The Distance between Two Hands by Greg Watson

Reviewed by Christopher Vera

ISBN: 1-59661-091-3
March Street Press, 2008

The Distance Between Two Hands is Watson’s sixth book of poetry and is an intensely contemplative work of love and loss.

I tend to read poetry books in this way: I begin with the first poem because I want to know how the poet plans to gain my attention. Then, I turn to the last so I know how the poet plans to leave me. Finally, I wander through the middle poems in whatever order the spirit takes me, as through the rooms of warm and ghosty old houses I have never explored before. Watson’s poetry, with its sometimes melancholy and mostly retrospective meanderings works very well with this style of reading. There are stories in each piece, traces of which can often be found woven throughout their counterparts.

Watson opens with a wistful and sensuous poem in “On the Highway to Lake Mille Lacs” that sets the mood for this trip:

It’s a long drive, your legs and shoulders
tense with the effort of stillness,
your hair flying like a red dress torn to ribbons,
your naked feet beautiful as lilies
against the tar-hot Naugahyde of the dash.

One expects a mature poet to offer observations on the regrets of love and painful reflections on life—in this, Watson does not disappoint. From “Love, Love, Love,” a piece about the casual ease and addictiveness of falling in love with a stranger, to “Hands,” a poem about the good and bad experiences one senses through the body parts of the same name…

Sever them, good woman—
they are as wild as newborns,
they are too much responsibility.

To “Sparrows in Winter,” a powerful and evocative piece about the death of a mate and the reluctant necessity to move on, Watson has seen his share of the world and brings this experience to life using simple yet potent language to describe the cool complexities of his passions and the traumatic losses in his life.

There are some poems here that could do more to convey the sense of being Watson has created here. There are some repeating themes and turns of phrase that are revisited in a number of pieces (Watson seems fascinated with the speaking of names). There is a series of haiku-like poems in “A Correspondence of One” that doesn’t quite fit in this work or inspire in me the serene thoughtfulness traditional haiku usually do.

That said, it’s the rare reader who would find less than several poems that evoke a thought or an image or a memory and are not only soulful but entertaining—the importance of which cannot be understated and is often missed in poetry.

Watson’s final poem, “Learning to Pray,” offers a gem of advice that readers may already understand and which poets and critics would be wise to heed on occasion:

“If you could stop talking
long enough, God might hear you.”

Humbled by thoughtful, straightforward language—that’s how Watson left me.

Prick of the Spindle Poetry Editor Christopher Vera is fascinated by the foundations of our universe: the natural, unnatural, the supernatural, the fantastic. He explores these elements in his poetry and looks for it in the writing of others. His work has appeared in Ship of Fools, Apex and Abyss, Heliotrope, Mobius, the Magee Park Poet’s Anthology and others. He is earning an MFA in Creative Writing through National University in San Diego, California. He can always be found at www.mysticnebula.com.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com