Book Review: NEIGHBORS by Jay Nebel
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Neighbors Poems by Jay Nebel |
| Saturnalia Books, 2015 $15.00 |
Perhaps what remains most poignant for the reader after studying Jay Nebel’s Neighbors, winner of the 2014 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, is reverence for what many of us may deem mundane: the everyday. The 3-bedroom colonial next door we pass by without a thought. The freshly cut lawn across the street. The quirks and eccentricities of friends and acquaintances who reside on the proverbial block.
Whether observing or questioning, the largely narrative poetry in Neighbors is never without an element of surprise that starts in one location but ends somewhere unexpected, yet no less important than its origins. For example, in “The Cleanliness of Porn Stars,” a piece that by its very title takes one aback, he seems to question the purpose of existence, among other lofty ideas. The fifty-line rant introduces the reader tangentially to an adopted son a third of the way through, then culminates in reflection on that same son:
I want the faith
of the blind hamster who sniffs over the edge
of the kitchen table and pushes off,…
to believe as some of my friends believe,
in jumbo neon crosses and radio stations,…
…in the cleanliness of porn stars,
that when the knife enters the cake
it will exit sans batter and entrails…
…I want to believe that in an hour
my son will walk through the front door
and look at me like I’m his father.
What Nebel has done in his first full-length book is taken close note of the dynamics of the familiar: local families, moms, dads, children, next-door gays and PTAs…up to and including towns and neighboring States…in addition to the personal ponderings of the individual “I.” At times, his insightful meditations are downright nosy; always revealing, but not without empathy. In the ekphrastic poem paying homage to the landmark collection of photographs, “Robert Frank: The Americans,” Nebel writes:
The Jehovah’s Witness grips a pamphlet, back to the wall,
white knuckled, mercurial. Three drag queens boast
fresh manicures. The shoe shiner, bent over
near the urinals, blackens
a pair of scuffed wing tips.
You know us. We’ve always been here.
Our elbows tacked to the diner counter, our hair greased back,
half eaten BLTs and Coke bottles resting
in front of us. We wear Stetsons and lean
against fire hydrants, or we pass by in Cadillacs
and on city buses where we stare forward, hypnotized
by the sound of water slipping from the roof.
The poet’s pervasive thoughts—wonderings of belief & doubt, ponderings on significance vs. insignificance in his immediate microcosm as well as the world at large—are prevalent throughout the book. Nebel seems, also, to pose unspoken questions of whether the I’s thoughts are unique, or those of every individual. For example, in “A Blessing for the Neighborhood” he says:
A working fan can make anyone religious
and when I feel religious I say things:Bless my mighty neighborhood,
bless the morning glory, and God bless
the fucking PTA……I’m writing a letter…To anyone
who will listen, in the kingdom
where I am little more than a mosquito
dropping its landing gear
on the forearm of the beloved.
While one may garner a too-close-for-comfort sense about some of the free verse included in Neighbors, it is intentional; a welcome intrusion for the reader, like warm apple pie given on a front stoop, right in the middle of your afternoon nap.