Tearing up the calendars
A review of “Olyver Currant” by G.M. Palmer
The use of narrative poetry is one that can tell stories in abstract ways, but also in ways that get to the heart of the tale. While it may be difficult for some readers to disseminate the message, to those who are able to read closer and uncover the tale told, they’ll find a unique and more elaborate way to tell a story. They’ll discover how the author used imagery and the verses to show something universal and explore them in new ways.
In his newest poetry collection, Olyver Currant, G.M. Palmer explores how men recover from trauma through the usage of narrative poetry. Olyver Currant is split into three long poems, some of which are segmented into smaller pieces. The titular series of poems follows a man who comes to term with his trauma over an entire year, each poem in this section named after a month. The second poem, “Leaves,” follows a man on a road trip along the east coast of the U.S. as he comes to terms with the end of his relationship with his travelling companion. The last poem, “Palm Sunday,” follows the week leading up to a the birth of the narrator’s first child, following his child’s birth and the narrator’s “birth” as well.
The pieces are densely packed with detail and imagery, each stanza filled with descriptions of where the narrator of each piece is and what they are reacting to. How Palmer approaches this in each piece is dependent on what the narrator is drawn to. For “Leaves,” this is mostly what the narrator notices along the drive in the Fiat as he passes through southern cities on his way further north. The “Olyver Currant” poems have the narrator react to the changing seasons, holidays set in each month, and how both he and the world around him bounce back on his trauma.
For example, in the “October” poem, the narrator thinks about how withdrawn he is during Halloween. Palmer writes:
…My light is out, no Jack-o lantern
lights my steps, my house is dark in the still
October night and everyone passes
quietly, throwing glances in the place
of the occasional egg. In darkness
I am in shock; withdrawal in the months past
from the world has done me little good. Eight
months ago I was a wreck and hiding
from the world. Tonight the world is hiding
and I am still a buried corpse… (Pg. 47)
In these pieces, the reader gets the idea that the “Olyver Currant” narrator’s way of processing his trauma is to figure out where he is placed in the world around him. By reacting off holidays and seasonal changes, he allows himself to feel like a part of the greater world, even if he finds himself just a microcosm. The narrators in the “Leaves” and “Palm Sunday” are similar, with “Leaves” being about where and how the narrator reacts to the journey, and “Palm Sunday” being about how the narrator reacts to roles and labels as he awaits his child’s birth.
Olyver Currant is a delicately composed series of poetry that places the reader in the mind of narrators who notice and react to everything. It can be a bit disorienting, but it allows the reader a chance to see and feel more than they normally would. It’s not an easy collection to get through, but if the reader is willing to allow themselves to become part of the collection, then they are likely to walk away with a query about where they fit into their world and if the challenges and difficult moments they’ve experienced can give them an idea.
