative, funny, politically-charged, nature-loving, and romantic poems. It keeps its readers on their toes.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The one constant in <\/span>Mine Tailings <\/span><\/i>is Lee\u2019s repeated communication with other poets. He uses epigraphs from Rilke, Dickinson, Lord Byron, and the philosopher Protagoras, among others; ultimately, Lee invites the reader into the intimate conversations he shares with poet and philosopher friends and one can feel the power of those aesthetic connections.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

The first poem, \u201cSilver City Dawn Psalm,\u201d proves that Lee is a Milton scholar and a nature poet. The cadence, vocabulary, and images are immersive and moving:\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

the tired old sun stretches his long arms<\/span><\/h4>\n

pulls down easter horizon<\/span><\/h4>\n

with a yawn and sigh<\/span><\/h4>\n

one more time shoulders his pack<\/span><\/h4>\n

and begins the high lonesome saunter<\/span><\/h4>\n

over Sierra<\/span><\/h4>\n

Lee rewrites the desert sunset, making us swoon over the American West as if we are seeing it for the first time.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

From the American West, he drops us into a narrative poem about a modernized \u201cMadonna.\u201d The epigraph of the poem is \u201cso much\u201d by William Carlos Williams, so one is prepared to see how this poem and Williams\u2019 “The Red Wheelbarrow” move together. The poem tells the story of a southern girl whose eye got pecked out by chickens when she was young,\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

she sold fresh eggs in used Piggly Wiggly cartons<\/span><\/h4>\n

pushed downtown in a red wheelbarrow<\/span><\/h4>\n

When she laughs and cries, tears glaze one of her cheeks like rainwater. It gives a story and new meaning to Williams\u2019 lines.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Mine Tailings <\/span><\/i>is dedicated to the people of Silver City, New Mexico, and the collection\u2019s structure relies on the metaphor of mining, which is fitting since there are an estimated 15,000 abandoned shaft mines in New Mexico<\/span>. The collection is divided into three sections that metaphorically move the reader from Silver City down through the shaft of the mine to deep in the earth, then lastly focuses on the ores and valuables brought up. The term \u201cmine tailings\u201d refers to the unused ore waste from mines, the leftover, the dregs \u2014 which, because they are often toxic, prove to be an ongoing environmental issue. Lee\u2019s tailings are perhaps his wanderings, his sometimes chaotic but invaluable wanderings.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

The first section, \u201cSilver City,\u201d whispers sweet nothings into the reader\u2019s ear in the form of autumn aubades \u2014 love poems that make one breathe a little slower. Then, it gets chummy, cracking a goofy joke, then a clever one. In \u201cMonologue: Soft Focus Memory of Getting Drunk with a Scientist who Actually Reads,\u201d Lee takes the reader to a bar and talks about science, astronomy, philosophy \u2014 the experience leaves one on a higher plane of humor and thought. Then the reader is sent off in the night to walk home, stumbling, inebriated and in awe of the Silver City streets.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

“The Shaft,” the second section, is the morning after. Here, Lee pulls the rug out from under the reader and snubs their expectations for polite poetry.\u00a0 Lee mines for truth and meaning in the soil of our nation. Instead of subtlety, lovely aubades, or nature imagery, Lee offers a poetic polemic against Donald Trump. Lee is ardent, fierce, and angry. He essentially says, “Screw you, Donald Trump” in 11 different poems. As always, Lee still relies on his poet friends for these political poems. He juxtaposes quotes from Shakespeare and Trump, mimics the form of E. E. Cummings, and even writes his own version of Hemingway\u2019s 6-word story to argue against Trump. While Lee\u2019s passion, his defense of women, his unrelenting conviction for justice, and the clever and nuanced ways in which he writes politically are moving, this diatribe within the collection can feel repetitive, heavy-handed, and out of place. Entering this hostile conversation is so jarring it feels like falling down \u201cThe Shaft\u201d of the section\u2019s title. However, these poems do have an important symbolic significance for the collection; they draw the reader back to the title. They truly are Lee\u2019s poetic tailings \u2014 more chaotic than polished and creating that eclectic feel to the collection. This section highlights the residue or dregs of the mined American experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

After taking the reader through our day\u2019s political turmoil, Lee seems to suspend time in order to make a space where he can evoke poignant experiences with nature. His third section, \u201cThe Ore,\u201d takes us back to the desert\u2019s unconventional yet intense beauty and to the gentle world seen through Lee\u2019s eyes. In a particularly successful moment, Lee pulls off the highway to take in a full meadow of globemallow when<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/h4>\n

another car pulled off<\/span><\/h4>\n

and another then one more<\/span><\/h4>\n

all of us like children in a field of strawberries<\/span><\/h4>\n

stretching to the edge of horizon<\/span><\/h4>\n

lapping over into otherworld<\/span><\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

David Lee, photo by Nan Chalat Noaker<\/p><\/div>\n

This in-awe-of-a-wildflower-meadow-moment is abruptly jarred when an uncouth man arrives and Lee plays practical jokes on him.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Lee frequently interrupts beautiful moments with sarcasm, and sometimes it feels out of place, but, then again, so do a lot of things in this collection: It\u2019s a desert circus, a patchwork that makes one reminisce on the title. <\/span>Mine Tailings<\/span><\/i> is the unrefined, eclectic beauty and chaos of the American life. Or even the unrefined eclectic beauty and chaos of David Lee\u2019s musings. It combines moments of nature personified, discussions on the half-life of a butter bean fart, love poems written to the poet’s wife, a tirade against Donald Trump, and dream visitations from a little sister he\u2019s never met. <\/span>Mine Tailings<\/span><\/i> depicts the duality of the American experience. It\u2019s evocative and has a mastery of poetic language, while being subversive to the reader\u2019s expectations for polite poetry; it is the tailings and the ore, the gems and the dross.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mine Tailings<\/em>
\nDavid Lee
\n5 Sisters Press<\/a>
\nOctober, 2019
\n$15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Lee, the first Poet Laureate of Utah and a retired professor of English literature, has published over 20 books of poetry, two of which have been nominated for a Pulitzer and one for the National Book Award. His newest collection of poetry, Mine Tailings, is a dynamic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1673,"featured_media":52884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[2096],"class_list":["post-52882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews-literary-arts","category-literary-arts","tag-david-lee"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Front-Cover.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 06:12:19","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\/52882","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\/1673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52882"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53171,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52882\/revisions\/53171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}