Review of The Taproot Confessions, by Rob Whitbeck

•

I will confess up front that I love narrative poetry. Perhaps it is just a hangover from the forced memorization of Robert Service in my youth when children were made to "stand and recite". But in spite of fears of public humiliation from memory failure, I still have a soft spot for it. I admire it in poetry for its tradition, its voice rooted rhythms, and the willingness to let the characters speak for themselves, to give their silences sound. It is no wonder that I deeply enjoyed Rob Whitbeck's latest book of poetry, The Taproot Confessions.

Why are these poems and not stories? Actually, there is no difference other than in narrative poetry the poet determines the end of the line and in prose the printer does. At least that is what Terry Eagleton said in his book, After Theory. Trust a Marxist not to get distracted by postmodernism. But the main idea here is to let the characters have a reality and let them speak. I like the business of not having the filter of the "writer's point of view" in the way. I like viewing the "west" from the inside out. I want to hear the voices of the cowboys with duct tape on their boots, the sweat stained hat and missing buttons, and a choice of abandoned lives to choose to believe in. I want the story of those 30 year old women who are on their way down with failing ovaries and dental carties. What happens when the last mill lights go out, the last check is cut and the log deck is gone? When "tourism" becomes the curse and not the salvation. You find this in Whitbeck's latest work. This is the west without the filters of mythology.

I also greatly admire the good ear for the voices. The ear that lets us actually hear them. Few writers have that ear as good as Rob Whitbeck does. That ability to hone in on the nuanced language of the real people. Faulkner does this in As I Lay Dying and the stories are powerful because we are convinced we are listening to the real people telling us this. It is the same in The Taproot Confessions. The real is with us and the stories convincing because of it. The conversational rhythms of real speech I have always believed to be the root of our real poetry. I like the engine that drives the words to meaning. It is good to give "the people" a voice. That is also found in this work.

I once wrote that there are only three types of people in the west: the Stickers, the Drifters, and the Stuck. I know that Rob Whitbeck has now given voice to the Stuck. Those who came here and went bust and could never get enough up to get out of town. The actual west is built on the Stickers and the Stuck. The Stickers own land and mining claims. The Stuck drifted in and got stranded. They don't like each other. That's the central conflict. It is that way all over the West and has been since we came out here. The Taproot Confessions mines this territory of those who hoped for something better and got stuck with this. It is the best poetic read of the year so far.

     --Dave McCain