Justice's legacy looms large

Novelist Chuck Palahnuik read from an upcoming collection of his stories last week at the Bull's Head Book Shop.

His selections were provocative, edgy, jarring but, ultimately, transient. Palahnuik's work is forward and gripping, but one day simply will be reduced to a specter of The New York Times bestseller lists.

Last month, Donald Justice, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and post-graduate UNC attendee, succumbed to illness after a prolonged struggle.

He never whipped crowds into a frenzy, sung the praises of viscera or grabbed collars. He was a craftsman: treading the mean between nostalgia and formalism, but retaining an earthly accessibility.

He wasn't a celebrity, but he will leave a legacy. Although his poems rarely topped a page in length, they place him, along with the legendary Wallace Stevens and his peer Richard Wilbur, among the top American contemporary poets.

Justice's "Collected Poems" (Knopf, $24.95) gives an all-encompassing view of the intriguing poet, who ranged over his four decades of service to the community from teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop to studying piano.

To approach Justice requires a pianist's ear - his treatment of sonics and formal styles reads delicately. It's self-conscious, but ever-playful.

Leafing through "Unflushed Urinals" or "The Telephone Number of the Muse," one becomes aware of Justice's unique gift - the ability to humorously lend dignity to everyday melancholia. He often speaks of lassitude in his work - but, even when reading his poem "Lethargy," his quiet energy shines through.

It smiles to see me

Still in my bathrobe ...

Weeks have passed

Since first I lifted my hand

To set it down.

Justice's work, in its subtlety, belies a weariness taken with good spirit - an understanding of human frailty and a celebration of behavior, quirks to kindness.

He frequently references Orpheus, as if to acknowledge the futility of his own ambition as an artist while celebrating the ability of his musical verse to inspire others.

Observe a selection from "Orpheus the Artist," speaking in a tone reminiscent of an old man observing William Butler Yeats' Byzantium.

...They glided across a black

And apathetic river which reflected nothing back

Except his own face sinking gradually from view

As in a fading photograph.

His mode par excellence comes in the recollection of memories long past, but in his distinct way: concise, not overly sentimental.

A couplet from "First Death" describing his dead grandmother's cheek is minimal, yet spot-on.

I remember the new taste -

Powder mixed with drying paste.

As he writes in "Psalm and Lament":

... everything continues

Nor does memory sleep; it goes on.

His purposefully subdued tone, even coupled with the strictness of a sestina or pantoum, creates an odd effect. Poems, at first, appear as any other, but lines will continue to echo throughout readers' minds for days. They bring, as mentioned in "Lethargy," an invisible weight.

In his calculated, ironic nostalgia, Justice is somewhat like A.R. Ammons, but passes him with his remarkable ear and eye, his keen appreciation for sound and form.

Altogether, his pieces are short, but teeming with intricacies. Justice deserves recognition, and will receive it, for his 40 years of thoughtful, memorable writing. His poems, as echoed in this passage from "Sadness," might not be expansive - but the gravity comes in the ultimate impact:

Not that they are but that they feel immense.

Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.