The Incentive of the Maggot

Ron Slate

The Incentive of the Maggot, Ron Slate's first book, is very good at what it does. While you may have a slightly difficult time figuring out what, exactly, that is without having a go at Robert Pinsky's introduction, that should take nothing away from the poems themselves:

"Terraces of granite rose from the sea.
On the heights each watery quarry had a name
and a legend, atomic creatures, gangland
graves, a kid who dived and disappeared in 1959
but died in Quang Tin from a punji spike.
When we got to the quarry, our towels rolled, the police
were taking names. Someone was missing.
Would you like a bowl of cold borscht,
asked my grandmother, listening to my story.
Beet-red, sour cream swirled it out of plasma.
History begins with indignation
because it's so hard to remember
what's been remembered...."
(from "Granite City")

What I feel is the book's biggest (I was going to write "major," but really, it isn't) flaw isn't capable of being shown with any excerpt that wouldn't start pushing the boundaries of copyright law, because Slate's poems, like those of many poets who have worked for many years before publishing their first full volume, are all quite wonderful when taken separately; it's when you gather them together that they start to lose their meaning. Reading an excerpt, or a few poems at random, you'll still get the full effect of Slate's intricate, deliberate poems, pieces that demand careful reading and study (and actually give you something in return, unlike those in the Seamus Heaney book you can find reviewed elsewhere in this issue). When you assess a full book of them, however, they tend to flow together, and I don't mean that in a good way. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book, and one I'm sure I will be returning to many times over the coming years, but I'll always be doing so for a single poem or a small selection, rather than a return journey through the entire volume. Taken in small doses, this is great stuff.