Kevin Mcpherson Eckhoff, Circadia. Kentville, Nova Scotia: Gasperau Press (Devil’s Whim Chapbook #37), 400 copies, 2018.
Turns out it is possible to cover a whole poetic year in a 32-page chapbook. All one needs to do is condense each month into a single poem, and to do that all one needs to do is write a single line a day.
This appears to have been Kevin Mcpherson Eckhoff’s strategy in the clever, personal, funny, occasionally self-indulgent and highly readable Circadia. Here are the first lines from “January,” naturally the first in the 12-poem series:
I fried some Mennonite sausage. I watched 18
Minutes from somewhere in the middle of Pirates of
The Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I got a
Birthday card. I cleaned the hedgehod’s hutch. I
Lifted some weights. I learned that I have anterior
Spondylolisthesis, coinciding with a previously
Fractured pars interarticularis, which sounds way
Worse than it is, I think. I finished a crossword
Puzzle.
During the year we discover that the poet has a female partner, two young boys, does some acting, watches parts of movies, is quite handy around the house, doesn’t have sex, does have sex, lifts weights annoyingly often, drinks a lot of coffee, takes care of the garden, wishes he could live in a big city (he’s somewhere in B.C.), has a best friend, will save a kitten when necessary, doesn’t like to kill small creatures (even accidentally), rolls down hills and holds his children when they nap but sometimes grows tired of them, runs, drinks, and cuts down his own Christmas tree.
I suppose these are prose poems, since they are set ragged right rather than with line breaks designated by the author, and there are no other signs of prosody. There is an awareness of more prose-like rhythm and sentence length, although as far as I can tell no deliberate rise or fall or other shaping of the order of events. One poem ends with “I wanted a pet bat” and the chapbook’s last line is one of many references to food: “I ate three slices of homemade pizza.” The special moment is not privileged over the ordinary. Almost all the lines begin with “I”—clearly a deliberate strategy and partly responsible for the feeling of self-indulgence, while also keeping the other figures in the background. But hey, aren’t we all really Matt Damon in the movie of our life?
Are there times when I wished for a little more depth, or emotional vulnerability, or surprise, or even just a moment of lingering sadness? Sure. But maybe Kevin Mcpherson Eckhoff isn’t that sort of guy. Maybe he’s always moving on to the next chore, the next game with the kids, the next slice of pizza. I bet he makes a swell best friend.
Word Music 