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Family Rattling: Poems
by William T. Carey
32 Poems ~ 48 pages
Price: $20.00
Cover Design: Shay Culligan
Cover Image: William A. Carey
Format: 6'' x 9'' ~ Perfect Bound
Publisher: Kelsay Books
ISBN #: 978-1-63980-511-2
To Order: Amazon.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
As I began reading William T. Carey’s latest project, Family Rattling, I recalled an obscure but pregnant quote about family life (or life in general) by Robert Frost: We love the things we love for what they are. While Frost’s quote could lead one down more than a few rabbit trails, I’m applying it to Carey’s poems. This is a collection about family. Obvious enough from the title. However, I sense a genuine love within Carey’s lines. True to the quote, the poet simply loves life; he loves his family for who and what they are. How refreshing! He doesn’t dredge up past sins; his family did not wound him, in his youth, with arrows still embedded in his now middle-aged flesh. My goal in this review is to show the love-pathos embedded in the lines of a truly gifted poet.
Let’s Talk about Style and Titles
Carey is a free verse poet. His excellent endline decisions lend themselves to satisfying cadences. I felt as if we were having a conversation. He brought me along … invited me into his space … into his family’s space. A specialist in providing interesting details, I felt the poet’s experiences blending with many similar memories in my own life. Indeed, with titles such as, “Superman,” “Just Spell It Out,” “My Son Laughed with Me Tonight,” and “I Killed a Mouse before Breakfast,” I knew I was in for a treat.
Samplings from the Family Smorgasbord
Family Rattilings opens with “Superman,” which is about the poet’s father, now in the throes of dementia:
Dad’s so Clark Kent,
In unassuming khakis and grey Velcro tennies.
No one suspects his powers.
His prime power, though, is indestructibility.
He slip-slides for the umpteenth time from recliner to hard floor,
and flies from den without case out back door.
I have a dear brother who suffers from Stage 4 Alzheimer’s disease. This tender poem consisting of twenty-eight lines, speaks to my heart.
“My Son Laughed with Me Tonight” struck a familiar chord. It’s about that “coming of age” ambience when the son is no longer a boy. In fact, he is on the precipice of adulthood. The poem chronicles a charming exchange between the two men in which they, “lock howling eyes and levitate, / giddy at the absurdity.”
How can a creature so small as a mouse strike terror into the lives of rational people? Check out “I Killed a Mouse before Breakfast.” So familiar to my own experiences when a mouse invades our family-precincts:
The troubling shadow shifted
as I pushed back the furnace room door
and in shock dropped my load of backpacks for storage.
Cursing, crashing back into the big basement
where the damn thing could corner anywhere,
I saw it–afraid of light and me …
The mayhem isn’t over yet. Don’t overlook this gem on page 26.
What could two people, blessed with a similar looking elbow structure, have to do with affirming one has married the right person? For profound academic insight on this, check out “Made for Each Other,” the collection’s final poem. The poem asks, Is that the secret to this marriage thing? The reviewer will allow the intrepid reader to pass final judgment.
I return to where I began with a quote by Robert Frost: We love the things we love for what they are. This sage saying is certainly borne out in William T. Carey’s new book, Family Rattlings. Underpriced at $20.00 … this one’s a keeper.
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