Nylon Sunlight
By Cliff Fyman
Nylon
Sunlight Press 2004
Cliff Fyman’s recent chapbook, Nylon
Sunlight, was recently put out by Nylon Sunlight Press in a batch of
360, all of which are signed and numbered by the author. In this book, he
includes just seven poems, some longer than others.
Starting with the first poem, “Dream
Sequence,” he moves through the page in a narrative elliptical style that
reminds me of the best kind of day-dreaming. Dreaming, or day-dreaming, can
be interpreted as a normal function of the mind. In its natural form, the
mind wanders; it picks up energy from here and there, ending up where it
does. The tendency to over-interpret dreams (Freud) or scold the young when
they appear to be day-dreaming, puts a negative pall over the beautiful form
dreams can take.
In “Dream Sequence,” he moves from
a dream on the operating table to a scene in a “beautiful Catskill
valley,” where the action moves unexplainably to a bird hopping into busy
traffic “on 14th Street in front of Town and Village
Synagogue.” Using the long poem form, Fyman then imagines a scene where he
is pitching at Yankee Stadium one moment, then in a scene from every
parent’s nightmare, he almost drops his infant daughter. “I tried hard
to hold her but / she slipped my grip near the glass door / I lowered her to
the ground just in time she wasn’t hurt / a sad feeling how she slipped my
grasp.”
The latter part of the sequence moves
to a one-line format, which reminds me of the pace of Joe Brainard’s
excellent I Remember. The genius of Brainard’s book is that is
gives us a never-ending form, a rhythm that frees us from the usual rigors
of rhythm. In this section of the poem, with brief lines like “I dreamed
on Friday night there was a bank account in my name I’d forgotten about
with $25,000 in the account,” he succeeds by leaving enough to the
reader’s imagination.
In “No. 7”, a poem at the end of
the chapbook, Fyman starts with the lines:
Force eventually melts a man when
carried to its limit
but the nonviolent ones whom some
call dreamers
with a sneer, cling tenaciously
to their way and grow
toughest of all with time.
In an example of how a poem can
remain contemporary, but yet have enduring qualities, Fyman admits “having
tried force and failed in my own ways / I’m an example of someone
convinced of non violence. All I know is when one of two people doesn’t
want to fight the fighting stops.” He then mentions that it is a wisdom
that always comes too late. The timeliness of these lines is great; it had
me thinking about the age-old question: are people in the world getting more
violent, or does it just feel that way now?
It is great when the narrator mentions at the end of the poem that he
keeps this wisdom
…but I keep it anyway
in my back pocket and make it
talk to me
walking home alone late at night
fires climbing
climbing up all sides of the
globe
“Doubt,” my favorite poem from the
book, and one of the best poems I have read this past year, could possibly
hold the answer. It was Keats who famously told us to be conscious of our
negative capabilities.
Doubt
I don’t doubt my faith
my doubts
are my faith
I walk with
doubts on long dry roads
The short haiku-like blast of imagery
works well in this poem. I think we all need to think about doubt and
uncertainty, two elements that are prevalent in the times we are living in.
Prior
to receiving this chapbook in the mail, I did not know much about Fyman.
After reading this book, I will be on the look-out for future work. This
chapbook was put out by Nylon Sunlight Press, in New York City.
Erik Sweet, 2005
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