What does it all mean?

As I read Jean Valentine, I was reminded at times of Merwin, at times of Rich, but then at times there was something that seemed all her own. I have nothing really to stand on in this statement as the collection is the only work of Valentine I have read; however, I can state that she is not a copycat of either but uses her own voice to explore some of the same concepts.  Like Merwin, Valentine is interested in the idea of loss, memory, and the beyond – what lies beyond death. Like Rich, Valentine is interested in the powerless, the helpless, and the act of creating. And like them both, Valentine seems to ponder the place and purpose of the aging poet. However, Valentine does not come across as politically charges at Rich’s work; Valentine seems to be more concerned with the human connection.

 As a newcomer to both Rich and Valentine, I found that Rich could be appreciated and, despite her complexity, could be accessed in a superficial way upon the initial reading. While you may not know the exact event Rich is referencing, I could still enjoy the lyrical sound of her work and the initial feelings it invoked. In some ways, the ambiguity of Rich’s poems was intentional to create a more global connection, to enforce the idea that we are all humans tied to the politics of location. Valentine's work, however, isjust as complex but slightly less approachable. As she referrences various works and people I am not familiar with, I had to put forth extra effort to connect with her work. Perhaps this is a way for her to speak to those that want to know, that are willing to go beyond the questions for answers? Playing with the idea of the supernatural and the dreaming world, Valentine ponders the idea of knowing, the idea of breaking the glass between this world and the next.  For example, in her poem “You ask,” Valentine presents a scenario of someone seemingly from the beyond asking the speaker to coffee: “You ask, / Could we have coffee?  --No, my truth, I’m still on this side.” The speaker then goes on to tell the spirit (friend, lover, family member, whomever) that s/he still sees him/her in the faces of strangers, that s/he continues to miss that person.

However, the poem seems to be more than that. Valentine uses the reference of the beautiful edge by the water in this poem as in others, leading me to the idea of water used in the Bible, but I am not sure what to make of it. She references the story of the woman at the well in her poem “Eurydice who guides,” in which the speaker says, “I met them in the country by the well / and once I drank from them / I never thirst.” In the biblical version, Jesus tells the woman to drink and she will never thirst again; however, Valentine combines this story with the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus (which can also be equated to Lot and his wife. Throughout the work, Valentine seems to draw from images of music, myths and stories from various religions, in an effort to know. This desire seems to culminate in her series to Lucy, in which she explores the idea as the mother of the human species, as the being that knows everything.

Valentine does so much, and her poems seem to interconnect across the sections. I am still not sure of how it all works together, but her work is something I would definitely like to explore further.