An Ordinary Life: Poems by B.H. Fairchild 2023

Fairchild’s seventh volume of poetry, published during his 80th year, is a fine addition to the work of this honored and awarded poet.

He is to Kansas what Ted Kooser is to Nebraska and Donald Hall is to New Hampshire/Vermont. He writes about small towns, working men who live by their hands, the value of labor, and the passing of time.  The poems in this volume take the form of both traditional poetry, e.g. sonnets, and prose poems which are  difficult for me to distinguish from short stories as writers like Lydia Davis publish stories of one or two pages in length.  I think what distinguishes a prose poem from a short story is that the former takes greater care with the language and is perhaps more deeply insightful at a feeling level.

At any rate, this is a fine work which having read it from front to back in a single sitting, warranted a return re-read to more carefully appreciate the words and structures. His poem ‘Revenge’ is a powerful description of the day his father, a blue collar welder and a combat vet from WWII, drove him out into the country and confronted him about being a homosexual, which Fairchild addressed with  great skill and beauty, reciting a poem he had memorized to present to his girl friend.  My favorite poem, however, is this one entitled ‘For Junior Gilliam (1928-1978).’  Gilliam played second base for the Brooklyn Dodgersin the 1950’s, one of the first Black players to follow Jackie Robinson.  The poem will evoke a childhood of ‘bubble gum, baseball cards, and stats’ to every 78 year old man like me and the references to the Brooklyn ‘bums’, specific players, and Fairchild’s own athletic prowess are quite wonderful.  Here’s the poem:

For Junior Gilliam (1928-1978) by B.H. Fairchild ©

Published: The Little Magazine (1978)

In the bleak, bleacherless corner of my rightfield American youth, I killed time with bubble gum and baseball cards and read the stats and saw a sign: your birthday was mine. And so I dreamed: to rise far from Kansas skies and fenceless outfields where flies vanished in the summer sun. To wake up black in Brooklyn, to be a Bum and have folks call me Junior and almost errorless hit .280 every year and on the field, like you, dance double plays, make flawless moves, amaze the baseball masses. You would turn, take the toss from Reese, lean back and, leaping past the runner’s cleats, wing the ball along a line reeled out from home and suddenly drawn taut with a soft pop in Hodges’ crablike glove. And we went wild in Kansas living rooms. The inning’s over. You’re in the shadows now. But summers past you taught us how to play the pivot (or how to dream of it). And when one day they put me in at second, I dropped four easy ones behind your ghost, who plays a perfect game.