However we might define grief, say as deep and poignant distress, Feller (Mercer University Press) offers its opposite. Though not in so few words, of course, and none an exact antonym. Rather than the pure joy that may precede grief, this collection focuses more on the desire that one learns to carry forth despite it. Following Loving’s second collection, Tamp, which highlights the bonds that survive death, Feller seems to be about rebirth; it’s about how we as a species manage to come back to life after every hardship, heartbreak, or upheaval that may as well have struck us dead.
This sentiment is exemplified perhaps most obviously in “Budburst” which reads: “Out of dormancy, sap rises / through winter-hardened vine. // Each bud swells and splits / and unfurls into leaves // and fruit. A tender explosion! / In this life, I train the canes, / and weed and water. I serve the grape / in the meager ways a man can. // In my next life, I don’t want to / be the harvester or the harvest. // I want to be the budburst. / Those velvetlike lobes, / so diaphanous and sensuous / in their terrific unwinding.”
Using the cyclical nature of seasons, Loving shows us the gentle art of regeneration, of re-emerging from a state that appeared bleak at best. It’s certainly no coincidence either that this poem, which appears in the first of three sections, follows a prologue rooted in dreams. It’s as though we are at first asleep, dormant, waiting to be reawakened. Through these fables, and in this sort of subconscious state, Loving sets up some themes that will eventually recur.
He exposes us to light and color, via a Bluebird and a Red Fox, as well as natural elements like water and fire, air and smoke. We also meet a Maker, a higher power responsible for filling each character with both yearning and fear, and whose myth runs slightly counter to the idea of evolution one might expect from a naturalist. This, and a subtle mention that “a bluebird is not a satellite,” work to set up even manmade technology as yet another process of nature and include it as yet another lens through which we might evaluate our lives.
With subtle, steady structure, the book maintains this sense of wanting in what feels like the dark, damp underground from which a seed might sprout through its first section. “Lock the Moon” reads: “I was reborn the night we met, / a night like this with fireflies / and trains traveling cross-continent. / But in what direction do we move? // Climb this tree with me, my love.” And in “Do You Hear the Cicadas?” Loving uses an unusual, nocturnal species to lead us to wonder whether the singular act of wanting is reason enough to endure the many risks that come with living. “What makes him think things / will be different this time? What / calls him back? What sustains / this small nightjar’s blind bravery?”
In Section II, however, the speaker undertakes an effort to shine more light. “In Letter to Jeremy Wade,” a British biologist famous for TV shows like “River Monster” Loving watches on in awe, writing: “Last night I watched you dangle in a cage / while a school of bull sharks circled round, / just so you could shine light in their eyes.” Unable to explain his captivation, the speaker expresses another desire—to learn instead about “the magical beasts with the kind of oracular sight / that can see meaning in waters far murkier / than where your monsters navigate.” Magical beasts like the phoenix, which represents the ultimate tale of rebirth, of rising from the wreckage to become new again.
It should be seen as intentional that, finally, in Section III, we engage with a speaker who seems to awaken, as though being reborn. Here Loving opens with “Thirst,” which is a most basic and urgent desire. During this, “the longest winter” the speaker hyperfocuses on all forms of water: ice, rain, sleet; streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans. Until he acknowledges, “When you don’t have water, / it’s all you think about. My thirst jolts me awake in the night.” This sort of self-reflection is representative of a spiritual awakening, a seeing of the self dependent on consciousness and impossible in the dark. As a reader, we, too, are being jolted awake.
It’s through this introspection that we begin to chip at the heart of the matter—arguably all matter. Two poems in the section are so pivotal, in fact, Loving features them on the cover of the book. First comes the titular poem, “Feller,” which takes a prayer-like form the poet seems fond of to level any preconceived understanding of beauty. The piece begins in awe and moves swiftly to trauma, reading: “This is the white oak that grew ... This is the saw with whirring blades, ” before progressing to regeneration, as “These are the branches left to rot. This is the wood’s cellulose and lignin that replenish the soil,” until we reach rebirth: “This is the first green leaf from last year’s acorn, taking root. This is the light that enters the woods and cleanses the wound ... Praise the light, praise the wound.”
And while a feller is a person who fells, who “cuts, knocks, or brings down” by definition, its resonance with fellow suggests an “equal in rank, power, or character” or “one of a pair.” With all things being equal, the poem’s refrain prescribes that we see life’s pairs—light and dark, nature and tech, grief and desire—for their own virtue, and that we praise them respectively. Then, in the penultimate poem, “The Octopus School of Poetry,” Loving deftly shows us how we might revere a thing as sharp as a saw.
He does so by asking him to join him underwater once again, where he marvels at a mollusk and “can’t get past / their ability to squirt jets of black ink” as a defense mechanism. After the speaker positions the effort to “ward off what haunts us” as a bit of innate magic, he eventually likens the gesture to writing poetry. ” Such a nifty trick. / Almost worth the burden,” Loving jets in his own black ink.
Annelise Schoups is a Chicana Belgian-American poet, essayist, and wannabe critic who laughs at her own jokes and writes about things that are mostly not funny. Her poetry appears in HAD, december, Silly Goose Press, collaborature, and the San Diego Poetry Annual; her prose in Hunger Mountain and Tupelo Quarterly. You can find her in San Diego, where she plans thru-hikes with her partner, or on Instagram, where it’s less weird to follow her, @anneliseschoups