Remembered America
by Dick McBride
Rue Bella, Macclesfield and Dunbar, 83 pp., 2004, £5.99
http://www.ruebella.co.uk
ISBN 09536719097

orn in Indiana in 1928, Dick McBride is today a resident of England and he makes his home at the foot of the bucolic Malvern hills near the border with Wales. The poet claims kinship with the Beats, having worked for 16 years in Lawrence Ferlinghetti´s legendary San Francisco bookstore, City Lights, where, as the bio on him says, he “lived at the centre of the Beat movement.” Indeed, Ferlinghetti himself contributes a blurb to the back cover of this slim paperback, “I´m glad to see you´re still going strong, there´s hardly any of us left!”

The idea that McBride has inherited the mantle of the Beats might be an overstatement. McBride´s poetry lacks the ascerbity and in-your-face honesty of Allen Ginsberg´s best works and the fine-tuned wit of Ferlinghetti´s poetry. However, there is a comfortable charm in his poems as he reflects on the America of his past and he observes life in his adopted country.

The book gets its title from a line in a poem called “Falling Star.” The poem is about aging and the return to childhood that such senescence brings. Thus, in some ways, the poem mirrors Mr. McBride´s ouevre, touching and insightful, but not really groundbreaking stuff. The poem begins as follows—

The old man—
Ninety-five, he said
Or possibly ninety-six—
After certain capsules, washed
Down with a shot of booze
(Jack Daniel´s, to be precise)
Tucks into his twelve-
Noon breakfast: Warm
Oatmeal (always
Oatmeal in Remembered America)—
No sugar!
No sugar!—. . . .

The ending shows similar sensitivity and insight as the poet muses,

Would that old
Men, dying (thousands
Of years
Old if a day) could
Suckle a mouthful of breast
Satisfying ancient release—
Nursey, dear, nursey
Can I suck your tit?—
Before the last
Ecstatic ejaculation
Creates a continuity
We cannot imagine
As the great
Shooting-star of life
Fades finally, sucked
Into the
Ultimate womb

This reviewer, having jettisoned the opening upper case letter to each line years ago, did feel uncomfortable with the capital at the beginning of every one of Mr. McBride´s characteristically short lines, even a line like “Into the”! I would wish he would adapt the “newer” convention of using lower case for run-on lines, although perhaps you can´t teach old Beats new tricks!

Mr. McBride has other poems that reference stars, the Moon, mountains, and the weather, and other natural phenomena. In fact, he seems comfortable with whatever he approaches poetically, each topic handled with easy ambiance. The poet even has an effective and touching 9/11 poem. The poem is worth quoting in full as an example of what this American expatriate has to say, using clever metaphor, surrealism, and a keen nose for truth, about what happened to his country of origin on that day of tragedy—

September 11

Unclean birds rip
Iron twins totter
And Babel falls into
Flaming tongues Alpha-bets of hate
And greed
The jigsaw puzzles
Wisdom wands
Strange bugs
With clicking teeth
Greasy mouths spit
Innocent tears drowning
Birth dies with
The rattle of uncoded messages
Everything is ashes
Christianity dies
Islam dies
Children scream
In the
Dreams of history
Parents still born
Ignorant knives
Cut the
Throat of evolution
Trees swallowed
By imploded mountains
Butterflies cry
Cycles stop turning
Like the dark night
Of the soul of God
Dreams evaporate
In a desert of oblivion

How now can angels
Safely sing
In the pastures of Heaven?

Hyperbolic to some extent and simplistic at times, Dick McBride nonetheless touches reality in this and his other poems, which makes this volume most worthwhile. McBride´s is a friendly voice that evokes something of the Beat school, and I find it welcome.

© Reviewed by Christopher T. George