{"id":1010,"date":"2023-07-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2025-02-22T09:45:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T14:45:43","slug":"on-dustin-pearsons-a-season-in-hell-with-rimbaud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/on-dustin-pearsons-a-season-in-hell-with-rimbaud\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: On Dustin Pearson\u2019s\u00a0A Season in Hell with Rimbaud No. 11"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Season in Hell with Rimbaud<\/em> by Dustin Pearson. Rochester, NY. BOA Editions, Ltd. 2022. 96 pages. $17.00. Paperback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dustin Pearson\u2019s collection A Season in Hell with Rimbaud<\/em> finds itself in conversation with Rimbaud and influenced by Dante as the speaker goes on a Dantean journey through Hell in search of his brother. Despite the influence of tradition that is evoked throughout Pearson\u2019s poetics, this collection reexamines the Hell narrative as the Hell lyric that navigates a relationship between brothers and questions the world at both a beginning and an ending. Pearson\u2019s Hell becomes both grotesque and dreamlike that leaves the reader questioning how much is dream and how much is Hell. The poems in this collection also explore who we are to another, or who others are to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho in your life would you walk through fire for?\u201d asks Pearson\u2019s speaker in the first of two poems titled, \u201cThings I\u2019ve Thought, Things I Do.\u201d The speaker is asking this question of his brother; however, the poet also acknowledges the reader and asks them to ponder this question of themselves, too. The speaker\u2019s own vulnerabilities are put on full display throughout the poem when Pearson writes, \u201cThe thought of asking that question used to bother me, having to listen to a list that didn\u2019t include me, \/\/ or thinking the one name you\u2019d say wouldn\u2019t be mine.\u201d In the final section of the poem, the speaker begins to confront their own fears, \u201cBrother, I never thought my answer would be you. I\u2019m not disappointed like I thought I\u2019d be.\u201d This poem becomes an acknowledgement of love, but it\u2019s hard to not feel the sadness with which it leaves the reader, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This prosaic diptych of poems becomes a sort of confessional refrain after the second \u201cThings I\u2019ve Thought, Things I Do\u201d builds upon the first which helps to anchor the book. The repetition allows the speaker to negotiate the Hellscape Pearson offers to his readers through the speaker\u2019s search of understanding not only their brother, but themself. These sectional poems offer a breadth of space on the page as the speaker searches inward, \u201cThese days when I sift through the past like this, when you\u2019re lying next to me on the bed before you\u2019re lost again, I\u2019m trying to tell you what I will miss.\u201d This final line of \u201cThings I\u2019ve Thought, Things I Do\u201d guts the reader with the speaker\u2019s raw confession, once again, to their brother and leaves the reader contemplating their own histories, relationships, and what they are unwilling or unable to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pearson\u2019s speaker remains confessional and vulnerable within these poems. However, at times, this confession leaves the inner exploration of the speaker and feels as if the poet is speaking directly to the reader. \u201cThe World at Its Beginning\u201d leaves readers with a tenderness. In it, Pearson\u2019s speaker concludes: “I tell myself \/ I\u2019d follow him anywhere \/ to keep the world \/ from ending.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last four lines of \u201cThe World at Its Beginning\u201d\u2013\u2013and the last four lines of Pearson\u2019s Hell Lyric\u2013\u2013become a compassionate reach from the speaker to his brother, from the poet to the reader. The poet is prevalent throughout the invention that is this collection which makes for another juxtaposition of speaker and poet. With the diptych of poems \u201cThings I\u2019ve Thought, Things I Do\u201d and the final poem \u201cThe World at Its Beginning,\u201d the self-searching chants through the outward compassion and both juxtapose the darker images that wander through many of the other poems in the collection. The speaker has been giving us the vulnerabilities, but it is the poet who has given us the realization of the final lines that end this collection. Dustin Pearson\u2019s A Season in Hell with Rimbaud<\/em> is an epic lyric worth entering Hell for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013\u2013Tyler Michael Jacobs, Blog Co-Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Season in Hell with Rimbaud by Dustin Pearson. Rochester, NY. BOA Editions, Ltd. 2022. 96 pages. $17.00. Paperback. Dustin Pearson\u2019s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,15],"tags":[168,61,162,107,85,41,63,29,169,97],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-poetry","tag-a-season-in-hell-with-rimbaud","tag-boa-editions","tag-book","tag-dustin-pearson","tag-mar","tag-mid-american-review","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-rimbaud","tag-tyler-michael-jacobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}