Neighbors, I have come upon a most astounding poetry development in our neighborhood.
Not only do we host the first-ever Poet Laureate of Minneapolis, Heid Erdrich, a powerhouse of national acclaim, teacher and major hellraiser for Native languages and the arts, who just received a big award from the Academy of American Poets.
But this month our own Urban Coyote (retired), aka James P. Lenfestey, who lives on Girard, published his seventh full-length poetry collection, one that may well vault him to the front rank of poets to accompany Erdrich and former neighbor Robert Bly, who reminds us at this historic political nadir of what the hermit said: … Because the world is mad, The only way through the world is to learn the arts and double the madness! Are you listening?
I am listening, and so praise the doubled madness of “Time Remaining: Body Odes, Praise Songs, Oddities, Amazements,” Lenfestey’s latest poetry collection from Milkweed Editions, fizzing with wit, fun, facts and the long view about the body, art, language, history and planet viewed from a tower seven decades tall, five of which spent in Lowry Hill.
Lenfestey’s previous Milkweed books as well as his Urban Coyote columns for the Hill & Lake Press and his editorial journalism for the Star Tribune won many awards and accolades. But can greatness possibly spout from “an aged man, a tattered coat upon a stick” (Yeats) clicking his walking stick to Sebastian Joe’s for soup with geezer pals, a most ordinary neighborhood soul, poetic crown invisible to the unknowing eye?
Fortunately, poets get the last and lasting word, especially in these harrowed days, and Lenfestey delivers with exuberance. “Rhythmic, jovial, and eminently approachable, this collection embraces the Cetacean mind and the fearless left hand. Lenfestey writes love songs to the world “as it really is: bizarro, curious, inelegant, unclean, / unfaithful, filled with delight,” Milkweed said that, and other poets agree:
“Lenfestey's poems in “Time Remaining” find wonder and joy everywhere. He writes odes to the ankle, to teeth, even to groaning, as he turns his keen eye on the aging body. But melancholy is but a minor note in all this music. Lenfestey has a core of good cheer and wit that infuses his poems. They are truly life-affirming.” — Connie Wanek
“Time Remaining” is the perfect title for a book that says, in every poem, there are so many ways to love the world and be amazed by it: Don't leave any out! There is genuine wisdom in this book, hard won and generous. A book to treasure for its many ways of opening the reader to the world in all its amazements.” — Jim Moore.
"Lenfestey is a poet who loves the world, the body, language, and the work of other poets, deeply. He writes out of a place of wonder, curiosity, and joy. This volume has wisdom and wit, sustenance for the indignities of age. There is friendship and fellowship to be had in these pages." — Sarah Ruhl
"What a marvelous collection of joy, generosity and wisdom!” — Wang Ping
You would agree too, had you attended his publication launch on Nov. 21 at Plymouth Congregational Church, co-sponsored by Literary Witnesses, The Loft Literary Center and Milkweed Editions, where he transfixed an overflow crowd with moving and zany performances mostly of his longer poems.
“Time Remaining” is Lenfestey’s third book from Milkweed, seventeenth over all since leaving the Star Tribune editorial board in 1998 for the poet’s path. The sublime poet Ada Limon also published three collections with Milkweed and went on to become U.S. Poet Laureate and a MacArthur “genius.” Will “Time Remaining” qualify Lenfestey for those same honorifics? Time will tell.
At 80, Lenfestey’s long view encompasses 100,000 years of human language and 5,000 of writing plus poems that tell more about your body than you ever imagined, with only a rare glance to the future.
