The One and Only Human Galaxy
Elizabeth Swados
Hanging Loose Press
Thomas Hardy never cared to turn around. In his late fifties, he chose to publish a collection of poems, which he had worked on for nearly thirty years; however, during this time, Hardy made a living as one of England’s most notable novelists. Even today, critics debate whether his novels or his verse are most fruitful. What interests me about Elizabeth Swados’s first collection of poetry is whether she too will continue as a poet. Although I have never read any of Elizabeth Swados’s prose, which coincidentally includes over thirty years of non-fiction, fiction and dramas, I can’t help but wonder: will she keep going as a poet?
Like Hardy, Swados takes dramatic cues from prose and applies them to a lyricism only found in poetry; however her first collection, The One and Only Human Galaxy, relies too heavily upon her dramatic experience. Each poem pivots upon a central issue and character: the life and work of Harry Houdini. The book contains an abundance of poems, which are separated in chapters which function like acts in a play, with themes of performance and of course, themes of escape, both physically and metaphorically. What Swados does manage to produce is a poetic voice for the turn of the twentieth century escapologist and she does so by inventing Houdini’s and some minor character’s streams of consciousness. Ultimately, Swados commits to explore the biography and debunking character of Houdini, unfortunately, she never shows us the rabbit or how Houdini manages to escape.
In fact, Swados refuses to introduce us to the speaker but from the first poem, we recognize the escapism of Houdini’s familial bonds—his spirituality as a Jewish magician fettered with a skeptic rabbi father:
I am neither rabbi nor scholar
nor necktie salesman.
I’ve signed a contract
but not his, I
keep my ways secret.
My father will not take a card
The card is one of many metonyms used to explain the whole of Houdini’s magical life. Even the title of this poem, “Before He Finds His Name,” explains the speaker’s knowledge and exposition of what’s to come in these theatre poems; however, if you don’t Google Houdini, you might lose the chronology. For example, in “Bess as Slave,” the speaker changes:
I am one box
folded inside another box,
packed up, tied up with rope and hauled into the truck.
In each new town you pull me out –
test my strength.
Swados’s speaker, now most definitively Bess, Houdini’s wife, reinforces the stream of consciousness and theatre style poetry. Her strong character is clear:
I don’t mind aging
but you think you can
boss me into keeping young.
But is this feminist sentiment part of Bess’s character, her awakening as a showman’s wife? Only reading the whole of the book exposes such resolve. As if taking a director’s cue to enter from stage right, Houdini addresses Bess, albeit in some apostrophe to his love for her in “Houdini Gives Orders to Bess”:
So if you marry, Bess,
he must not steal my elephant,
water box, velvet cape nor can he
curl inside my trunk,
for that would be adultery.
Here the trunk is an awkward metonym but it is Houdini’s new poetic voice, it is his consciousness, right? The poem continues to admonish Bess that her new lover is also not permitted to wear Houdini’s morning coat. This order is only interesting because one secret is given, slightly. We learn about the “hidden lining / for painted doves.”
Although the huge book, 133 pages in total, tirelessly explores Houdini’s methods of breathing during escapes and his grief from the passing of his mother, the Houdini character becomes more interesting and slightly arrogant in a chapter entitled: “The One and Only Human Galaxy.” Here Swados has Houdini admit his fame in the poem “I’ve Arrived” and then he understands his kabalistic role in the poem “Mother”:
it’s my name up there and like the Hebrew alphabet
every symbol means a number every number
forms a ladder on which I can
climb to reach you on which I can
wrestle off the angels the ones who will have you
instead of me
Houdini is proud and in this light, heroic. This characterization makes Houdini even more rounded and believable but it is followed by the book’s title poem, in which Houdini states:
I am nature’s One and Only
Human Galaxy.
I’m made of
cells, and each cell is
a star that burns
in whipping circles
like the ring of fire outside Eden’s gate.
I will shine into a future
that is unimaginable.
The magic metaphors are replaced with secularism and religiosity. Although these ideas are synonymous with any man’s struggle, I was expecting a magician or at least a showman’s struggle.
After Arthur Conan Doyle makes a cameo guest speaker appearance and Houdini ponders his link to inventions and Thomas Edison, it is clear that Swados’s interest is one of fully comprehending Houdini’s life. His mystery and desire to show a better trick are also paramount to Swados yet this last chapter or Act is more spiritual than the previous and the demise or death of Houdini is almost too palpable. This book is a play without curtains; Elizabeth Swados is of course a playwright, and perhaps this was her intention. Unlike Hardy’s first collection, which explores his personal yet fictional home of Wessex, Swados chose the unknown life of a public hero. As for the role of poetry in this book, my suggestion: the reader must have an interest in Houdini before continuing.
- Dan Flynn