Prick of the Spindle: Reviews: Weinstein: Swimming Back

Swimming Back by Taylor Altman

Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

ISBN 978-1-934513-07-1
sunnyoutside press, 2008

Swimming Back is haunted—by a lost father, a vanished childhood, and the histories of the objects that remind us of them. Things swept away, both by water and by the passage of time, are central to Altman’s work. This theme emerges in the first poem in the collection, “Fog”:

On the jetty, someone has left a wetsuit,

arms spread wide on that vacant space of rock,
as if embracing a thing which has no name.

Time and water are both preoccupations for Altman, and are deeply entwined in each poem. Time is especially interesting in Swimming Back—indeed, the title immediately suggests temporal distance as a key element in the book—and everything from the changing of seasons from poem to poem to phrases such as “a flock of dead pocketwatches” (from “The Lives of Objects”) engender a sense in the reader that months, if not years, have passed between the covers of this marvelous book.

Although one of the central themes of Altman’s work, the father figure is rarely addressed by name; he appears only in the title poem, “Swimming Back,” and a few others. When we meet him, it is only fleeting, from a distance, as in “The Siesta”:

From the dock,
my father is waving. Wishing us farewell.

This is one of the most engaging qualities of the book: as a true phantom, her father permeates each poem and the collection as a whole while hardly directly appearing at all. His physical form is never described; his presence alone, real or imagined, is everything.

Perfect leaps in space, time, and thought are one of Altman’s more obvious gifts, appearing most notably in “ Naples” (“The warning blasts of boats / Bring me my purse”) and in “The Empty Pool”:

The sun spreads its white canopy
over the sky, reflects itself
in the now-six inches of blue pool water
where a used tennis ball floats. A child
could raise a finger and blot it out.

The only time Altman’s fluid and graceful style is interrupted are in the few overtly rhyming poems. They are few, however, and are only a small distraction in an otherwise quietly contemplative, unbroken stream of consciousness.

Ultimately, like the rivers and passages of time illuminated in Altman’s absorbing new book, we must carry what we can—memories, stories, histories—and move on. The last line of the book, from “Before Rush Hour,” puts it enviably simply: “The day is brought to us, and we go forth.”

Visit sunnyoutside press on the web at www.sunnyoutside.com.

Prick of the Spindle Poetry Editor Eric Weinstein recently graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with an AB in English and Philosophy. His writing has previously appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including The Archive,Wheelhouse Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and Rainy Day. His poetry hasbeen nominated for inclusion in Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the SmallPresses (2009). A native of New Hampshire, he currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.