{"id":32,"date":"2013-01-13T22:07:06","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T22:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/?p=32"},"modified":"2013-01-13T22:54:32","modified_gmt":"2013-01-13T22:54:32","slug":"the-vertical-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/?p=32","title":{"rendered":"The Vertical River"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Timberline Press, 45 pages, 1995
\nOut Of Print.<\/p>\n

[reveal heading=”%image% Selection”]<\/p>\n

NEWTON REVISITED<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

GRAVITY and motion and some thing massed
\nto go lower, precipitous prescription,
\nas when I watched a man in El Dorado
\nCanyon, dressed only in red silk
\nshorts and tennis shoes, scale
\na plunging granite face higher
\nthan any city building. His thigh muscles
\nfiner than braided rope, each spiraling
\nsinew compounded by another. Ascending
\nhe grew smaller, angelic, and sometimes
\nswung upside down, reaching blindly out
\nand up over a ragged ledge, feeling for
\na finger-thin crack or feeble shelf
\nof heaven to grab and hold. He was half
\nspider climbing a fissured igneous web,
\nand when he reached the top, fists
\nof lighting punched through the bellying
\nclouds, The canyon became a thunderous
\nwell as rain obscured and turned
\nthe mountain into a vertical river.<\/span><\/p>\n

I waited out the storm in a cave,
\nconsidered his survival near naked
\non a freezing mountain, his only way
\ndown a slippery escarpment. In the middle
\nof the downpour, he walked up soaked
\nand shivering, smiling as he told how
\nhe was unable to see his hands knuckle in
\ncrevices, his wrists buried in the sheering
\nwater, and carried into its current to the bottom
\nin a flowing firmament, until he stepped
\non grounded principles.<\/span><\/p>\n

[\/reveal]<\/p>\n

[reveal heading=”%image% Reviews”]<\/p>\n

There’s a boldness I love, which perks up the eyes and ears in these days full of indistinguishable detritus from large and small press alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bargen leaves a strong impression.\u00a0 This is from the opening of “No Matter How Hard We Try”:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The wind is really nothing:<\/span><\/p>\n

a few overheated or under cooled spaces<\/span><\/p>\n

hyperventilating, pushed this way<\/span><\/p>\n

or that by a few points of pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe it throws around a little rain<\/span><\/p>\n

or hail at the edges, and the swizzle<\/span><\/p>\n

stick of lightning mixes winds itself<\/span><\/p>\n

up into a coil sucking up chickens<\/span><\/p>\n

and yachts.<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s that uncommonly strong imagery that appeals, the layering .\u00a0 But it’s moved and\u00a0blended, stirred, by skillful enjambment and language choice…<\/span><\/p>\n

[\/reveal]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timberline Press, 45 pages, 1995 Out Of Print. [reveal heading=”%image% Selection”] NEWTON REVISITED GRAVITY and motion and some thing massed to go lower, precipitous prescription, as when I watched a man in El Dorado Canyon, dressed only in red silk Continue reading The Vertical River<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}