Favorite books of 2002 - includes poems

Progressive, The, Jan, 2003 by Kate Clinton, Ruth Conniff, Anne-Marie Cusac, Elizabeth DiNovella, Andrea Lewis, Fred McKissack, Jr., John Nichols, Matthew Rothschild

A profound and tragic meditation, the author's struggle to make sense of his personal experience is a metaphor for our plight as Americans and as human beings gripped by terrible violence we try to rationalize, ignore, or oversimplify with easy answers.

If we are to change our future from one of certain self-annihilation to one of hope, we have to face our own demons, Hedges suggests. This is a necessary first step to fostering real, humane values in place of war's false consciousness. Only then, writes this former seminarian, can we find redemption. May he find that longed-for peace himself. He deserves it.

Ruth Conniff is Political Editor of The Progressive.

Anne-Marie Cusac

In the early 1990s, having heard Cesare Pavese's name in one of my poetry classes, I developed a satisfying obsession. I found a used copy of William Arrowsmith's 1976 translation of the poet's first book, Lavorare Stanca, which Arrowsmith translated as Hard Labor. I carried that book in the bottom of my backpack. As a result, the volume was soon stained, dented, bent, and almost wholly memorized.

The Arrowsmith translation has been out of print for some time, so it is a joy to welcome a new translation by Geoffrey Brock (Copper Canyon). The new Pavese, titled Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950, indudes not only his poems from Lavorare Stanca, but also his later poems, until now unavailable in English.

Lavorare Stanca, translated as Work's Tiring in the Brock edition, does include some personal lyrics, but it is primarily a selection of portraits. Pavese saw ordinary people as worthy of his best attention. His poetry exhibits heightened social conscience, expressed through daily, lived detail and a scrutiny of what economic disappointment does to a life. I found his work refreshing, especially when compared with much current American poetry.

But Pavese's writing was startling in his own day, as well. "When Italian prose was `an extended conversation with itself' and poetry was `a suffered silence,' I was conversing, in both poetry and prose, with peasants, working men and women, sand-diggers, prostitutes, convicts, and kids," Pavese wrote. "I say this with no idea of boasting. I liked those people then, I like them now. They were like me."

Here is a selection from the poem "Deola Thinking," which is in the wonderful new volume:

  Deola passes her mornings sitting
   in a cafe,
   and nobody looks at her. Every
   one's rushing to work,
   under a sun still fresh with the
   dawn. Even Deola
   isn't looking for anyone: she
   smokes serenely, breathing
   the morning. In years past, she
   slept at this hour
   to recover her strength: the throw
   on her bed
   was black with the boot prints of
   soldiers and workers,
   the backbreaking clients. But now,
   on her own,
   it's different: the work's more
   refined, and it's easier.
   Like the gentleman yesterday, who
   woke her up early,
   kissed her, and took her (I'd stay
   awhile, dear,
   in Turin with you, if I could) to the
   station
   to tell him goodbye.
   She's dazed
   this morning, but fresh--
   Deola likes being free, likes drinking
   her milk
   and eating brioches. This morning
   she's nearly a lady,
   and if she looks at anyone now, it's
   just to pass time.