Let’s Call It Home: Poems. By Luke Harvey. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2024. xii + 98 pp. $26.00 (hardback), $11.00 (paper).
Let’s Call it Home is a tidy volume of contemporary poetry by Luke Harvey, containing seventy-five poems divided into three sections: Lullabies of Ascent, Spiritus Vertiginis, and Returning Home. Together these sections trace a winding journey of faith and life through stumbling first steps, dizzying climbs, steep descents, and finally homecoming. The volume contains primarily short poems in various styles and structures and is tied together by its recurring themes of fatherhood, parent-child relationships, spiritual seeking, and reflection. Far from being a haughty, high-concept work, the volume is grounded in a homely tenderness and a straightforward vulnerability. This work also has the added interest, perhaps unintentionally, of showcasing a poet and creative thinker in the process of discovering his own voice.
Many poems in this volume focus on the theme of fatherhood. They do so with a gentle attention to the experience and vulnerability of a child. “Pater Nosta” (19), for example, depicts a father’s morning rush to leave for work, while his young daughter follows him from room to room.
…Still she follows like a blind believer, slow but determined to be picked up,
as if yesterday’s I love you wasn’t enough to carry her across another long afternoon of littleness. She totters along, chasing a father who stays a step ahead, busy providing for a child who only wants to be held. (19)
Like many others, this piece strikes a balance between the mundane activity of daily life and a clear relational and spiritual reality. With careful crafting Mr. Harvey allows us to empathize with both, the hurried father, the needy child, and then to reflect that we are all needy children before our attentive God.
“Coming, Coming” (86–87) reflects on the experience of desire, at first as a blurry hunger that seems to lead us ever forward, into the realization that desire is never satisfied and we always wanted something else, then finally, the realization that we will be lifelong searchers, hunting for the supreme source of all we long for.
…We know this, of course, who have found again and again the barbecue joint on the other end of town to be an insufficient antidote to quell the inner gnawing roused by the evening smell of wood smoke as the air crisps and light begins to balk… (86)
Such pieces are the best representation of the poet’s voice as we see it emerging. The structure and style supply a simple flowing rhythm, while the word and image choices are at once strikingly fresh and perfectly at home in the poem’s tone. And, of course, it melds two of the volume’s ever present themes, the search for the divine, and the lived experience of our fallen world. In such poems Mr. Harvey seems to find his voice, one with a solid timbre and resonance that exhibits a particular creative strength, that of taking an image that is not traditionally thought of as poetic and making it so. In this way barbecue joints, compost bins, commutes, and feeding toddlers become significant, even sacramental, while remaining specific images tethered to a lived experience, not cleanly polished abstracts. It is reminiscent perhaps of other American poets, such as Theroux or Berry, but no imitation.
The volume, taken as a whole, is candid and honest, free from that abrasive or provocative honesty that is so popular in much contemporary poetry. There are rough edges to a number of the poems, where structure obscures rather than elevates the meaning. In others a stray word choice or turn of phrase jars the image and flow. In such poems it feels as though the poet’s voice is lost among other influences or a desire to play with expectation. These occasional issues are primarily visible in the first half of the volume, while the latter half is composed of more cohesive works. However, this roughness is also presented honestly, as though Mr. Harvey is saying “I’ll show you my process.” Whether deliberate or coincidental, this adds to the feeling that we are watching the gathering strength of Mr. Harvey’s creative confidence with his craft as the volume progresses.
Let’s Call it Home is a lively and interesting work of contemporary poetry. Its strong themes of faith and family life are far from mundane or trite. They provide a homely and personal texture to the work. There are several gems in this volume that have caught in my mind and will last there, particularly those poems on fatherhood and the messy beauty of raising children. It is also a candid display of Mr. Harvey’s emerging voice and gifts as a poet, a voice that already has a quiet strength and earthy resonance. For readers of poetry and tourists alike there is much here to enjoy.
Image Credit: Unsplash.
