Transfer of Qualities

by Martha Ronk

Each entry in this book probes the dissolving boundaries between those sharing space with one another; and the various genres in the book—prose poem, creative nonfiction, and personal essay—echo the theme of interdependence. Transfer of Qualities addresses the uncanny and myriad ways in which people and things, but also people and those around them, exchange qualities with one another, moving in on and altering stance, attitude, mood, and gesture. Material things often seem amazingly alive and this collection follows an author engrossed with the boundaries between life and death, the moving and the still, and the stone-like book and the vivid stirring within the pages. There are many influences behind this collection, but the major genie of the piece is Henry James whose musings in The Sacred Fount provided the book’s title and direction.

Genres: Poetry, Literature

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2013

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes its title from a phrase from Henry James, which features as the book's epigraph: James wrote, in The Sacred Fount, about "the liaison that betrays itself by the transfer of qualities" from one person to another. Ronk writes about this idea more broadly, applying it to things as well as people: what marks do we leave on objects, and how do the objects we live with/use/love mark us?

I like the sense of life in this book, the sense of dailiness, of experience, as in the first phrases of the first piece, "The Cup": "The cup on the shelf above eyelevel, the reach to get it for the first glass of water, the running of water now clear after the silty water of yesterday" (13). Other pieces, like "A Paper Crown," use the object as image/metaphor: that piece starts like this: "You realize some piece of you has to be pierced in order for the almost unbearable desire to be slotted into place" (19). Other pieces meditate on images: "Branches" describes part of this photo; Man Ray's "rayographs" and paintings by Manet and Sargent are mentioned. Other texts are quoted, too: there's more James, and Maurice Blanchot, and Georges Perec, among others. There are sections about the relations between image and object (particularly in photograms: traces of objects, shadow-objects); there are bits about the book as object, and the book as experience. There's an expression of a sense that we are drawn to objects, or they to us, with a kind of fate: in one piece, the narrator asks, of a plate: "how did it come to be there by chance just when I also was there? How did it survive all the careless sinks and hands, earthquakes and upheavals?" (42).

And then this ties into other kinds of survival: what survives of relationships when they end or change; how we deal with death/loss/grief. There's also a lot in this book about the body: in a piece called "Talking to Things," there's this, which I love:

In some ways objects "speak" directly to the body and alter a route through the room creating slight vectors of pressure. The drawing I'd make of it shows thin ink lines from each object in the room to each other object, door, person, rug, crayon, phone, paper bag, plant—until the page is crisscrossed with lines. (48)

Possibly my favorite piece in the book is the last one, a short essay called "Posada," which is about doing kung fu for seventeen years, and about what having a physical practice is like, and also about grief/fear.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read during Day 2 of NaNoReadMo.)

Many of these poems are paragraph poems, each one focusing on an object and reflecting on its history and desires. And then sometimes she will address a person or a concept in the same way. One poem is even titled "An Obsession with Objects," so at least she knows.

"...what history do they contain?"

The entire book starts out with a Henry James quotation, and much of what is inside seems to be reacting to James.

Some poems are dialogues with literature itself, including quotes. My favorite like that is "The Book."

Some little excerpts:
"...the knowledge that there must be a reason for what is now silence...."

"...I came to see a bit more of how people stood not only how they said they stood."

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most exciting collections I've read in a long time. The very first meditation--"The Cup", in the "Various Objects" section--is about as close to perfection as the written word can get. It's wonderful in its own right--as a prose poem, or a sort of micro-personal essay. But it's also wonderful as an introduction to the work as a whole. Ronk uses this piece deftly, to move us into the space she wants us to inhabit for the rest of the volume. In that space, the interactions between objects and people, between ourselves and the other, require us to give up some of our power and some of our disbelief. We are not the actors, we are that which is acted upon. It may be an uneasy role, but the journey on which Ronk takes us in this book is profoundly worth it.

[Liam Malone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was a fun collection to read in part because it all made sense to me. Maybe it was the prose writing that turned each piece into a short story of sorts. There are many references to other works which makes it interesting and presents comparison. This one ends with a bibliography, unusual for a poetry book. I enjoyed the first part on how we endow objects with a near life and history of existence. I someone else owned the object, like a Chinese vase, it would take on a different life by a different owner.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prose poems (with a single exception) about material objects and their relations to each other and to us, as well as the relationships they create between us and others, and between us and ourselves. That sounds very abstract, but in practice the idea makes perfect sense, and many of these poems immediately called up a familiar experience to which I had never really given a name.

[Amy Pence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come...

[Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most accessible of Ronk's books I've read, the quotidian and epiphanic merged here doesn't really grab me in the way her other more abstract work does.

[Andy Oram · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains mostly prose poems (a term used by the author herself in Photograms). Reading them slows you down to a more reflective era. Most poems are based on photos, paintings, or other objects. They are seemingly woven artfully around the perception of the object, but sometimes have a twist at the end leaving you in mystery. The book is probably especially appealing to those who like philosophy, and I fear that Ronk is sometimes interested more in the philosophy--with her many quotes and inquiries--then in the poetry. Toward the end, the mysteries thin out as the poems become more and more like essays, particularly the last piece (Posada).

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essay-poem hybrids. Poem-fiction hybrids. A few poem poems. Some of these remind me of Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand stories. There's a lovely fatalism everywhere. The pavement at her feet inspires her. Everything does. Really good stuff.

[Leonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a collection of mostly prose poems and I usually like prose poems, but didn't really connect with these. I felt the writing was bland and not very poetic.