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Fascinating verse Sep 10, 2009
By Bruce K. Nagle
Don Bessinger has interests in spirituality, contemporary psychology, and modern physics, and his verse, at its best, is often an attempt to synthesize these strands into a unified tapestry. Although many of his shorter lyrics are perceptive, witty, and delightful, I find his poetry especially compelling when a particular work is long and driven by narrative, as many, if not most, of his works are (some, especially his opening work, "The Trail," being clearly epic in form); he is a master storyteller. Working in a great variety of forms (some of his works seem almost like Socratic dialogues in verse), he is able to utilize the unique aspects of poetry to communicate insights and questions that would lend themselves less well to prose, which often lacks the nuance, ambiguity, multiple levels of meaning, and subtlety required for these deep and illusive explorations. His work contains wry wit, interesting musical language, cadence, multiple layers of meaning, and is chock-a-block with allusions. It is structured but not rigidly so, and the structure from poem to poem is refreshingly varied.
Too often, I think, modern verse has evolved to a state in which contemporary poets seem to write lyrics to evoke a singular impression or emotion, the subject or "trigger" often being trivial or of mundane character, justifying their product as being "true to life" or "of common experience," as if their goal is to cause the reader to feel but never to require that the reader do much thinking. But other than facilitating a sort of transient emotional response that might be understood as common to all their readers (however increasingly small that coterie of poetry readers might be - one suspects it is mostly other poets), there is often little of greater significance to the writing. Maybe Bessinger is a throwback, a poet who has something to say that is of, dare one say, cosmic significance (I use the term advisedly, not in any hyperbolic sense, but rather because Bessinger's interests and concerns relate to the nature of the Cosmos), not so much a "message" but rather insights and questions of a nature both broader and deeper than we are accustomed to expect in much contemporary verse. Therein lies the fascination with his work.
But these poems are not for the faint of heart! They plumb depths that are challenging and searching. One suspects that their readers will fall into one of two groups, those who read several and shake their heads, turning away in bewilderment, and those who are captivated, enchanted, moved at a deep level of their own feelings and understandings. Bessinger is in essence a cosmologist, a synthesizer of strands and insights, creating a kind of DNA of the spirit from psyche, physics, and tradition. It is difficult to read his work hurriedly, each page surfacing thoughts and inviting ponderings. Rare would be the careful reader who did not find his own mind expanding, his own musings deepening, his own ideas germinating and birthing fresh forms and understanding. I have read many of these poems individually over the years and am grateful now to have them collected in one place, enabling me to see afresh their relationship to each other and to experience vicariously the development of their author's ideas over time.
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