Exploring Human Connection and Mortality: A Little More Red Sun on the Human by Gillian Conoley
a review by Caeden Xavier
An arresting body of work, poems in A Little More Red Sun on the Human by Gillian Conoley spans with a variance, with a creating narrative, and a lyric, fragmented poetry. The book is separated into seven sections, each respectively titled in relation to the poems contained within-- for example, section six “do you believe” spans fragmented forms and sequence. The poems feel haunted by the narrative, the forms throughout allowing for exploratory language to be produced from the pearl of the poet’s creative mind. Poems in the collection attend to the themes of connection, gender & race, and the human form/experience, moreover, they question the impending shifts of human consciousness.
Gillian Conoley is an American poet, translator, and editor. Awarded the Shelley Memorial Award in Poetry for lifetime achievement in 2017 from the Poetry Society of America, Conoley is the author of eight collections of poetry including A Little More Red Sun on the Human (Nightboat 2019). She is currently a Professor at Sonoma State University, and the founder and editor of Volt magazine. As an experienced poet, Conoley brings us an intimate vision between poet and reader, asking us to ponder the language fragments carefully formed on the page. This type of poetry must be shared with those who appreciate the exploratory language field of poetry with careful attention to the unraveling of emotionally attentive images.
While earlier works from Conoley recounted the experience of Texas girlhood, the theme most commonly found in A Little More Red Sun on the Human is of human connection and relationships. Drawn to the familial, the poem “Fatherless afternoon” recounts the need for connection with surprising turns of phrase such as:
fatherless afternoon, very untitled death , / partially the anatomically endowed
Conoley also invests in colors throughout the collection, creating a vivid and bright world racked with fragmented beauty. The yellow in “Fatherless afternoon” smears, allowing for the creation of bold new light in the poetic voice. Connection to religion and religious beings is also discussed, like in the poem “Preparing one’s consciousness for the avatar”. The subject of God in this poem is distant, a “forgotten” higher power or sentience. The poem is grounded in earthly matters: “the rare sun”, bottled water, trash, with the juxtaposition between the grounded linguistic thought on human objects versus the unwanted or forgotten all-powerful being is the crux of the poem. The human body is frequently mentioned throughout A Little More Red Sun on the Human. The work shows us humans are intimate and can be close without the forethought of religion, where mortality feels crucial. The use of many pronouns (I, we, you) allows for a familiar conversation between the speaker and the subject(s) of the collection. Conoley writes many human bodies into life, allowing for the focus of the work to be the beings the poet mediates on together.
With the use of a loose fragmented form, the line becomes pivotal in the collection--it must be strong enough to stand alone. The fragmented prose form, “Culte du moi”, is a magnificent example. The poem begins:
We are the captains of fatigue. The sound is an enterprise. Serial balconies along the street.
Not only is the use of repetitive short, fragmented lines allowing for sharp and poignant images to remain distinctive, there is also an important sonic play with the continuation of melodic language sounds. Conoley has mastered mixing contemporary and elevated diction to create vividly imagistic lyric poems: for example, some lines from the poem “Tonight I Feel Mortal”:
You have a theory.
Velcro on hips.
I have a storm glass window,
the possibility for refraction,
just letting the whole thing
refract. Hi,
here is my happy childhood.
Gillian Conoley’s A Little More Red Sun on the Human reminds us that mortality is unwillingly short; the true beauty of humanity is the interconnection between humans and all existing bodies.