Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations (Phoenix Poets)
Ferry is 88, so it’s not untoward that the original poems in this generous collection are concerned with personal memories, death, and life beyond corporeality. The translations that dot the book—of Catullus, Virgil, and Horace; Rilke, Montale, and Cavafy; and the Anglo-Saxon Genesis A (“The Offering of Isaac”)—touch those themes, too. Indeed, the translations are thematic linchpins of seven of the collection’s eight sections (section five contains only the Isaac story); if you’re uncertain what a section is about, consult the translations in them. Extending the referentiality of the collection, the original poems in section six (whose translation, of Aeneid VI, lines 719–61, broaches reincarnation) respond to poems written as he was dying by Ferry’s friend and colleague, Arthur Gold. Each Gold poem appears complete before Ferry’s reading of it, and Gold’spoetry’s as good as Ferry’s in response. The entire collection, though its constituent poems are reflective lyrics and philosophically and spiritually charged narratives, becomes a series of conversations on matters of the utmost importance, about which bewilderment is understandable. --Ray Olson