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Normal Family by Ben Hiatt
Mt. Aukum Press, PO Box 483,
Mt. Aukum, CA. 95656
72 Pages perfectbound $9 (plus shipping)
http://mtaukumpress.com/Bookstore.html
Ben Hiatt has been writing and publishing poems for more than 40 years now and he has learned one thing: the easy poems have all been written and the time has come to tackle the hard stuff. He does that in this volume, mining the past for all it's worth and, needless to say, he hits pay dirt more often than not.
Hiatt lives in the mountains surrounded by things he likes and people he respects. His pals are hunters and loggers and beer drinkers, rough and ready rednecks types much like the old sage himself (and much like this reviewer), who has done his share of beer guzzling and gun shooting, whooping and hollering and running with the dogs. Unbeknownst to the pretentious and self-indulgent among wordsmiths, there is some quiet dignity found in such people, if one bothers to learn their ways and what is in their hearts and minds, some native wisdom not found in tomes on university library shelves. Hiatt has taken the time to know people, both family by birth and others who become near enough, with time and proximity, to take on the luster of blood relations.
Some of the writing here is very poignant, especially when Hiatt deals with his youth. In "After The Fact" he addresses a situation many of us have experienced as youths, and perhaps more especially those of us who grew up in the fifties:
in the seventh grade
I'd go to the Jr. High School dance
skinny & awkward
and hang around the edges
of other folks' reality
until it was time to go home
Later in the same poem, he remembers leaving home at a young age and the efforts of family to get him back:
& still they call me back
come home, they say
everything will be all right
if you just come home
& I have to tell them
that home is what I have
managed
to find inside my head
finally, it comes to this,
Home is where you live
& those folks taught
me
many years ago
to live in my head
"Poem For Mick" is a powerful, obviously autobiographical work dealing with Hiatt's hard life at a young age. Early on, he sets the stage:
It was 1951 and we lived
In a converted boxcar
Beside
Big Creek
In Pondosa
That winter it was so cold
That we hung blankets
On the doors
Heated only the living room
We put our coats on to go to bed
Because there was frost
On the covers
Later, after detailing something that's bound to cause friction with a sister, he tells of almost shooting his father once, after the man became violent when slapped into consciousness by his mother upon coming home drunk and passing out at the kitchen table.
…
But I ran into my room
And grabbed my deer rifle
And levered in a round
And had him centered
And was just about to squeeze off
The shot
When our mother noticed
And screamed at me
That stopped it
But I was left crying in my room
Alone
While they did
Whatever they did
For the rest of the night
I was 12 years old when that happened
& I cried
I am now 61 years old
And the tears
Are never
Far away.
I've just touched the surface of this fine little volume here. If you care for words--and for the people who write words--this is one that should be sitting on your bookshelf. Or, better yet, held in your hands and enjoyed for all it has to offer.
--Jim Chandler
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