Up Here

Donald Schenker

At a time when much of the literary world was concerned with the “urban heartbeat,” Schenker, in his sequence of poems “Hurd’s Gulch, 1986–1987,” was delighting in the minutiae and particular of the natural world. Be it quail, cows, or oak, small, precise details shimmer under Schenker’s examination. In his sequence “Austin Creek, 1969–1970,” Schenker uses a narrative of the momentary; an immediate vision or flash, like a car passing on a dark highway. The poems of Austin Creek inhabit that space on the edge of rural towns—longer lines and generous detail—although still the subject is nature as the elements deconstruct what work man has done. Throughout the book, Schenker maintains a fiercely ironic and self-conscious tone.

Donald Schenker, 1930-1993, was born in Coney Island, New York. In the late fifties he and his wife settled in Berkeley, California. His first book, Poems, was published jointly with David Meltzer in 1957. He succumbed to cancer in 1993, after retiring in 1985 to devote his life to writing.

A sample poem from the book

Message

The orchard clamors

in the sun

for my attention.

Trees wave

all together,

letters in a grid;

Read me,

read me.

Now read me again.