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His Chorus Gathers Itself: Review of Matt Morton's听Improvisation without Accompaniment

by Sam Ross

Reviewed:听Improvisation without Accompaniment听by Matt Morton (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2020)

The back copy for Matt Morton鈥檚 debut collection听Improvisation without Accompaniment听describes a book that traces 鈥渢he rhythms of life for a young man growing up in a small Texas town.鈥� A reader might expect poems in this vein to tend toward the austere, sun-bleached, or washed out. Yet Morton has produced something different: more opulent, saturated, and crowded. 鈥淎gain the chorus gathers itself on stage,鈥� the book鈥檚 opening poem 鈥淩epublic鈥� begins, and motifs of stagecraft and performance continue to appear throughout: jazz, pageants, masters of ceremony, parade elephants, parties. One imagines the book鈥檚 trains鈥攁nother motif鈥攗pholstered in crushed velvet, packed with passengers on their way to a masque. 鈥淚 have been to the circus on only one occasion,鈥� Morton writes in a poem, unconvincingly.

But听Improvisation听is neither stagy nor kitschy, navigating the entrances and exits of emotions without performativity. The speaker鈥檚 associative imagination continually breaks through the container of its environment, often driven by an internal struggle between patience and restlessness, as in the beginning of 鈥淲avelength鈥�:

听 听 听 听 听 That feeling won鈥檛 fit in a tackle box.
听 听 听 听 听 It won鈥檛 sit still in a safe. Impossible,
听 听 听 听 听 you鈥檇 think, for a single dream to reopen the wound
听 听 听 听 听 cauterized by years, until the figure emerges
听 听 听 听 听 cinematically from the tree-line swept with fog.

and later in the same poem:

听 听 听 听 听 Soon we鈥檒l be leaving this city for good,
听 听 听 听 听 Though it seems we just arrived.

This sense of momentum permeates听Improvisation鈥�s听poems, their seemingly off-the cuff pronouncements guided less by representational realism than a kaleidoscopic but familiar dream logic and emotional coherence. Morton has a great skill for the objective correlative, which I understand as the conjuring of complex feelings through images, as in the nearly elliptical elegy 鈥淧inwheel Floating on Water鈥�:听

听 听 听 听 听 Bluebonnets overwhelm an overpass. A charred field,
听 听 听 听 听 a swan. For years, the smell of vanilla may remind you
听 听 听 听 听 of a large hole in the earth. Little far-flung black star.

The vitality and frequently startling beauty of these images is present throughout听Improvisation, particularly in the book鈥檚 third section (out of five), which is comprised entirely of 鈥淓legy for My Brother in the Wilderness.鈥� This long poem weaves familial elegy, the myth of Actaeon, and the speaker鈥檚 vivid dreamlife, which is populated by Charlie Chaplin and Josef Stalin (among others) at a garden party. If that sounds contrived, even twee, it isn鈥檛. In the myth, a hunter is killed by his own hounds after being transformed into a stag by the goddess Dianna, whom he glimpsed bathing. 鈥淓ven in the myth the dogs had names,鈥� Morton鈥檚 speaker notes, continuing, 鈥渉e had raised them as pups, / hunting with them so often he no longer recognized them as his own.鈥� Morton continues to build energizing lines such as these with an assured confidence that propel the poem up to and through its devastating climax.

I think听Improvisation听is also interested in the place of the individual and the imagination when set against the social, the familial, and even the historical, as in another of the collection鈥檚 standout poems, 鈥淪elf-Portrait as Oswald鈥檚 Ghost Addressing the Warren Commission.鈥� A dramatic monologue stripped of punctuation, the poem guides the reader through an anxious accounting of Texas boyhood and an adult鈥檚 sense of life lost to the forces of history鈥檚 swelling tides:听

听 听 听 听 听 鈥溾��all of it a life
听 听 听 听 听 connected by a pattern drawn on the land a code
听 听 听 听 听 as if planted there some time before me conspiring
听 听 听 听 听 to lead me through a life that wasn鈥檛 mine at all鈥�

The poem鈥檚 voice recalls both the vulnerable opening chapters of Don Delilo鈥檚听Libra听and the noir elusiveness of Gary Oldman in Oliver Stone鈥檚听JFK, yet its affecting humanity strikes a particularly interesting鈥攑erhaps frightening鈥攃ontrast to our current era in which the appeal of conspiracy has devolved from the juicy metaphorical pulp of early 90s听X-Files听into an altogether bleaker and more nihilistic nightmare imaginary, one devoid of even the听idea听verifiable truth (see Nick Drasno鈥檚 haunting graphic novel听Sabrina).

鈥淟et us not forget to play鈥� Morton reminds the reader in another poem, so that we might 鈥渟killfully escape the handcuffs // of solemnity.鈥� Morton鈥檚 book is playful and unsolemn, but it is most certainly of substance. Indeed, it delivers both the unfussy ease promised by its title and the most profound consequences of real life: grief and beauty.