NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Myth, Roland Barthes said,

has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification, and making contingency appear eternal.

history evaporates ... all that is left for one to do is to enjoy this beautiful object without wondering where it came from.

The temptation of art, a temptation to which every work yields except the greatest ones, is to console ... by myths or by stories.

I was excited that among the myths Josephine Abbott chose to treat in her collection TRYING NOT TO LEVITATE was that of King Canute. Far from giving an historical intention a natural justification, the legend of Canute lays bare its own contingency. This is so because there is not one eternal version, but two. In one version, Canute is a vain blasphemer who believed his commands would be obeyed even by the sea. That tale is used as a caution against trying to fight the natural order of things. The second version is that Canute wanted to instruct his subjects in humility and wisdom.

Abbott gives Canute the benefit of the doubt. Her telling of the story is precise and elegant, but I could not help wishing she explored more the raggedy edges and muddy roots of this strange story.

Precision, elegance and formal clarity are qualities that Abbott possesses in abundance. THE PATIENCE OF SNOW is an assured sestina in which form perfectly suits function. Conversely, this makes UMPTEEN NAMES FOR RAIN all the more disappointing. It smacks of a creative writing workshop exercise.

Thankfully, formal clarity does not always render invisible complexity and difficulty. One of the opening poems, ECHT, stumbles over a failure of the language:

	I need a better word for real than real.

	If there's a word for your stillness;
	your willingness to hang motionless
  
	in the face of the fidgeting sea
	and unsettled clouds, I don't know it;