Especially since her second book Circadian, I have thought of Joanna Klink as a poet of intense earnestness. I feel that she is writing out of this sentimental knot--a knot she only wishes she could untie as she begins writing this particular poem. And that may be what I mean by earnestness. Her poems aren't reveling in their pain, they are methodically plotting their resolution, though they are guaranteed to find nothing of the sort.
How is someone supposed to untie a knot? In my experience, it's usually a tricky occasion where I might tighten the knot, or I might loosen it. I can never tell which direction I'm going. That's what it feels is happening in "The Radiant," Klink's poem in the Winter 2009 issue of the Chicago Review. The nature of this knot, I don't think I could come close to unraveling, except I see it is dealing with love, dense night, accumulation, and some dark origin nature operates out of. I have been a fan of Jane Mead's work for a long time, and it seems to me that if Mead's poems (especially from House of Poured Out Waters) speak quietly out of this dark space, Klink's "The Radiant" turns the volume up. The poem grabs at anything within arm's reach, and sometimes even reaches beyond reality to explore the properties and truths about this particular knot.
And this exploration, this earnest desire Klink shows to know more about why this occasion had to happen, and is happening as she writes the poem--for me, it's the impelling energy, and it draws me in. It can be something falling out of the sky. It can be the two people sleeping on a box spring. The poem is present for me.
Related Links:
Chicago Review
Circadian