By Ed McGlinn
A Poet and His Rivers
The Coast of Nowhere: Meditations on rivers, lakes, and streamsby Michael Delp
Wayne State Universty Press, $14.95, paper, ISBN 0814327117
And when white moths were on the wing,
And mothlike stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
-- from W.B.Yeats, The Song of Wandering Angus
Michael Delp's new book is his best. It is most welcomed by this reader; it has been too long—six years—since his last major book (Under the Influence of Water). Jack Driscoll, the writer-in-residence at the Interlochen Arts Academy expresses my feelings completely when he observes:
"Dream-like and often times lonely and hauntingly beautiful, always lyrically and imagistically inventive, these watery meditations flow unimpeded from the headwaters of an abundant heart, a heart unafraid to sing praises for the place (and spirit-place) we inhabit, as well as for the flawed, inconsolable creatures of hope and heartbreak that we are. Michael Delp is a writer of exquisite tenderness and wild imagination, and this is his best book yet."
I would be wise if I ended this review here because I can't say anything better or more accurate about Delp's writings. However, please forgive me, I am compelled to add some thoughts.
To begin, I want to remind us how important Delp has been to The Anglers and to The Riverwatch. He has generously brought much grace to our newsletter with his poetic prose and his clean, honest, and imaginative poetry. When you read his most recent book you'll know, if you don't already, that his home river is the Au Sable.
Moreover, Delp is a truly obsessed fisherman who carefully and eloquently distills this obsession into poems, essays and fiction in a magical way that few can match. We should be grateful because we can't always be on our river and it is just so damn good to have his writing to console us when we're not. At one time I thought I was truly obsessed by our sport (I know I am with rivers), and I guess I was, and as I approach seventy, I think I still am. But my energy, my desire, and my passion has been no match for Delp's. His young daughter Jamie tells us about his passion in the beautiful preface to this book. A sample is this excerpt:
My father's soul is made of water; river water that
silver trout swim through and old fishermen love."
Jamie knows her father. She fishes with him; she has a pool on the river named after her. She also has river water in her blood.
A small part of this book was first published by The Riverwatch in a chapbook titled The Text of the River. This generous contribution by Delp was used as a fund raiser by The Anglers over the past four years. Included in this chapbook were five ghazals about rivers. In The Coast of Nowhere Delp has expanded these five to twelve.
All twelve are exceptional but let me quote two couplets from Ghazal 13:
How many times do I say the dead man's name to pull
him back? How many times do I dip my hand into the
river expecting a miracle?
I would bring him up into the light. Give him his old
name back.
Build a fire, tell him to stay close, back to the wind.
Delp has dedicated this poem to Dave Lemmen (the book is also dedicated to Dave.) Dave, who lived in the Grayling area, was Delp's fishing compadre on the Au Sable, his mentor, a friend sorely missed.
You should also know that in addition to the Au Sable, there is another real river in Delp's world: the Platte, a small river near Interlochen where Delp is the director of creative writing at the Academy. Though other rivers are mentioned (the Pere Marquette, the Betsie,) the Au Sable and the Platte are the primary inspiration for the dream rivers in this book. Though they are separated by almost half the state I believe they are the two most beautiful rivers in Michigan. The Platte is much smaller but it is the closest to a pure spring creek in our state. The Au Sable drains five times the area the Platte drains and for half its length it becomes a large river but because of its uniqueness it remains a spring creek. Delp's love is found in the headwaters and that's where you will find his dreams.
With the excepton of two small essays on still water the remainder of the book is about water that moves. Delp is clearly under the influence of running water. His meditations are about rivers, not lakes or ponds. For example, in a story titled The Last Pool, he finds a place on an Au Sable feeder stream where fish go to die. In this discovery he watches a fish live its final hour, and after it dies, he writes:
I stayed for an hour, maybe two. I watched the sun track through the trees. I moved back from the pool and drank an entire flask of whiskey. I looked repeatedly at my tackle. I ran my finger down the humped back of the nymph I"d wanted to use, imagined it so perfectly wet and deadly. Then I left.
A minor diversion: poetry often needs to be heard, so you will be forgiven if you retire to a quiet place and read aloud some of Delp's words. It is no secret that this is so. You should also know it is special to hear him read. Three years ago, as a member of the Michigan Fly Fishing Club, I encouraged the club to invite Mike for a reading at our annual banquet. I admit I was a little anxious about it. Though I knew disappointment would not be mine, I was concerned how the reading would be greeted by the membership; it was the first time we had a poet as a guest speaker. (Usually the speaker would be some name angler giving some boring account of some great fishing in some exotic land.) Well, we had a large turnout and Delp was a stunning success. So much so, he was then invited back the next year for an even larger audience. So I repeat: read his words aloud when you can. And if you ever have a chance to hear him read don't miss it
The one piece I enjoyed the most in this book was the concluding story, What My Father Told Me. In this story, Delp has a young man reminiscing about what he has learned from his father about rivers. Let me give you a sample:
Take the river inside as you would a text he would tell me more than once. He knew that once inside you could memorize every pool and run, every rock in a stream ... Even better, he told me, was the ability to enter the river inside whenever you felt the need to ... And always there was that dark, brooding sense of the surreal, the river looming up inside both of us as if it were alive and breathing through our skins.
When you read this book in late winter or early spring, imagine the river. Focus on your favorite beat and remember where the fish are waiting for you.
In a review, published in The Riverwatch, of Delp's earlier book Jim Armstrong suggested that Delp's references to apparitions and auras are indicative of the book's concerns, and added:
"Delp is interested in the way the concentrated mindfulness of fly fishing can weave together physical and psychic experience. ... Delp suggests that on the river, inner and outer become wondrously intertwined ... The river is a place of deception, of mirrors and hidden currents; yet it is also a place of revelation."
Armstrong also observes that Delp's rivers are full of spirits -- river gods, tutelary animals, and the ghosts of fathers and old fishing buddies who have passed on, and then states:
"Another writer might have made this sentimental or pretentious, yet Delp always manages to find the correlative of myth in his own experience."
Delp continues this magic in The Coast of Nowhere. This book is an absolute necessity to those who like to reflect on why we fish and to meditate on rivers and fishing when we are not there. It is a required addition to the library of the dedicated fly fisher or anyone who loves the poetry of wildness, especially that of running water. RWOL
The Coast of Nowhere can be found in many good bookstores or it can be ordered toll-free from the publisher by dialing 1-800-WSU-READ.
© Copyright 1998- , Anglers of the Au Sable, Inc. All rights reserved. Last modified: January 31, 2002
