“Spear-Fishing on the Chatanika: New and Selected Poems” by John Morgan Salmon Poetry • 2010, $19.95


 By Libbie Martin / Fairbanks Daily News-Miner


FAIRBANKS - I always get excited when I discover a new, to me, poet. Some people like to unwrap presents — I unwrap poems, watching them unfold into pictures of another person’s viewpoint. A good poet can take the most mundane subject and turn it into a lyrical vision, pulling me out of my mundane world into that vision.

So when John Morgan’s new book, “Spear-Fishing on the Chatanika,” arrived in my mailbox, I was elated. Not only was it a new book, it was a poet I hadn’t read before, so I got a double package in which to delight myself.

You may wonder, “How do you make spear fishing poetic?” Not everyone can. But Morgan does, with his title poem, “Scouts Spear-Fishing on the Chatanika.”


Cross-legged on the bank around
a stylish blaze our fathers counted coup –
how beautiful from the air
those cities lit by bombs,
the giddy godless scare
of elemental flack, blue sequins
on the black. …

Equating the glistening fish with the “bursting” of bombs, this poem takes a few readings to really get its meaning. But it sticks with you — I found myself turning back to it several times as a phrase in another poem jolted some small understanding into my head.

Morgan takes on the typical Alaskan themes — boundless landscape, teeming wildlife, overwhelming beauty. But anyone can write poetry about that. What puts Morgan a notch above is the way he takes the usual and makes it unusual. In “A Little Night Music,” Morgan begins:

Look, I can do the impossible:
I am driving a large yellow
bus backwards up this steep hill,
steering in reverse by the outside
mirror through the on-coming traffic,
avoiding the deflecting streetcar
tracks, the vans, bicycles, and so forth.
Perhaps this is the career I
missed out on — driving backwards
up a hill a large yellow bus.

Nothing prosaic here. Just a keen, observational eye and a way with words that makes me really jealous.

One of my favorite poems was “Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska: A Suite.” With suite (and sweet) titles such as “Dead Walrus on the Beach,” “A Village Littered with Bones,” “Neighbors: Gossip,” and “B.I.A. Housing,” this poem, for me, was an excellent picture of Alaska today. The juxtaposition of modern and traditional, of Alaskan and Outside, of snowmachine parked next to dog sled, is a photograph of the history and legacy of Alaska.

In Suite 7, “Privilege,” Morgan writes:

Awed by this place
the top of my head comes loose
and tears assault my eyes. Hairy
with impending ice-ages
I see the past arriving at
our shore: mammoths, mastodons,
and man. All
times are crowded into this
small village, its
magic, my privilege.

Morgan is at his best when he writes about the personal. He has numerous poems dealing with his family, especially his sons. One suffered a childhood debilitating illness that affected the entire family. Morgan writes of that time with all the passion and fear of a parent watching a child near death; but with a remarkable detached eye. He is able to see the little picture inside the big picture.

The final poem, “Spells and Auguries,” is introduced by Morgan this way: “In November, 1993, without warning, our son Ben went into a coma. This sequence deals with his illness and its long-term consequences.”

Straightforward, simple, truth. But the suite of poems that follows is anything but.

In “Prologue: Song for Ben,” Morgan recalls a night ritual every parent knows:

The night sky bouncing with a thousand strands
of light, up and down the room I walk, holding
your warmth — blue bundle, chilly ears and hands.
Above us, in green shadow, the sleek Egyptian
cat, a plaster statuette you twist to smile at.

That simple scene is wrenched away with the second suite, “Sirens and Flashing Lights.”

Your cry, half howl, half moan, rocks us awake.

That’s a nightmare every parent dreads, and it resonates with fear, anguish, anger, and doubt. Morgan has captured a visceral emotion and given it voice, given it color. It made goose pimples rush up my back, and I dropped the book to call my three daughters, just to assure myself they were OK. They're all adults, but that fear never really goes away.

This is a poem in 24 parts, covering the extent of illness and recovery, from sitting in the hospital waiting for word, to flying his son to another state for treatment, to the doctor’s angry “Why didn’t you bring him sooner?” to the diagnosis — it’s a road map for a family dealing with the disaster that is illness. Between the worry and the fear, there is the horribly routine — Who will pay for all this? Why am I signing all the papers again? Don’t they listen?

Amazing how Morgan was able to put that into beautiful, simple but complex, lyrical words. They flow across the page, dripping the emotion, but not enough to distract the reader into wanting to clean them up.

In addition to 22 new poems, Morgan drew from several books for this collection, including “The Bone-Duster,” “The Arctic Herd,” “Walking Past Midnight,” and “Spells and Auguries.” This book is crammed with excellent poems. Morgan is my kind of poet — not frou-frou, not overly sentimental or maudlin, just a master of words. I will definitely be checking out the older books, and hope he writes many new ones.

Libbie Martin is a freelance writer who lives in Fairbanks. She can be reached at martinlibbie@yahoo.com.