4 out of 4 stars
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Beats Me: Love, Poetry, Censorship, from Chicago to Appalachia by Maryrose Carroll is a book in the non-fiction genre. The author is the wife of Paul Carroll, an American poet and the founder of the Poetry Center of Chicago.
The author has relayed various important episodes from her husband’s life, revolving around his misadventures with censorship. The couple discovers that Paul is dying from cancer and has only a year left to live. This is when the author, his wife, decides to record Paul’s memories in her book. The book relates to the controversial censorship period in American literature, specifically about how Paul and his colleagues overcame several hurdles to publish and promote their magazine, Big Table. The author gives the readers an interesting account of Paul’s career as a poet, his struggle to introduce and publish fresh poetry (part of the ‘Beat’ literary movement), and the legal battles Paul and his colleagues had to fight with the US post office in Chicago, when the latter impounded four hundred copies of the magazine, over the issue of obscenity.
The book is written in first person and mostly in the form of conversations between the author and her husband. These conversations are supplemented with a few snippets from newspapers, letters, etc. These conversations capture Paul reminiscing about his past, from his college days to his days as an editor of the Big Table. The author’s choice of writing style gives a delightfully personal feel to the book and is a good idea to engage the readers. All the while, when Paul is narrating his tales in a jocular fashion, there is this omnipresent feeling of sorrow about his approaching death. This feeling is expressed beautifully by the author through certain lines like, “‘Posie, I don’t have my usual energy,” he admits. “I know you don’t, honey.” Neither of us says cancer like a silent thief in the night is stealing it away.”
Paul’s memoirs cover a wide variety of emotions: joy, anger, frustration, humor, sorrow. For instance, there is an interesting, and slightly humorous conversion, between Paul, Studs Terkel and Pete Seeger about their experiences with censorship, their diminishing reserves of money and the very real danger of doing prison time. Like Stud points out, “To our conscience, may it always win out over our wallets.” One fact about the book that really impressed me was that the whole time the author is collecting Paul’s memories, she switches easily to the present, where the reader catches glimpses of the evergreen romance between author and her husband. The book is peppered with the stanzas from many of Paul’s poems, plus a short collection of his poems are given at the end of the book too. One of my favorite poems was the Last Will and Testament. Paul’s relationship with his poetry and his colleagues is a delight to read about.
Paul’s memories are recorded in a fascinating way by the author that would impress any reader who picks up this book and I would definitely recommend this book to readers who are interested in the history of American poetry and literature. I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars.
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Beats Me
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