Knowing -- by Jon Holden

Publications ---
Knowing
A Collection of Best Poems

Nothing moves.
Like beautiful women, the rocks return
our gaze, expectant.
From —Landscapes Near Moab Utah

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	A Review by Dean Henning These are the best poems from Jonathan Holden's first seven books, four of which have won significant national competitions: Design for a House, (The Devins Award, 1972), Leverage (The AWP Award Series, 1982), The Names of the Rapids (The Juniper Prize, 1985) and The Sublime (The Vassar Miller Prize, 1995) Mr. Holden's command of language is staggering, and his range of subjects is extensive. His subjects include: sex, mathematics, nationalism, propaganda, baseball, and blackmail. He writes with emotional honesty that pushes his observations in surprising directions the reader can never anticipate. These poems have a sustained leanness and concentrated power. He is a craftsman whose poems carry one along with the vigor and the inevitability of rapids and the illumination of chain lightning.	Back To: Publications Order This Book From: Amazon.com U. Arkansas Press

	His dramatic lyrics, like those of the late Richard Hugo, evoke a quality of light in the studied landscapes whose common denominator is solitude but where, through art, beauty and the heartening sense of human community can coexist. Mr. Holden is University Distinguished Professor and poet-in-residence at Kansas State University. Ted Kooser had this to say about Mr. Holden's poetry: "Jonathan Holden is one of our most intelligent poets. It is not always easy to be both brilliant and generous of spirit. It is our good fortune that Holden wears his learning lightly and with such unaffected grace and charm." Knowing consists of eight named sections. This remarkable collection begins with his new poems and continues from 1972 to 1995. In the new poem section, "The Auditor" is from the auditors' point of view and begins with an appreciation to a Mr. Babbit for his willingness to take time out to review with us your '86 return. The poem continues to read like a short story, but with a twist that not only surprised me, but I believe would surprise the best mystery writer. In the section Design for a house, 1972, many of the subjects are about building a house. While reading "Remembering My Father," I felt like I was in the cellar watching his father fitting the saw blade and after finishing the poem, I admired his father for all the work done on the house. I likened the poem to designing life, like a house. From the section Leverage, 1983, Mr. Holden doesn't tell the reader who "Agnes" is, nor does he give her condition a name. After reading the poem, I knew she had suffered a stroke. In the last line the poet mentions a common action that Agnes cannot perform, but to him is a luxury. I believe he is right. The poem is emotional. In falling from Stardom, 1984, the poets expresses his admiration for "Librace." While reading the poem, I could visualize Librace with his flamboyant suit sitting at the piano. The last line sums up Mr. Holdens' respect for Librace 'thank u very much.' From the Names of Rapids, 1984, the poet compares a billboard that, in his opinon, fails at advertising to himself the summer he tried selling Time and Life in New Jersey. This was a thought-provoking poem that many readers could look back on their earlier jobs. In Against Paradise, 1990 the spectacular mountains near Moab Utah come to life in "Landscapes." The poem has vivid imagery that transports the reader to an imaginary city, filled with a rock library and schoolchildren in the company of elders. Though it has been years since I've been through Moab, reading this poem revives the magnificence of the mountains that have been etched in my memory. The American Gothic, 1992 contains the lengthy poem, "The Crash." Its subject is October 1987, Wall Street. The poem is a drama. It unfolds like a story that begins on Tuesday the 6th and has adultery combined with Wall Street. From the 6th, the reader is taken to the 19th, known as Black Monday. The final section is the Sublime, 1995. "Knowing," is a long complex poem consisting of three sections. A man's son is linked to wanting to save a mouse that the cat occasionally carried home. The mouse wanted to go home, like a sick child at school. The cat, mouse and the child are intermingled in a fascinating method the reader isn't likely to forget. The subject changes in the third section, but the connection is not lost. What I really like about Mr. Holden's poetry is the panorama of subjects. The reader isn't likely to become tired of a subject. They are about real people and life's situations. I also like the organization of Knowing. His word play grabs and keeps the reader's attention. Though he writes in free verse, his poetry is cohesive. This book certainly belongs in my category of will read again. Because "Landscapes" remind me of the spectacular scenery around Moab Utah, I chose it as my favorite poem. Landscapes near Moab Utah All morning, drifting among the tall volumes of that rock library, we kept our voices hushed as if those rocks- were frowning over matters far more momentous than we were, while our voices, lightweight, silly as the voices of schoolchildren in such a company of elders, floated about their shoulders, rolled off their backs. Some landscapes invite us to fall in love with them. Their features, like the countenances of the very beautiful, remain ambiguous, composite of so many slowly dissolving human expressions that, like the faces of the famous, they promise intimacy with everyone at once. Though they be eyeless, though they hold their pose, perfectly demure, it's as if the gaze of a shadow or a tree, the empty gaze of even light itself held some indication, could answer us. Whichever way we turn, they turn with us slightly. We stop. They stop, waiting for us. Nothing moves. Like beautiful women, the rocks return our gaze, expectant. there is no need for speech. Their gaze means everything at once.
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