Something I like about reading different genres of writing is how each examines the world. Fiction might bring in fantastical elements to get to personal truths. Nonfiction can use enormous amounts of research to tell an overlooked or misunderstood story. Poetry’s sparseness can contain a universe of meaning. That’s certainly true of Robert Wrigley’s latest collection, The True Account of Myself as a Bird.
Most of the poems here revolve around the natural world as Wrigley sees it around him in his forested Idaho home, from the trails, from the sky—and how the human world interacts with it. Wrigley sees us, and himself, sometimes as interlopers, sometimes as guests, never as superior to the birds or insects or plants within his consideration. This is true even when it’s a piece of the natural world in our less-natural chosen surroundings, as in a mayfly stuck in a Costco in “What It Means.” Most importantly to his mulling of the us and them occupying the same world is a lack of judgement, such as the spider that bit him in “How Enormous” or the definitely used and dried-up condom plastered to his windshield at a trailhead in “Prothalamion.” The spider acted without malice to a gigantic interruption to its world in the woodpile; the Dale probably responsible for the condom was loved for whatever reason by an Amelia. (Sometimes the lack of judgement is accompanied by a tongue lightly touching cheek.)
The poem I keep turning back to, the one I read to others to encapsulate this collection, is also one of the longer poems. In “Visitant,” Wrigley, in his detached writing room, contends with impossible forces of nature: a creature trying to huddle from the winter cold, and Wrigley’s bladder in desperate need of relief. To find that relief, Wrigley must descend the stairs to his room and use essentially an outdoor urinal, but doing so will disturb the creature. Yet not descending and not urinating means Wrigley must sit in a state of unsustainable discomfort. “I’m hardly distractible anymore/and approaching, oh, mildly desperate/squirming in my chair […] until I mutter ‘Sorry, pal’ and go ahead”. It’s a clash of the ordinary and the remarkable, the human-centered and the great outdoors, all with a touch of humor.
Which isn’t to say that all of the poems are set at the border, or overlap, between humans and flora and fauna; medicine, knife-making, old photographs, Benvenuto Cellini’s sculpture “Perseus With the Head of Medusa,” and JFK’s assassination, among other miscellaneous topics, are also sprinkled in, Wrigley’s consistent tone helping them to feel like they belong. I’ve enjoyed reading more collections pushing boundaries—topically or in form, or both—but The True Account of Myself as a Bird is a much more meditative and deceptively simpler animal that has left me with a greater appreciation for the seemingly ordinary things around me.
Ring Reads 