The River in the Sky

October 1, 2018
Still dying?he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, after he'd already wrecked his lungs, he said (see Latest Readings, 2010)?James, now in a wheelchair, just will not quit. In this book-length poem of recollection, he often cites his lost and failing powers but doesn't stop his traveling, sightseeing, learning, and evaluating. Having begun in spectacular Australia, whose wondrous variation of Coney Island's Luna Park in Sydney and dumbfounding river caves south of Perth he circles back to like Joyce's dreamer to Howth Castle, James was well set up to haunt the likes of Abu Simbel, Venice, and Amalienborg, and encounter the likes of Patrick Leigh-Fermor. He also gravitated to all the arts, and poets, painters, architects, singers, actors, and filmmakers pop up in the poem at least as profusely as birds, fishes, mammals, reptiles, and insects. Winds, rain, light, and darkness course through the lot. Altogether, the poem, which employs blank verse as a metrical touchstone and the Milky Way as an animating metaphor, is awfully like Fellini's memory films Roma and Amarcord, though the world is James' hometown.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)