THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602050163
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Art smarts.
It captures and compels us immediately where we are.
There could be no better proof of that than the premiere issue of BlackWater Review, an irresistible new 181-page literary and visual compendium that showcases senior Virginia writers next to gifted Virginia beginners.
Both categories burn with the rage to engage.
And BlackWater Review has been produced in Hampton Roads by creative students and faculty of Tidewater Community College's Humanities Division.
``It's Virginia-focused,'' notes co-editor Juliet Crichton.
Here is work by Bread Loaf teaching fellow Katie Letcher Lyle, Virginia Commonwealth University oral pathology professor L.M. Abbey, NASA librarian Susan L. Adkins; TCC students Rafael Chandler, R.H. Nelson and Michael Mack; and American University poet Henry Taylor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Among many more.
``People should pay attention to poetry,'' Crichton says, ``because it moves you in a way no other writing can.''
She acquired a Master of Fine Arts degree at American under the tutelage of Taylor, whom she interviewed at length. Crichton, herself raised in Richmond, calls her former teacher ``a true Virginia gentleman.'' But he is not one to trumpet tradition.
``Virginia is perhaps not as unique a Southern entity as Virginians would have it,'' says Taylor in these pages. ``No other state produced Jefferson, that's true, but it's very difficult to walk around Virginia now looking for evidence that this state did produce Jefferson, other than physical artifacts like busts and pictures of him hither and yon, that kind of thing. And with all respect to elected offices, Governor Allen does not make me think immediately of Jefferson.''
Ping!
Art has an edge; needle, needle. But it also heals where it pricks us: Pong.
``I think we all treasure these tiny moments,'' says Taylor, ``some interaction between two people, some physical image, something seen, a handful of starlings lifting off a field, the look of exhaust on a winter morning. These tiny things give you something, no matter who you are. . . .
``And when someone comes along and puts it in words which make it possible for you to come close to reliving it, that's a nice thing.''
BlackWater Review is resplendent with such nice things, one of which is Crichton's own fine poem, ``and sometimes i.'' Another is Robert P. Arthur's ``Excerpts from `Fut Gar and the Nature of Evil.''' Arthur, a TCC professor of English well-known for his plays and poems, is the other co-editor - and a founding force for the anthology.
He would, as 300-pound possessor of a black belt in karate and a lifetime penchant for risky outdoor enterprise, undoubtedly bridle at terming any verse of his or his students ``a nice thing''; let's adjust that to ``a nice thing in your face.''
``I felt the quality of student work at TCC was extraordinarily high,'' Arthur says.``I thought if we actually solicited, we could get big-league submissions. And I thought our students could function right alongside them.''
They do.
Sings Taylor in ``A Grace``:
. . . the centering on a moment of hope
and gratitude, as once again
we face each other, having done
a small and daily kind of work
in a large, eternal kind of joy.
Writes Nelson in ``Clannad``:
``I was delivered by a drunken midwife. She groped my mother's china white body, reached inside her and pulled me, bloody, into the world.
``And oh, what a world. . . .''
You'll want to read the rest. BlackWater Review is available at the TCC/Virginia Beach bookstore, Prince Books, Riverbend Books and Barnes & Noble. The price: $7.95.
In this instance at least, art also happens to be a bargain. MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. by CNB