Dear Apocalypse.

Story, Daniel

Dear Apocalypse. By K. A. Hays. Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-88748-493-3. Pp. 88. $15.95.

K. A. Hays's first full-length book of poetry approaches the heaviest possible topic--the end of the world--with courage and clarity. Airy, near-minimalistic, and surprisingly quiet, these poems startle with their sharp but unassuming observations on subjects great and small.

The title poem, an accentual-alliterative piece that begins the book, prepares the reader both for the ominous subject matter and the poems' remarkable method for exploring it. After imagining a post-human world, the speaker suggests an epitaph for the race:

 Here lie some bodies who bear no blame
 for any faults the future may find
 at rest in their ruins. Remember: we had
 a god who grumbled through us, gave us
 his face, held us--fisted, we like to feel--
 even as he ended us. Excuse him.
 He was, like any other man, complicated.

At this moment and elsewhere, Dear Apocalypse stares straight at the last days and manages to stay calm. Hays's curious and meditative speaker notices the small things in a cataclysm. In "Meanwhile," for example, "All of us, every one, / will be dissolved not long from now" gives way to "Now the grackles have returned. / I hear their hideous clacking / as they slam about in packs".

While much of the work makes the overwhelming simple, "Hyacinths" a four-part poem in series, showcases Hays's ability to make the simple overwhelming. The poems speaker describes the process of growing hyacinths in her closet: "They are not to be touched / say the instructions." These flowers, growing in the dark, take on surprising qualities:

 My bulbs appall me. Two of them, though brief on top,
 are thrusting hungrily, angrily downwards,

 flinging dense tangles of growth
 into the water, as if they want to bury themselves

 in that still nether-region where sounds are muted.
 What could come of such inwardness?

In some cases, the magnitude of Hays's subject matter threatens to overshadow the clarity of her observations; here, the fine perceptions reach the reader unobstructed.

Through both dramatic and seemingly humble images, Dear Apocalypse offers a uniquely complex spiritual and religious perspective. The tone remains curious throughout; the mood shifts across the arc of the book from darkness to acceptance. In "Letter from the End of the World," early in the book,

 We wail like children on the beach

 who had intended the slow spoil of a city
 of sand, but were slighted by the sea
 flinging through too soon.

Yet later, in "Theology" the speaker considers a new beach scene:

 we rub our eyes silently, shed sandy tears,
 squint, blink at the gulls. Better not to cry out.

 We have learned, sitting here, doing
 what the dependable gods would have done,
 that wailing will do little good. The day is fine.

In this shift, the poems' speakers explicitly reveal the attitude that has stood behind the entire book: whatever the nature of what is coming, it comes. This acceptance opens new space for observation and understanding--space we as readers can joyfully, patiently share.

Daniel Story

The Pennsylvania State University