Tom Andrews was only 41 years old when he died in 2001. He was undeniably one of the most talented and acclaimed writers ever to emerge from West Virginia, yet his work is nowhere to be found in the pages of the recent anthology of West Virginia poetry, "Wild Sweet Notes." And I would hazard to guess that few, if any, of the thousands of people who drive along the Kanawha River each day have any knowledge of "Hymning the Kanawha," Andrews' sad and lovely ode to his older brother and the river of his youth:
Along the east bank of the Kanawha River,
your shadow swells to its own poise
and walks into the chigger bush, burrs
clinging like tiny scabs to the silhouette.It finds the warm grass in Tuendiewei Park
and lies down. It considers your guilt
and lies down. It turns back to the Kanawha
and rises, and slides into the black water,your body drifting across the white
bedsheets, a slow erasure of your name....
Oberlin College Press has, thankfully, recently published a collection of Andrews' poetry and prose, a volume that will surely cement his rightful place among the honored literary figures of Appalachia.
Andrews grew up in the South Hills of Charleston. He initially studied to become a clergyman, but found his true calling as a poet, honing his skills at the University of Virginia. His teacher there was the great Charles Wright, who immediately recognized Andrews as a poet of serious consequence. Wright chose Andrews' "The Brother's Country" for the 1989 open competition of the National Poetry Series; Andrews' work has also been included in David Lehman's very prestigious "Best American Poetry" series; he taught at Ohio University and Purdue University; and in 1999 went to Rome as a Poetry Fellow at the American Academy.
In both style and content, Andrews' primary poetic ancestors were obviously Wright and the modernist master Wallace Stevens. But Andrews suffered no "anxiety of influence," that syndrome made infamous by Harold Bloom. Rather, his debts to Wright and Stevens are clearly, lovingly, playfully evident. From Wright he learned the art of tuning direct, real-time natural description into an imponderably profound metaphysical music. "At Burt Lake," for instance, begins as a pleasant exercise ("October dusk./Pink scrap of clouds, a plum colored sky.") and then suddenly zaps into an essay on language and existence worthy of Heidegger:
Lord,
language must happen to you
the way this black pane of water,
chipped and blistered with stars
happens to me.
Like both Stevens and Wright, Andrews believed that the priestly authority
of the poet must be maintained despite the essential indifference of the
world. One of his first published poems, "Song Of A Country Priest," announces
both the intrinsic gravity and gently self-mocking humor that would come
to define his aesthetic vision: "I am a priest/without believers. I
counsel/leaves, fallen petals, two/bluejays and one shy wren."
This poetry, in which an inevitable solitude encounters unavoidable communion, in which reckless bravura is checked by melancholy humility, mirrors the tragic and quirky circumstances of Andrews' personal life.
He desired to, and in fact did, get himself into the Guinness Book of World Records at the age of 11 (for consecutive hours of hand-clapping); he rode motocross as a teenager despite being a hemophiliac; he lost his beloved older brother, who suffered from kidney disorder, before he turned 20.
Andrews' writings about his illness are essential to any comprehensive collection of literature about illness and pain. "Random Symmetries" includes "Codeine Diary," Andrews' very moving, very funny memoir. Andrews' erudition and humor are especially appealing when he recounts his time working as an editor:
I make $12,500 a year. I work as a copy editor for "Mathematical Reviews," a bibliographical journal....When Joyce said he wrote for an ideal reader suffering from ideal insomnia, he might have had our subscribers in mind.…
"Codeine Dairy" also presents Andrews as a wise, brave mentor to anyone afflicted with disease or handicap. Andrews was a severe hemophiliac, and many of those with his condition contracted HIV during the ‘80s. This threat only served to sharpen Andrews' thinking:
In the wake of AIDS I've resumed motorcycle riding, skateboarding, basketball. I think of these activities now not so much as ways to defy chance but as a means to participate in it, listen to it, even--though this will strike many as ludicrous--honor it.Though Andrews' prose is lucid and profound, it is in poems such as "A Language Of Hemophilia" that we encounter the essence of his courage and the depth of his artistry. With a surgeon's deftness and zealot's relish, he finds a beautiful, heartbreaking music in the stark facts of disease:
Blood pools in a joint
The limb locks'Acute hemarthrosis'
'Thromboplastin generation'Hear a language of force
Intimacy with
Itself, the worldWith and of as in skin's turning
Henna, oxblood, roan, russetBruise blue, color of no jewel....
"Random Symmetries" also testifies to the astonishing range of Andrews' intellectual pursuits. He wrote with a scholar's knowledge and fan's enthusiasm about everything from Christian theology to postmodern film criticism, and he found exciting forms through which to articulate these passions. "The Temptation of Saint Augustine" is a learned, thoroughly convincing re-imagining of a familiar story. "25 Short Films About Poetry" is a wildly imaginative, darkly comic inquiry into the ultimate difference between the word and the moving image. Fans of everyone from Samuel Beckett to Woody Allen will find much to laugh at and ponder, and students of poetics will marvel at Andrews' formal dexterity.
Despite his brief time on earth, Andrews left an essential body of work. Almost every effort exhibits a sweet, even goofy, humor while also delivering the kind of soul-searching, soul-enriching insights we require from great literature. At his frequent best he was both a sage and a pal; he could stand face to face with the inexpressible, and find ways to express what we all see, holding our hands in his all the while:
We're always looking for some good advice,
and anyone who will listen to it.Stand up and feel your stiff body steady itself.
Step from the porch and watch the light blow all over you.Once, you left despair at a friend's door
like a child to be looked after.Your friend said, Tomorrow your life will matter
to us both. You laughed, and slept.There is no word for the stark gratitude
we feel for friends. Just more advice:Take your own pulse once in a while.
Consider the ant, and be wise.
(from "When Comfort Arrives”)