<div dir="ltr"><div>All, <br></div><div>Please find below and attached Dane Hamann's debut collection of poetry, <i>A Thistle Stuck in the Throat of the Sun</i></div><div>Thanks</div><div>Duncan</div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Hamann, Dane. <i>A Thistle Stuck in
the Throat of the Sun.<span> </span>Poems</i>.
American Fork, Utah: Kelsay Books, 2021. 88 pages<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Reviewed by Duncan R. Jamieson,
Ashland University.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span>Though
I never participated in organized sports in school, I have always been
active.<span> </span>My earliest memories are riding
a tricycle handed down from my older brothers before my parents bought me a two
wheel twenty-six-inch Rollfast when I was in early elementary school.<span> </span>Alone and with friends I rode that bicycle
all over eastern Queens, New York City, and out into Nassau County.<span> </span>Once in college I had set a goal for myself
to run in the Boston Marathon; with all the hubris of youth I did this not
really knowing anything about long-distance running, and not having anyone to
train with.<span> </span>I managed to get to running
ten miles at a time at a nine-minute pace per mile.<span> </span>Then reality set in when I learned first you
had to run a qualifying marathon, and you needed to run at a pace much faster
than mine.<span> </span>That’s when in graduate
school I became more interested in serious bicycling, though never with any
thought to racing.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span>As
Book Review Editor I received a request to review the above collection in which
Dane Hamann focuses on running and the outdoors.<span> </span>With an MFA from Northwestern University, he
has been the poetry editor for <i>TriQuarterly </i>and is currently
poet-in-residence for <a href="https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fderailleur.net%2F&data=05%7C01%7Csport_literature_association%40lists.ku.edu%7Cb1b3cffa44334bf177b608dac1c88381%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638035364358511262%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=QHxWUEFuxXL9TtnPiJuU3c%2FXFV4gAlkWWXg6uI7jZ0g%3D&reserved=0" originalSrc="http://derailleur.net/" shash="DaDq/Kim8GscHGuI1d99rFwwi/HJ/2t/kz/Onx8RheUWQ8h2vi/ti3CNF6GxwZMLcyUipQ6IUEq0TW2gdy/rfvselTiposwgF4ZHYea66bl95MURen9AyhB8oPg9mLR+SjPG4RGlUPHODg/iy6kpnvg1jt3YtiH+aZMYNXUpgbc=">derailleur.net</a>, a newsletter/website for professional
cycling.<span> </span>He is also an editor and indexer
for a textbook publisher.<span> </span>When no
volunteers appeared, I decided to expand my horizons and offer a review, with
the hope that my belief that cycling, like running, “captures the transcendence
of moving under one’s own power and the biological need to connect with nature”
(back cover, Mackenzie Havey, author of <i>Mindful Running</i>).<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><span> </span>Not
being a poet, it is difficult for me to catch all the subtle meanings contained
in each poem.<span> </span>Some stand out starkly
while others do not resonate as well or perhaps are more hidden from me.<span> </span>I read and enjoyed the poems but the
collection’s title flummoxed me.<span> </span>Trying
the internet all I found were references to the collection, but then in a flash
of understanding I hit upon what seems to me to be its meaning.<span> </span>My wife and I had just spent a week at a
great camp in the Central Adirondacks with another couple.<span> </span>The wife happens to be my wife’s mentor for
her doctoral studies.<span> </span>Exceptionally
bright, she is totally committed to social justice, and is a strong woman who
does not suffer fools gladly.<span> </span>She stands
up for students, encouraging them to dig deeper and to think through their work
so as to make a difference in the world.<span>
</span>More to the point relative to Hamann’s title, she is to her
institution’s administration the “thistle stuck in [their] throat.”<span> </span>She refuses to “go along to get along,” and
she wholeheartedly resists any attempts to dilute the program’s quality.<span> </span>She “calls ‘em as she sees ‘em,” just like
the crusty old umpire told the manager who charged out of the dugout to
question a called third strike.<span> </span>Whether
others admit it or not, all benefit from her insistence on quality and
integrity.<span> </span>Once I’d made this
connection, I reread the poems and feel I have a better understanding of
Hamann’s debut collection.<span> </span>It is the
thistle that not only pushes the runner (or the cyclist) forward to achieve
what seems to be out of reach but also stretches our boundaries to find meaning
