Meals at Midnight by Michael McClintock Available from major booksellers.
Price: $24.95 USD. Also available in trade paperback.
Those who knew Michael McClintock as the foremost poet of “liberated haiku” decades ago will discover here a more deeply liberated tanka poet. In Meals at Midnight we find the utter simplicity of a man who has found the world new, through love, and with that, a language free of artifice or struggles for effect. These are deeply, purely, the poems of a liberated heart, innocent and playful against the tapestry of the universe—
tonight
It has been worth the wait.
Michael McClintock has given us an exquisite collection where every poem, in its tight and masterfully-crafted lines, is rich with unexpected imagery and layers of narrative. Every poem vibrates with the eternal resonance of myth and seasons within its immediate story; every one gives us something far beyond the moment. With McClintock as our guide, we are with these poems “in that lucid hour/when the sun’s a chariot/wheeling through the cedars.”
Michael McClintock’s tanka bear the stamp of authenticity. Shot through with a wry sense of humor, they contain the flavor of a man who has lived broadly yet deeply, who’s taken his share of knocks, and who has no time for insignificant frills or the lies so many people tell themselves. Beyond their rich craft and formal design, the poems of Meals at Midnight rest upon insight, character, and a gusto for life. Another of his outstanding achievements.
All these years I have thought of Michael McClintock as a tough old bird. How delightful then to read this collection of gentle poems. The word “gentle” may be misleading, for the poet in his lonely moments responds with strength and acceptance to what such a moment brings. The title itself resonates for me, for even though only one poem is about a midnight meal, I am reminded of Takuboku’s essay “Poems to Eat.” These are poems in that vein. That is to say, a tanka poem is the very life blood of being, as important as food is. I feel in these poems the importance of nature, but it is not the nature so often seen in haiku and tanka, a nature used to conveniently fit a human condition. No, these poems are the poet living in nature, concerned with nature, appreciative of nature. And with this love of nature is the poet’s love of a woman. To share these feelings with Michael offers something positive in this modern world gone berserk. As Michael shaves the shadows from his face, so do we— finding in these quiet poems a good deal that is relevant amid the turbulence of our world.
These tanka— and some haiku— speak of a world that is both intimate and domestic and yet vast and ineffable. It is poetry that for all of us is instrumental in “making a home between them” as Michael McClintock says. He remains one of the strongest and original voices in contemporary American tanka.
I like Michael McClintock’s poems of animism . . . they are very attractive. In Japanese literature, particularly in tanka, animism is a very traditional way of viewing the world. However, it’s very difficult to use effectively. McClintock’s animist tanka are very natural and vivid—
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