There, There

Imagine a poet with all of the formal resonance of a classically trained musician and all of the improvisational command of a Jazz virtuoso. Think Bechet. Think Mingus. Think, unaccountably, of a poet with chops enough to riff Philip Larkin and syncopate Robert Hayden in the same poem. In There, There, his first book, George Higgins writes movingly of injustice, suffering, love, his life as a public defender, and of his own quest for self-transcendence, with feeling, intelligence, remarkable formal dexterity and phrasing. "No sweeter feeling," as he says in one poem. These are poems of "perfect contact" in which the soul inevitably ascends, even if it's through a kill hole in the skull. There, There is an auspicious debut." ~ Dan Tobin There, There we say to soothe, when comforting a child; it's telling that George Higgins' first book is dedicated to his daughters. If we read the title page and the dedication in sequence--and Higgins is such a subtle, deliberate poet that we must--we can read this powerful book as a testament of survival in small moments of grace, meant to comfort others. From Detroit, where the stairs of the abandoned hospital where he was born "curled like an umbilical cord," to the desolate prisons of Oakland, this poet's grief and anger are barely contained by a brilliant elegance of form. The tension is great; the stakes are high for a poet who faces his losses--of a father, of souls crushed by poverty and jail time--with a heartbreaking and tough-minded redemptive attention. This book deepens our knowledge of how to live in the world. ~ Joan Aleshire