{"id":534,"date":"2025-03-16T11:21:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T11:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/?p=534"},"modified":"2025-03-16T11:21:54","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T11:21:54","slug":"the-world-you-now-own-by-p-w-bridgman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/16\/the-world-you-now-own-by-p-w-bridgman\/","title":{"rendered":"The World You Now Own by P. W. Bridgman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This review was published last week in London Grip<\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The poet himself is a gentlemanly presence throughout this, his fifth collection, never more so than when he\u2019s introducing \u2018Deliverance, 1961\u2019 the novella-in-thirty-two-cantos which takes up the back half of the book. Like a good-natured aide conducting us to the office of an eccentric royal, he\u2019s at pains to explain the poem\u2019s form (so that we may better appreciate it) and prepare us for the dubious views and behaviours of his period characters (so that we might refrain from judging them unkindly). The same care and courteousness is evident in the arrangement of many of the shorter poems \u2013 impeccably detailed realist dioramas, drawn from various stages of life \u2013 and in the overall structure of the book, which is divided into \u2018Our Better Selves\u2019, \u2018Our Lesser Selves\u2019 and \u2018Our Contemptible Selves\u2019, so as to faithfully depict psychological messiness in as neat a fashion as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s light on symbolism and metaphysical conceit (\u2018Icarus Foiled\u2019, with its debt to Auden\u2019s \u2018Mus\u00e9e des Beaux Arts\u2019, is the most out-of-place poem \u2013 a political parable using figures from myth) but rich in cultural bric-a-brac and recollected fragments of dialogue. Sometimes these are presented as tragic remnants (\u201ca toy, a Styrofoam \/ ramen cup, shoes (many shoes), a broken yellow \/ spatula, a black Yomiuri Giants baseball cap\u201d begins the list in \u2018Japanese Debris Field Arrives on B. C. Shores After 2011 Earthquake\u2019), other times as precious keepsakes. Bridgman is unquestionably modern and liberal in his outlook \u2013 poems concerning a pompous, controlling patriarch and a child learning to ride a bike, for instance, are likely drawn from first-hand experience, but could easily be ads for life insurance products, such is their familiar relatability. I had never heard of Irpin before I read \u2018A Mercy Undeserved: Irpin, March 2022\u2019, but I knew within a few lines that it must be a Ukrainian city, since the book is elsewhere eager to acknowledge the contemporary global milieu. This is not a criticism, by the way \u2013 just to note that I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever read anything quite so much like what I would expect from an evening\u2019s conversation with a thoroughly polite, well-adjusted and socially conscientious dinner guest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, in terms of form, smart-casual dominates \u2013 clean, lightly patterned lines, some very long, with one tightly cinched concrete poem and occasional unforced rhymes. It\u2019s a warm, welcoming volume, keenly demonstrating both tonal range and worldliness \u2013 not to mention that Bridgman is an attentive student of key figures in the 20th-century poetical canon. But its best moments might be its sloppiest and nastiest: \u2018A Pie in the Face of the Betrayed\u2019 is a viciously surreal portrait of an emotionally reticent husband or boyfriend splattering his partner with half-eaten pudding as he finally snaps. She\u2019s memorably described going down in a burning plane \u2013 except that it\u2019s surrounded by \u201cbillowing meringue\u201d as his \u201cfalse, sticky reassurances \/ drip down from the overhead \/ speakers\u201d. And the two poems ventriloquising a curmudgeon \u2013 part of a longer sequence, it sounds like \u2013 are deliciously petty:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshua rights his head slowly, as if it\u2019s being winched<\/em>
up off a welding table by an invisible block and tackle.<\/em>
He sighs in resignation.<\/em><\/p>

I decide not to correct him, for now, on his use of \u201cDad\u201d.<\/em>
I\u2019m not his father. I\u2019m not even his father-in-law.<\/em>
(They\u2019re shacked up.)<\/em><\/p>(‘Ariana Grande Comes to Lunch: A Modern Tableur en Famille’)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The novella, meanwhile, is a mellifluous double character study, set mostly on a sleeper train and told through flashbacks. It\u2019s a sort of melancholic, grittier, muckier spin on Brief Encounter<\/em>; the protagonists\u2019 paths cross just the once, and they\u2019re likely totally ill-suited for each other, despite the fact that each is fleeing a life of bleak disappointment. The takeaway might be that a few hours of embarrassed kindness are all we can reasonably hope for, and make something of, in the wake of our mistakes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This review was published last week in London Grip. The poet himself is a gentlemanly presence throughout this, his fifth collection, never more so than when he\u2019s introducing \u2018Deliverance, 1961\u2019 the novella-in-thirty-two-cantos which takes up the back half of the book. Like a good-natured aide conducting us to the office of an eccentric royal, he\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[328],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":536,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gojonstonego.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}