Crush Depth eBook Michael Spence
Download As PDF : Crush Depth eBook Michael Spence 
This collection of lyric poems offers a unique look at the shared, but very different experiences of life in the Navy for father and son. The poems form a three-part narrative of life aboard a naval ship, the father and son’s month-long trip to Australia, and the son coming to understand how he has been shaped by his father’s experiences. Poet Michael Spence shows a range of poetic technique, deftly matching form to content and historical account to emotional reflection.
Crush Depth eBook Michael Spence
A Review of Crush Depth, by Michael Spence(Truman State University Press, New Odyssey Series, 2009)
"Crush Depth," the title of Michael Spence's third collection, refers to the depth at which a submarine can no longer withstand the sea's pressure. The title is derived from the poet's father's World War II experience as a submarine's Radio Technician First Class in the South Pacific. Ostensibly the book's subject, the term serves, powerfully, as a metaphor for the pressure of human relationships, particularly the bond--and the painful distances--between father and son.
Spence has skillfully interwoven the stories of his own and his father's Navy experiences, all the while connecting them, as islands can connect to a single undersea land mass, to ethical and emotional human concerns. The opening poem, "Saudade," the desire to be far, sets up the entire sequence by its account of the speaker traveling, only to return home:
Five years I crossed the Atlantic
until my own land had grown foreign:
strange enough to call me back.
Presumably to the fathomless mysteries of the self and its attachments. What follows in three sections are the son's experience at sea, the father's, as reported by the son, including a father and son pilgrimage to Australia, the father's war theater, and, finally, a series of reminiscences, which end with the father's death.
While there are a number of suspenseful accounts of war time crises, which are adventure stories in themselves--see "Palawan Passage," "The Darter and the Dace, The Way I Wish He'd Told it," not to mention the harrowing "The Right Way to Escape a Sinking Ship," which concludes the first section--almost all are psychologically complex.
. . .his ears
Still ring--a pitch too high to name--as the sub
Immerses him in the dark haunts he must listen to. (Palawan Passage)
A collection of poems, at its best, should function like a poem itself. This collection surely does from beginning to end, especially in the final section, reminiscences of childhood--from being rescued from drowning:
. . .he squints in the sudden light
to see his father holding him up like a trophy.
to being paddled, and the two delightful "Father Washing Dishes (1) and (II) where the father lets escape some small act of silliness:
There stood my father
Slowly rubbing a fingertip
along the rigid lip
Of a glass, drawing music from its mouth
or silently shooting a wad of crumpled paper from kitchen to the den where the speaker is reading. Or diabolically constructing an efficient toy rack to abet his sons' torturing their sister's doll.
The final three poems: "The Unbroken Code," "Crush Depth," and "Father Gathers His Breath" make a stunning sequence, probing the father's maddening silence, relating it to his work building secret things and to the devastating personal history behind it, while "Crush Depth," describes the physical and mental claustrophobia of life in a submarine:
The steel he wore for a shell. The burden shut
All sight, made each breath a betraying wind.
Following the brutality in these poems, "Father Gathers His Breath," with its tender understatement, will break your heart. Earlier in the book there's a reference to the father blowing on the son's face to wake him. Here:
I watched your eyes close. Your whiskers
Prickled my lips. I stopped myself
From blowing on your face.
Spence has a powerful story to tell and the mature skill to tell it. This book is as much of a piece, seamlessly woven, as any I've read.
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Crush Depth eBook Michael Spence Reviews
A Review of Crush Depth, by Michael Spence
(Truman State University Press, New Odyssey Series, 2009)
"Crush Depth," the title of Michael Spence's third collection, refers to the depth at which a submarine can no longer withstand the sea's pressure. The title is derived from the poet's father's World War II experience as a submarine's Radio Technician First Class in the South Pacific. Ostensibly the book's subject, the term serves, powerfully, as a metaphor for the pressure of human relationships, particularly the bond--and the painful distances--between father and son.
Spence has skillfully interwoven the stories of his own and his father's Navy experiences, all the while connecting them, as islands can connect to a single undersea land mass, to ethical and emotional human concerns. The opening poem, "Saudade," the desire to be far, sets up the entire sequence by its account of the speaker traveling, only to return home
Five years I crossed the Atlantic
until my own land had grown foreign
strange enough to call me back.
Presumably to the fathomless mysteries of the self and its attachments. What follows in three sections are the son's experience at sea, the father's, as reported by the son, including a father and son pilgrimage to Australia, the father's war theater, and, finally, a series of reminiscences, which end with the father's death.
While there are a number of suspenseful accounts of war time crises, which are adventure stories in themselves--see "Palawan Passage," "The Darter and the Dace, The Way I Wish He'd Told it," not to mention the harrowing "The Right Way to Escape a Sinking Ship," which concludes the first section--almost all are psychologically complex.
. . .his ears
Still ring--a pitch too high to name--as the sub
Immerses him in the dark haunts he must listen to. (Palawan Passage)
A collection of poems, at its best, should function like a poem itself. This collection surely does from beginning to end, especially in the final section, reminiscences of childhood--from being rescued from drowning
. . .he squints in the sudden light
to see his father holding him up like a trophy.
to being paddled, and the two delightful "Father Washing Dishes (1) and (II) where the father lets escape some small act of silliness
There stood my father
Slowly rubbing a fingertip
along the rigid lip
Of a glass, drawing music from its mouth
or silently shooting a wad of crumpled paper from kitchen to the den where the speaker is reading. Or diabolically constructing an efficient toy rack to abet his sons' torturing their sister's doll.
The final three poems "The Unbroken Code," "Crush Depth," and "Father Gathers His Breath" make a stunning sequence, probing the father's maddening silence, relating it to his work building secret things and to the devastating personal history behind it, while "Crush Depth," describes the physical and mental claustrophobia of life in a submarine
The steel he wore for a shell. The burden shut
All sight, made each breath a betraying wind.
Following the brutality in these poems, "Father Gathers His Breath," with its tender understatement, will break your heart. Earlier in the book there's a reference to the father blowing on the son's face to wake him. Here
I watched your eyes close. Your whiskers
Prickled my lips. I stopped myself
From blowing on your face.
Spence has a powerful story to tell and the mature skill to tell it. This book is as much of a piece, seamlessly woven, as any I've read.
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