Critical Essay: Gary McMannon

By Sage Ricci

Gary McMannon is a Northwest poet whose work has been influenced by the landscapes he has traveled and lived in, and also the people who he has met along the way. McMannon uses minimalist language to put us in the bare bones of a scene and suggest what he finds there. Rarely does he paint a complete picture, but uses broad strokes to suggest images that the reader brings his/her own interpretation to.

“The Guardian” is a poem with strong and clear images of a northwest landscape seen through eyes that are filled with grief. The narrator seems pinned down to the ground with grief. His assertion that “I’ll lie here…till the fog lifts” tells us that he is in a fog of his own, what we later understand as grief. That mind “wanders the landscape like an aimless ghost”. The place of the poem triggers memories in the narrator, memories of those who have died and been lost. The narrator is the only one left out of a specific group of people who perhaps have shared this very place with him. He tells us he has the responsibility to be and see in this landscape for those he has lost.

The strong image of the first stanza is cut short by McMannon’s self reflection, something he does in many of his poems. He pulls out of the image to tell us who he is within the image.

He does this in his Japanese inspired poem “(Adaptation of the Tanka)” as well. He uses a form based on the traditional Tanka form that strings together series of haikus. Unlike traditional haiku, McMannon inserts himself into most stanzas to comment on his place in nature. His joy about the beauty he finds there is evident, and the stanzas that shine most for me are the ones that let the images speak for themselves.

“Episode XII” is another poem set in a specific but unspecified place. It is a distillation of a moment, a twilight encounter of some unnamed Latin or Central American tribal ritual. The details he gives us are few, but intriguing: costumes, oiled dancers, masked bird men. This is an important event, the images are archetypal roles that suggest how tribal society is ritualized.

There is a moment in this poem that is the turning point of the poem. It is the last two lines where “the people stop and turn/ as though Quetzlcoztl were near at hand.” This pause in the breath of the poem stops the dancers and the reader to make room for divine mystery. This poem embodies the mystery of the ritual without needing to describe allthe details. McMannon’s simple technique gives us only the bare essentials, leaves us looking for more.

Gary McMannon’s poems are an exploration of the places he inhabits and visits, places both inside and outside himself. His poems contain an essence of longing for these places, for the exploration.