Anchored Out: Life on the Water

Oh, I thought, and too many sunrises. No doubt too many angels too. And poet Bly was kind enough to give me a few pointers when I sent him "Evening on Houseboat Moondrifter After Reading Robert Bly." In these pages I hope you experience life on Houseboat Moondrifter, on Richardson's Bay, a generally tranquil tongue of San Francisco Bay, lapping the shore town of Sausalito.

A young man, newly matriculated from college, ashamed of his country's ongoing war in Vietnam, wrote these poems while seeking himself. Influenced by Wallace Stevens, Theodore Roethke, and Japanese Zen haiku, he set out to live adrift in a boat, recording his experience in verse.

The writing's style is Keith H. Emmons', or should I say the style is "scampering," "brimming," "scurrying," as well as "silent" and "searching." It's filled with "flames licking in potbellies afloat," "sea-sleepers leaning against gunwales" and also storming, "seeking with the sea to make everything its own." Not to mention "the crab clocks" calling "go to work, go to work, go to work," tires and traffic, and the "god of investment" leading our torn protagonist to plea "which way now?"

At the end of the day, at the end of this sequence of poems, he has not lost hope of redemption and remains, yet another poet, "by my lantern waiting to assist the reticent dawn."