In this world where there are more machines than at any time in history, and nuclear weaponry, and divisions between and within nations, the poems in Mark Danowsky’s Take Care, dedicated to the caregivers, are in their own way political. We hear them, see them, feel them. The thrust of some poems is vertical, others horizontal, in either direction taking us into a landscape that is as emotional as it is intuitive, one in which we encounter ourselves in others. Danowsky’s abiding theme is compassion. One way into an appreciation of Take Care is through an awareness of form, the shape of the poem; gratitude, the sense of poem; and delicacy, the poem’s tone. This is not to suggest Take Care is one sequential poem; rather, each poem is individual, like a person.
With the exception of concrete poems, the thrust of any poem is either across (horizontal) or down (vertical). Thrust is relevant for an appreciation of these poems because most are intuitive and brief. Thrust has to do with form, and form is integral with content, the sense of what’s being said, and tone, how it’s being said. The thrust of “Tiny Resistance” is horizontal:
I do not go
when asked to go
I spin the wheels
my thoughts, my silences
There is great loneliness
in ambiguous loss
Each couplet is a complete thought. In the middle couplet, the tactile image and the concrete “wheels” precedes a line of opposites; thoughts are heard in the mind, silences are not. The first and last couplets are open ended; “asked to go” to a party? to a meeting? to a war? Less means more. The poet’s minimalism in this couplet is inclusive rather than exclusive. But it’s that word “ambiguous” that truly stands out. Consider the couplet if it were left out. Consider the lesser impact the couplet would have if “ambiguous” were placed on a line all by itself, as it might be if the thrust were vertical. But as is, in the conclusion of a declarative statement, the word’s impact resonates with all that has come before it. There’s loneliness in loss, sometimes great loneliness. But “There is great loneliness in ambiguous loss,” as the conclusion of a poem titled “Tiny Resistance,” that beings with I, makes a statement not just about the speaker but about the human condition and the ways people resist loneliness, sometimes by embracing it. In “Matches,” it’s the “light” in the first line that spreads out, across the page, in horizontal fashion, as “opportunity” completes the lit match image of this intuitive poem. That lighting a match has happened before, and will happen again?, is indicated by the plural noun title, and the epithet “next time” that begins the poem. By contrast, to experience “Gathering” an awareness of its vertical thrust helps us. One does not read across but down; every line is run-on, enjambed, so that by the end “or burn,” all by itself, resonates:
Back at my place
the next beer in hand
it’s hard to say
if I went with intention
to build bridges
or burn
Less means more. Had the poet placed the article “the” before intention, the sense of the poem would disconnect the first half from the second: Did I go to my place with the intention to build bridges? That differs from the speaker’s “Back at my place / it’s hard to say / if I went with intention.” Notice too how the poem begins casually “beer in hand” and ends emotively with “burn.” Also note that the presence of others is suggested but not stated.
Thrust has to do with form, and sense, with content. The abiding theme of Take Care is compassion, and many of its poems convey, directly and sometimes indirectly, a sense of gratitude. As previously noted, the book is dedicated to caregivers. “Limerence” may seem like an odd title for a poem that has an on-ramp” as its sole image:
The joy
of a new on-
ramp— — —
short lived.
Perhaps an infatuation, with a person, place, or thing, is all the more precious for being short lived. Life itself is all the more precious because things only happen once. The poem evokes the transience of love and life. And gratitude for those who built the on-ramp for others to use. Maybe when it’s new it’s a joy, and as it is used that joy is dulled by habit. In the poem that has as its first line “how many trips now,” and in “Lesson,” “Fear,” and “Lovelorn” gratitude for being alive is overtly conveyed. The poem that begins “your nude figure” a love poem, a poem of gratitude, is self and other, whereas “Limerence” is self and others. “Subconscious Deference” is another self-and-other poem of gratitude, in its tone a love poem. “Not-Doing Everything,” with its “I wonder if monks suffer / from depression” empathizes with the suffering of others” and “The Spread,” with its “clouds” and beneath them, on earth, “Us going about our lives / Post-disaster” evokes wonder, and “Risk,” with its melting snow, transience. But it’s the brief poem “You Have to Be Willing to Burn” that intrigues the most when held to the light of gratitude:
What does it mean to scream
if you cannot breathe?
Intuitive—either you get it or you don’t; either it hits you or it misses. Titles are important. Look at this title. Pretty emotionally loaded. To burn as in to suffer? To burn as in to act passionately, whole-heartedly, even obsessively? To burn as in to sacrifice? That the title is open-ended is to our advantage; also, the poem is addressed to us. But what about the edginess of it? The first line’s whole thought qualified by the conditional signals irony. If one can’t breathe, how can one scream? Perhaps silently. Poems are not only about questions; this poem, this question makes one think, and connotes gratitude for breath, for every breath one takes.
One thinks of a rose petal, one thinks of girders with rivets in them. Delicacy connotes strength in these poems. It’s in the tone, how the poet says what is said in “Linger”:
that scent
on your hands after
arranging tomatoes
“After,” placed at the end of line two, resonates with the title in a way that it would not at the beginning of line three. There is “that scent … after” and the memory of that scent, those hands, and that person. Now, that “placement” is a matter of form, but delicacy lies in the speaker’s awareness and thoughtfulness, a subliminal thought, a little love poem. In “Sensuous,” the vivid presence of the “Purple / Magnolia blossoms” in the center of poem is enveloped by mortals, “pain” and “angels,” and the delicacy is in the apposition of the “blossoms” as “Scattered / Petal angels”—in a poem that has the bipolarity of pain and pleasure. “Liberation,” another poem important for its tone, has no such bipolarity, but rather “goodness in the moment, light / scintillating without concern for direction.” Near the end of the book “Bird in a Box,” set in a Walmart” reads like a short story, and “Grace,” the last poem, concludes with the striking tactile image of elephants; “one places its trunk in another’s mouth,” followed by the comment “taking in the silence.” There are several garden references in the book, and in “Eden” how things are said is especially significant. The first half is a strangely wonderful fantasy:
Finding the first garden
I painted its entrance
with Citronella
Those lines, in addition to discovery, suggest control, creativity, brightness; and “entrance,” suggests a beginning.
The word that stands out in the second half is “nearly,” but the emphatic “Keep Out” cancels out all the precedes it except the speaker, who is alive enough to read the sign, and think, and comment on it:
Keep Out
it now said
to nearly everything
Some time has passed since the speaker found the garden, eventually left it, and now stands at its entrance. Can the speaker re-enter? Poetry is more about questions than answers, sometimes.
Mark Danowsky in a literary context is preceded by Paul Celan. Here is Celan’s “Powers, Dominions,” translated by Michael Hamburger:
Behind them, in the bamboo:
barking leprosy, symphonic.
Vincent’s posted
ear
has reached its destination.
Just as “Eden” is two halves of a whole, so is Celan’s poem, each part able to stand alone. And Danowsky is also similar to Celan predecessor Giuseppe Ungaretti. Take, for example, “Carpet,” translated by translated by Patrick Creagh:
Each colour expands and stretches out
into the other colours
To be the more alone if you look at it
And Mark Danowsky’s
ghosts
every town
I cannot rename
strongly suggests the poetry of experience, of not staying in an ivy tower, academic or otherwise, but going out into the world, doing what needs going, figuratively planting a patriot flag in the county of dignity, and literally saying things that need be said and that we would do well to hear.
Take Care, by Mark Danowsky. Whittier, California: Moontide Press, June 2025. 52 pages. $15.00, paper.
Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, The Whitestone Bridge, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.
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