Marylandia: On kitchens, poetry and moral codes
Diane Scharper, an author and English professor at Towson University, gives us capsule reviews of three books with a local flavor.
Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies by Michael Olmert (Cornell University Press / 277 pages / $27.95). Contrary to popular usage, outhouses are not synonymous with privies. As Olmert explains it in this lighthearted architectural history, outhouses or outbuildings include kitchens, smokehouses, dairies, dovecotes, offices, icehouses, and privies. A professor of English at the University of Maryland and an Emmy-Award-winning writer, Olmert enhances this account with gems of information from art, architecture etymology, history and literature. For starters, the term "outhouse" has been used since the 14th century, while the word "privy" originated in 1819. Privies are also called lavatories, necessary houses water closets, latrines and Cloacina temples (after the Roman goddess of sewers). Olmert’s fact-filled account liberally quotes Shakespeare, Hardy, Chaucer, Byron, Bacon, Pope and others as it describes buildings where one can cure meat, churn milk into cheese, house doves, write law briefs, chill foods and, of course, answer nature’s call. All of which this suggests that one can take a homely subject and make it, if not glamorous, at least entertaining.
The Glass House by Daniel Mark Epstein (Louisiana State University Press / 78 pages; paperback / $17.95). In his eighth collection of poetry, the prolific Baltimore author continues his tradition of formal verse (sonnets, blank verse and tercets) using slant rhyme and complex metaphors. Sometimes, as in the title poem, those metaphors take the form of a conceit — referencing a proverb with the poet spinning the adage to surprising effect. Better known for his award-winning biographies, Epstein refers to himself as a "poet moonlighting biography." The best poem here,
"Dead Reckoning," uses "The Odyssey" as a framework to muse on the perils of everyone’s life journey. Rich with allusions to literature, the Bible and Greek mythology, these cerebral and melancholic poems nod to Homer, Alexander Pope and Walt Whitman, among others. Lewis Carroll and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Ultimately, like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Epstein attempts to connect with those he has loved and lost. More often than not, he succeeds.
Eager Street by Arlando "Tray" Jones (Apprentice House / 298 pages / $24.95). Like all good memoirists, Jones writes to tell a story, not to change the world. The story begins in a ghetto in East Baltimore and ends in a prison in Hagerstown. In between, Jones, the son of an alcoholic and drug-addicted mother, grew up on Eager Street. He lived in relative comfort in the home of his grandmother and grandfather, who operated a numbers business and who gave Jones a work ethic — albeit one connected to an illegal trade. Jones’ grandmother and aunts taught him a moral code, which insisted that he act like a gentleman and keep old people and children out of harm’s way. But when Jones’ mother and grandfather died, his grandmother fell victim to drugs. Soon, Jones was left to his own devices. By age 12, he was dealing drugs. By 14, he was a trigger man for a drug dealer. By 17, he was sentenced to life for murder. In this compelling coming-of-age account, Jones doesn’t preach against the drug trade. Instead, he offers a cautionary tale which speaks eloquently for itself.