in who we are and in what we do.<span> </span>“Then
I’ll go,/ tongue at last finding the sound for a stone/ carried in the shoe of
a river of flesh./<span> </span>Every word for
further and further” (Thistle, 16).<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The poems are
divided into three sections, each beginning with an epigraph by a runner.<span> </span>First Alan Sillitoe describes how free he feels
starting his day with a couple of hours “trot” (13).<span> </span>The second is led by Sam Shaw who sees the
runner as ”haunted” (45), fleeing from himself trapped in a mediocre
society.<span> </span>The last epigraph by Elizabeth
Langemak suggests running “is mostly away,/ not chasing but chased” (53).<span> </span>Throughout each section there are poems, all
of which center on the individual in competition with themselves, with the joys
and challenges of nature and the surroundings.<span>
</span>In the opening poem, Haman describes the wall of heat in late August,
the crunch of gravel under his shoes, the taste of melting asphalt.<span> </span>While he counts each “light-peppered mile,”
the “stick-straight/ road bestows only the notion of ending” (“August,”
15).<span> </span>In another poem, while running
along a rail line Hamann tests his “heavy legs,” not sure when he will turn
back to the trailhead.<span> </span>While in earlier
days this right of way “used to be a simple/ distance over which things were
carried. Now/ it carries only my desire to rest/ or be made of a younger self”
(“Tracks,” 32).<span> </span>In “Personal Best: New
Mile,” the reader can feel the agony and ecstasy of trying to achieve something
new.<span> </span>“A silvery shine/ creeps at the
edges of my vision,/ and the notion of stopping/ hurdles through me,” but the
runner continues to “find that I’ve crossed that border of trees/ and I’m
gulping/ unknown air and light” (37).<span> </span>The
poem entitled “Why Do We Bathe in Miles of Dust?” addresses the age-old
question concerning why mountaineering—“because it’s there.” <span> </span>“It’s hunger that cannot be satiated/ even
with bright knives of open sky./<span> </span>We’ll
feast on gravel until we lie/ scattered like fallen birds in the fields”
(55).<span> </span>In “Snapped Collarbone,” Hamann
vividly recalls “the consequences of milliseconds”.<span> </span>Even as a child I rarely fell over on my
bicycle.<span> </span>As an adult despite being
sideswiped by an automobile I have only fallen a few times, none resulting in
serious injury.<span> </span>Probably twenty years
ago I had taken a leisurely ride around town and when coming back across campus
I had slowed too much and turned the front wheel too sharply.<span> </span>As a result, I found myself sprawled in front
of the administration building, my bicycle neither injured nor scratched lying
next to me.<span> </span>When I stood, I realized
something was wrong.<span> </span>Only a few blocks
from home I couldn’t manage to pick up my bicycle.<span> </span>Security saw me and offered to take me to the
hospital but I asked instead to call my wife who came and took me and my wheel
home.<span> </span>This was late Friday afternoon so
I hobbled around on crutches until Monday morning when an x-ray indicated a
simple fracture of my pelvis.<span> </span>It quickly
healed with no ill effect, but the poem brings the memory instantly to the
fore.<span> </span>I can feel the disgrace of making
such a stupid error.<span> </span>While Hamann wanted
to “escape the exposed root,/ the impact of shoulder on earth“ (77), neither he
nor I can erase the memory. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">This review is
only a small sampling of the forty-eight poems presented.<span> </span>For a non-poet like myself, I find reading
these multiple times brings new images as they challenge me to be “a thistle
stuck in the throat of the sun” in both physical and mental activities while
encouraging others through example.<span>
</span>These are poems of running and the natural environment, but they are
also poems of challenge and contemplation.<span>
</span>They are vibrant and gritty; they draw you to vicariously feel the
tired, sweat soaked body as you see the everlasting beauty of the land through
which the runner (or bicyclist or hiker) moves. I will come back again and
again to these poems.<span></span></p>
</div><div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past<br><br>Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.<br>Professor of History<br>Book Review Editor<br><i>AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature</i><br>Ashland University<br>Ashland, OH 44805<br>USA<br></div></div></div></div>