Worried into Being: an Unfinished Alphabet

by Joseph Sherman

AUTHOR'S NOTE (From Worried into Being: an Unfinished Alphabet)

This began, late in 2004, as an experiment of sorts between and among some friends who write, broached by the person to whom this book is dedicated, asking if a series of personal essays kindled and guided by an alphabet templet might hold any interest, said essays to be exchanged with her, if not with everyone on her list. She knew of an alphabet-directed publication by Czeslaw Milosz; this, I gather, is the why.
When I acceded, I initially devised “Miloszabet” for part of my working title. But I didn’t accede immediately. Being notoriously unprolific, I knew that any writing into which I put my time would have to be publishable, or seem to be so, and this exercise struck me as uncertain at best. So my first reaction was to beg off. The idea took root, however.
Fortunately, I misinterpreted the original proposal in an important way. It had been suggested that short pieces of writing be the rule and I took this to mean as short as possible, so the real challenge came, once I began, with cutting and honing as much as it did with settling upon a particular term or topic with which to work. My own few rules also insisted that I keep to alphabetical order, though making notes toward a future entry seemed acceptable. I purposefully shied away from any genuine research.
I have yet to read the Milosz book. But the alphabet templet seems the rage; I had to push myself forward with that realization dawning. I also came to reserve the right to approach each letter liberally, so there are actually 34 entries here rather than 26. This will partly, but only part1y, explain why I include “unfinished” in my title.

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Beautiful Veins

Written by Joseph Sherman

"A sense of ego-urgency has seemingly sucked hard on any high octane left in my system, and what used to take me a decade and more to accomplish as a writer has suddenly fruited within a 12-month time frame."

— Joe Sherman, December 2005

The result is Beautiful Veins, Joe Sherman’s final book of poems. Joseph Sherman, author of seven books of poetry, editor, and supporter of the arts, died on January 9, 2006, in Charlottetown. He was 60.

Beautiful Veins begins with the picture of a child, of “one life with all the promise of its beautiful veins.” Some of the poems catch details of domestic life and its indwelling spirit and glancing irony; they explore the cache of memory. Others evoke history and landscape, opening them up to careful consideration. Always there is a love of language and its quirks, oddities, split-levels, riches. Out of the intricate and elliptical syntax, moments of joy are discovered, named against the threat of time and illness. A poem ends, in its own kind of triumph, "I would rather be beautiful than dead."

"This book is colourfully populated with human figures—little David with his 'fake' sixth birthday, Pete who 'recycled through his nose' country blues, Uncle Tott who advised owning land but never had any himself. Yet the most fascinating figure of all is that of the voice behind the poems. Whether responding to personal and cultural histories, beloved works of art around the house, a symbolic seascape, or fearful hours of suffering, these poems reach us from the large heart and the precise mind that were present in Joe Sherman's poetry since the start. His 'loving riddles' go on echoing."

— Brian Bartlett, Wanting the Day

"Sherman knew the diagnosis was terminal. In the seven months he had left, he used the poetic power he had accumulated over a lifetime of looking affectionately at the things of this world, of giving meaning to them, of faithfully rendering them in fresh, original words in order to make them ours, the readers': his uncle, his stained carpet, his veins, his tea bowls, a woodcut, other poets, the PEI seabirds fearing the eagle. These are his last words to us: 'The red foxes are on the move.' I agree with him: 'Death can never be old news so long / as painted new.'"

— Nancy Bauer, The Irrational Doorways of Mr. Gerard