Available Light

Available Light: Philip Booth and the Gift of Place is as much a travelogue of picturesque Maine, and especially the town of Castine, as it is a biography of the late poet Philip Booth. In Jeanne Braham’s tidy book, the town and the poet are pretty much inseparable.

Available Light: Philip Booth and the Gift of Place is as much a travelogue of picturesque Maine, and especially the town of Castine, as it is a biography of the late poet Philip Booth. In Jeanne Braham’s tidy book, the town and the poet are pretty much inseparable.

“Castine,” writes Braham, “provided the historic, geographic, and experiential canvas upon which Booth’s poems are painted.” She echoes Booth’s words from a 1980 interview: “What I write is rooted in this house, this street, this town.”

This example, from the poem “Coming To,” takes us walking in Castine:

Coming to woods in light spring rain,
I know I am not too late.

[ . . . ] I walk into my boyhood,
                        back to
my mother,
       the mother who took me in hand
to steer me across back fields to the woods.

[ . . . ] Given those woods,
trees renewed in me now, I’ve begun
to know I’m older than all
but the tallest stands.

Maine was a hub for writers in the mid-20^th century, including Booth’s neighbors Mary McCarthy, Robert Lowell, and Elizabeth Hardwick. Robert Frost was a mentor and friend. When Booth was still a student, he read Frost’s poem “After Apple Picking,” which prompted him to write in 1988: “[ . . . ] it suddenly occurred to me that poets could tell the truth! I was hooked on that realization . . . .”

Booth’s story is well told by his own published quotes and extensive quotes from his wife Margaret, their daughters, and others who knew him. We’re also treated to copious color and black and white photos. But the passages in Booth’s own words hold the most meaning for me and provide the best insight into the man. These words are from his books of prose, Trying to Say It: Outlooks and Insights on How Poems Happen. It was published in 1996, but rings true today:

We’re subjected to so much lying from high places, we’re bombarded by falsehood in the television; we’re so emotionally assaulted by all of this, we so lightly lie to ourselves in our lesser and sometimes in our deeper relations, including our relations with ourselves, that there is a tremendous need for the poet to know that he or she is not—through whatever abstracting or fictionalizing—telling lies.

He reinforces those thoughts in a poem he titled “Not to Tell Lies”:

       [ . . . ] He has sorted life out;
he feels moved to say all of it,
most of it all. He tries
to come close, he keeps
coming close; he has
gathered himself
in order not
to tell
lies.

In the late 1990s, Booth was showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Braham writes:

A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, very difficult news for anyone to absorb, must have been an especially cruel irony for “the word man.” Margaret’s most vivid memories of her husband are of him sitting, often for hours, alone at his desk, “striving for the right words.”

She continues, “When the diagnosis came, he called a number of his closest friends and fellow poets (including Maxine Kumin and Richard Wilbur) to convey the news personally.”

I hadn’t been familiar with Philip Booth before reading this book. Braham theorizes that his avoidance of public readings contributed to being less well known than his peers. Maxine Kumin is quoted as saying, “It’s a pity he never gave readings and it was an aspect of his anxiety that he could never quite master, despite the years of analysis.”

Braham sums up Booth’s creativity: “[ . . . ] his unique strengths lay in his powers of observation and interpretation. In the act of noticing crucial details and arranging them on the page, he came to grasp—and sculpt—their meaning.”

With ten books to Booth’s name, I was hoping to find a larger sampling of his poems in this biography than what is presented. However, those included have a soothing feel to them and make me want to discover more on my own. Booth wrote in “Before Sleep:”

I stand at the edge of the tide,
letting my feet feel into the hillside

to where my dead ancestors live.
Whatever I know before sleep

surrounds me.

Thanks to Jeanne Braham for reintroducing this poet to those already in his audience. But if you, like me, hadn’t heard of Booth, read Available Light: Philip Booth and the Gift of Place as an introduction, then look elsewhere for more of his poetry.