Summer Elegy (David Livewell)

I love this poet's last name - Mr. Livewell. Isn't that great? The poem, however, I don't love as much.

I think I am the wrong audience. If I had a background in summer baseball games or listening to live events via radio or family road trips in the old station wagon or was even old enough that the many (many) brand names he drops would echo in memory, then perhaps.

But none of that is true, so for me, this poem is a piece of nostalgia from a stranger's history and I can't bring myself to care. It doesn't strike an emotional note for me and it doesn't hit any larger truths either. It's a fine, tight poem about one man's past, but it doesn't do it for me.

The language doesn't impress me either. There are a lot of brand names here and I guess that would root it in place for someone familiar with any of them, but it reads overdone to me. Almost like a commercial. This line makes me feel the outsider and makes me want to skim: "sipping Schmidt's / and dipping Reisman pretzel sticks in blobs / of mustard in between their puffed Pall Malls".

I do like that the poem is just one long stanza. Even though the words/lines are measured and adult-sounding, the lack of stanza breaks brings childish excitement to the thing (rushing/never pausing for even a breath).

Favorite line: "He seemed to wait / on possibilities that hung like pop flies."