Since publication of Thom Tammaro’s new book of poems, Aurora, by North Dakota State University Press, I have been present at two venues where Thom read from his work. He reads his work well (not a given among poets and writers). He reads with a manner that makes the room gentle. He owns the podium by ignoring it. Quiet confidence in his work.
Now I have read Aurora through in the big bison chair, lingering, scribbling marginalia. Thom’s poetry is situated, in three ways.
First, in the landscape, one foot in the Lake Country, the other striking out onto the plains with a roving eye. Second, in a community, many friends, some of them now gone, but still spoken of in present tense. And not just the literary present. There is in fact an irreverent attitude toward mortality, as in the poem “Most Common Causes of Accidental Death”—a full page of things like “grain bin entrapment,” “power takeoff entanglement,” and “crushed by large bales.”
And third, a fraternity of poets, a great generation of poets smack in the middle of the continent. Mark Vinz, of course, a close colleague, and there is particular kinship with two other masters of the craft, William Stafford and Tom McGrath. Here I feel resonances with Stafford’s “Farm on the Great Plains,” and there echoes of McGrath’s “Beyond Red River.” It is perhaps enough to say, Thom is credible in this company. I will, however, say more, about three particular poems. I read from the frontispiece poem, “Evocation.”
Once this was a world
Where strangers who stumbled
Through the light along country roads
Knew that the light in the farmhouse window
Was for them.
We are driving a section road, I sense, and on arrival in a prairie town, we receive good counsel: “Coming into New Towns.”
Try to learn the geography of the place.
Locate where you are.
. . . make friends with important people
Such as the janitor who can let you in. . . .
Try several restaurants, then go back
To the one you like for early breakfast
Of eggs and black coffee. Find a bar
That looks like a good place to drink,
Then go drink there.
And oh, I love the poem, “Leaving Friends Behind.” I love that you need to know something of the New Testament to get it, need to know that the Lord’s charge to his apostles to go out and preach is recorded in Matthew 10, Mark 6, and Luke 9, each time with a different nuance, possibly due to different perspectives in the Gospel writers, perhaps due to translation. And so Tom straightens this out, gets us back to basics.
In all the sleepy towns
Along the way, even in the homes
Of those who don’t welcome you,
Do not shake the dust from
Underfoot as testimony.
Love them, too.
It’s late now, and Thom is reading Bill Stafford.
Now you are ready
To turn out this light:
Good night, friend.
