A World to Love

A Review of David Keplinger’s Ice

In her article “Stories of Permafrost. A Call to Look Beyond Permanence,” Hannah Oosterveen reflects on what the melting of permafrost uncovers, and how what has been buried in ice can tell us about our own human history. She considers how some of what has been recovered seems almost alive and discusses political implications of the release of greenhouse gases, as well as the flooding of entire communities who make their living in Artic soil. But the statement that is her main argument ––and that becomes a stark reminder of the relationship between human history and environmental cycles and crises–– also reminds us of the mysteries of life: “permafrost is evidently teeming with life and in perpetual motion.”* That life, although frozen, can tell us much about who and what came before us and how they connect to our present conditions.

The mysteries Oosterveen explores are also the focus of David Keplinger’s eighth poetry ollection, Ice, in which we learn about the unearthing of a series of permanently frozen and intriguing fossils from the Pleistocene––the severed head of a wolf, a “lemming of the ice age,” a lion cub, a wolf pup, a lark––that prompt speculations about their potential life stories. Each of these poems oscillates between wonder and grief as the poet reflects of what has been lost and our responsibility as human beings towards the planet.

The action of digging into the past also becomes a way for the poet to connect with his own life experiences and grief–the loss of his mother, for example. Many poems have epigraphs taken from different sources that refer to the uncovering of these fossils and some of them are also in prose form. Each one attempts to fill in the blanks for the lives of animals that, in some cases, were cut short. Such is the case of “SPARTAK THE LION CUB LIVES UNDER THE PERMAFROST,”

All signs here indicate that he was real.

Here: yawning, cartoonish, snow-hugged,

flattened on his pillows, under the grave

of ice. Four hundred centuries of mewl,

mewl–––and the soul still seems so huge

for both of us, who wish to stay alive (20).

The poem speaks to the finding of four lion cubs in 2018 in a cave in Eastern Russia (near Yakutia). The cubs were not from the same litter, which came as a surprise, and Spartak was the best preserved of all. The poem conveys a sense of wonder at the discovery of something that was permanently frozen and, for all accounts, dead, yet seems incredibly “real.” The poet digs into the embodied memory of this lion cub, prompted by his own curiosity. It is as if, while looking at the image of Spartak, time stops and this makes it possible to travel to a different time and place, deep into the recesses of Earth’s history.

As the poet weaves among the marvels of scientific breakthroughs, he also navigates his own losses. In “THE OAR,” the poet reminisces about this particular object –an oar “spattered with white paint/on the flat end” (53)––which carries a deep emotional significance and becomes a metaphor to navigate the waves of grief. The poem is dedicated to Mary Oliver and it speaks to what is passed down from one generation to the next to help us navigate our own lives.

Something similar happens in “POSSESS” when the poet finds his father’s “navy yearbook among his best things/in the closet” and upon opening it to a random page, notices “he had circled in red the word possess” (51). Thus begins a reflection about the potential meanings of this word, both for his father, and for himself,

…did he mean it as a command

to possess myself as I have not come

to do or did he mean something else

I do not understand yet, the red circle

in an oval around the egg of light and

the word all soft bones inside (53).

The question posed by the poet is not followed by an interrogation sign; it is more of a reflective statement, one where the poet interprets the father’s actions, his circling the word as a possible directive for self-assurance. But even this potential meaning is examined in the poem, as there’s also a sense that the circling of the word might not have an immediate answer, that it is perhaps something the poet needs to live with for a time, something he needs to discover on his own. 

The poem establishes a connection with Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and the idea of living with the questions until the answer comes, unbidden, in the future.  Keplinger’s poem seems to points towards a softening, a slowing down ––“the egg of light/the word all soft bones inside”––a different stage of life where self-compassion and understanding break away from the confusion and wildness of youth.

The reference to Rilke is not the only one that is present in Keplinger’s remarkable book. Other literary figures and works make an appearance, particularly Emily Dickinson, the epic of Gilgamesh, Stanley Kunitz, and James Wright, among others. Some of the poems that reference these authors have the word “reading” in their titles, which implies a close relationship in which the poet articulates what it means to interact and engage with the writing of others, sometimes in a place that has special significance. For example, in “READING EMILY DICKINSON IN AMHERST, MASSACHUSSETS,” the poet situates himself in Dickinson’s hometown and reflects on the process of writing, both for Dickinson and for himself,

I know how it feels to live   in a small leaden room,

with only snakes and birds as consolation. I know how

to imagine death by falling through stories

of floorboards     like a poem flutters       through molecules (66)

This poem is an ode, not in the traditional sense perhaps, but in how the poet aims to connect with Dickinson’s own experiences, her life as a writer who delved deep into the mysteries of the world she lived in: “The trick/ is not to die   while dreaming    of death” (66) says the poet as he alludes to the process of creation and the fact that every poem implies the death of something else–another possibility, another path not taken. The second part of this poem is a beautiful homage to Dickinson’s use of “slant rhymes, and dashes,” which the poet sees as doors that remain open, like possible apertures that offer other possibilities, away from the presence of death. 

Dickinson’s poetic devices become more than mere subjects to analyze and marvel at. They embody the ways in which the author expressed the tense relationship between creation and death/destruction, ways that Keplinger understands only too well, as his poems navigate the consequences of human intervention in the natural world in a mix of wonderment at the stories that unfold and grief at what has been, or will be, lost. As the poet’s mother says in another Dickinson poem (“MY MOTHER READING DICKINSON AT THE END”), This person knew/how to live between/the ticking of the clock” (47).

Reading Ice is like crossing a threshold into timelessness as we navigate the intersections of history, science, literature, and spirituality. Keplinger’s masterful craft connects past and presence while deftly underlining the relationship between loss and astonishment. It’s like the poet says when looking at two horses who seem to be embracing each other in a field: “I want to love/the world like this” (25). Keplinger has written a timely, noteworthy collection. A must read.

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 * https://unevenearth.org/2023/03/stories-of-permafrost/