The Emperor of Water Clocks
- Apr 3, 2024
- 2 min read
★★★☆☆
At Indiana University, I studied briefly with Yusef Komunyakaa when my introductory poetry writing portfolio gained me entrance into both 300- and 400-level classes. I hadn’t meant to be a poet, a small irony since picking it up again after a move to the Flint Hills of Kansas, and felt like a charlatan in classes (the other taught by David Wojahn) brimming with, so I assumed, aspiring professional poets.
After putting my pen down circa 1996 and not picking up again for 25 years, I learned something about my process that gave me so much anxiety back then: I don’t respond well to poetry prompts, which is what teaching the writing of poetry was all about. I hadn’t even done well in my introductory course until, in a fit of rewriting the weekend before my portfolio was due, I found my way into the poems not because of the instruction but despite it.
That’s not quite right. The instruction gave me the tools I needed to move beyond where I’d been when I arrived at the class, but the formal nature of poetry instruction—write about this subject or in this form and have it ready by Wednesday—is not how I was able to write freely then. Or now. Whether that means anything or not, as in, should a writer be able to write at any time and about anything, I can’t say. What I can say is that, despite my brief tenure with him, I have always maintained a curiosity about Komunyakaa’s work.
This brings me to The Emperor of Water Clocks, the third of five books of poetry I picked up collectively from the library a few weeks ago. As with the others, there was no magic to selecting this volume; it was simply the one they had. I’ve come across Komunyakaa’s works several times at bookstores, but I’ve never resonated with the one or two poems randomly chosen to decide whether or not to spend the $5 or $8. This seemed the best way to give him a proper chance, even if, I suppose, it would have been to start with his Pulitzer Prize-winning Neon Vernacular.
Across its 58 poems, The Emperor of Water Clocks covers a lot of territory: mythology, civil rights, music, politics, the personal, the casual observation, and everything in between. Komunyakaa has a gift for language, for conjuring images, and for a lyricism often too dense for my tastes. Many of the poems felt like they might have been inspired by the same prompts given to his students at New York University, where he still teaches, and, as such, titillated the senses but failed to land emotionally. That is, I can appreciate the skill and the craft, admire it and be intrigued by it even, without truly connecting with it. That’s not to say none of the poems hit the mark. Many did, especially as the book progressed, its journey seeming to go, in its way, from impersonal observation to personal experience. At least I finally scratched the itch. Now to find some David Wojahn.
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