Mastercraft Thinking: Alternator by Chris Banks

Alternator by Chris Banks rivets me with metaphors and imagery-dense poetry. I’m made of rivets right now. Just look at my arm. Go on, test it with a magnet.

I am relatively new to the poet, without any reason apart from bum luck. A few months ago I was extremely impressed by Chris Banks’ sixth book, Deepfake Serenade (Nightwood, 2021) — it’s abstract and concrete, swings among pop culture and personal, is alert and irreverent yet more joyful than jaded. And there’s so much enviably phrasing and offbeat factoids, like “Even pigeons can tell the difference between a Monet and a Picasso so what is your excuse?” (p. 25) or “My avatar is a siren. My epitaph lies between the advertisement for sea monkeys and the one for X-ray specs: Be of use.” (p. 23). He’s not sleepwalking through lyric reverie there nor in Alternator. I used to be someone to not mark or dog ear books but this is a hard test. Profound, sharp, quippy, it’s amusing. It silenced for a while my own urge to write, ever, because it is so well rendered.

Alternator is a slow read, primarily because I get sated. I need to set it aside and give it a think and a digestion. He talks of important topics but not with self-importance, not with The Answers, but acknowledging that stuff is complicated and tiring and energizing. Banks allows the stretch of an emotional gamut in his poems which is a beautiful thing to see in poems that are, at the same time, so tailored. There is no sloppy bagginess anywhere. There’s intentionality driving the poems into an intensity that compels reading.

Out the gates his long poem “Core Samples of Late Capitalist Dreams” goes to page 20 with each couplet an achievement. Much like how in a beautiful landscape you can throw a camera in the air with the timer on and know on descent it will get a gorgeous shot from a random selection, a pin-the-tail method of example lines…”Evening rain evaporates like old cartoons./Like child pop stars. Like Civil Elegies.” (p. 17) Some end stopped, some rolling and pivoting and smocking ideas. “Trauma is playing a piano/ with an iron hammer, a machete.// Each of us carries A Little Golden Book/ of Hurts deep within us. Yes,” .

How does a brain conceive this? Some poems hook forward building power in a way that makes it hard to excerpt such as “I Don’t Like Philosophy”, p. 33 or “Sublimity” p. 54-55 where he tries to grasp the ineffable in a calming rhythm, at odds with his sometimes frenetic wit earlier in the book. “The sublime will not bloom if left unwatered.” or “The sublime is no manufactory. The sublime is no farm of heart or mind.” “If you try to bearhug the sublime you will be left holding nothing but your dread.” Each line could be unpacked into an essay or an evening’s meditation by itself.

The third section, “Mirror Bouquet”, is a 23 page poem formatted as blocks of prose. In its self-talk, humble and clear and slow, we know Banks isn’t a one-trick poet. He can let go of the humour and consider the bigger scale, the possibility of resolution and a kind of peace. Consider the first half from page 78,

DESIRE, LOVE, LONGING and happiness: all are tempered in middle age’s forge. We surge forward after these titanic forces with all the fervour of youth, then cry theft when they retreat from us, not realizing until much later, when we are quite older, they underlie most things. Jack Gilbert knew it. He sat on a Greek island until he felt the unusual heft of his contentment overtake his thoughts. Twenty years ago I wanted to write about great things, but now it is enough to feel them waking in me, the light in my yard revealing my own bright hungers.

If you haven’t discovered Banks, or if you have, this is definitely one of my most recommended reads of the year.

This is a TMR Starred Review!

Chris Banks is an award-winning, Pushcart-nominated Canadian poet and author of seven collections of poems, most recently Alternator from Nightwood Editions (Fall 2023). His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors’ Association in 2004. He lives with dual disorders–chronic major depression and generalized anxiety disorder– and writes in Kitchener, Ontario.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Nightwood Editions (Oct. 21 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0889714584
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0889714588

Pearl Pirie

Website

Pearl Pirie's WriteBulb is now available at the Apple store. A prompt app for iOS 15 and up gives writing achievement badges. Pirie’s 4th poetry collection was footlights (Radiant Press, 2020). rain’s small gestures(Apt 9 Press, 2021), minimalist poems, won the 2022 Nelson Ball Prize. Forthcoming chapbooks from Catkin Press and Turret House. Find more at www.pearlpirie.com or at patreon.com/pearlpiriepoet