2019 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry

I was instantly haunted by the rhythms in Steven Kleinman’s poems. Through parallel phrasing, he builds a momentum that seems partly song and partly incantation. Incantations can be a dangerous thing, and he does indeed take us to some dark places, but he also has a playful mind that can lead to hilarity (see “The Last Supper”). There are surreal touches in many of the poems, but those touches never seem arty or gratuitous but rather spring from the urgency of what he is witnessing, and witnessing is what the book is about. As Kleinman says, “It matters / what I could actually see and why.”

— C. G. Hanzlicek, Judge, Philip Levine Prize for Poetry

The deep image is alive and well in the hands of Steven Kleinman, who, in Life Cycle of a Bear, has managed to talk to us about what’s on our minds once we turn off the news of the day. The biggest surprise is the “Bear” poem sequence, which is one of the finest I’ve read in the past ten years. Once you read it, you’ll do like I did: you’ll flip back through the pages to read it again, realizing, Yeah, “what you wanted, what you want, is freedom,” which Kleinman offers in this inspiring debut.

— A. Van Jordan

In Steven Kleinman’s Life Cycle of a Bear, men are bears, wolves, starfish, and clowns, but they are also fathers, addicts, veterans, failures, and friends. This is not another book about how bad men have it. There are no heroes here. Instead, it is a book of vast imagination and steadfast intimacy, of compassion and clear-eyed dissent, about one locality and thus our world. Kleinman’s reckoning with the mythologies and communities born of the violence of men is as tenderly wrought as it is tenacious and true.

— Jennifer Chang

From “Life Cycle of a Bear”

BEAR

Once it was clear he was gone

everyone wanted to know

what was done to him,

his carcass, his emptied skin,

they would ask did it smell,

they would ask how warm

was the warmth of his last breath,

how long did the inside

of the skin stay warm, did it adhere

to their touch, they would ask

was he held against your body,

anyone’s body, they wanted

to know about the meat,

what was done with it,

was it cut away, could they buy it,

was it available to see,

did it fester, turn green, did it smell,

and like what, what did it smell like,

was it left for the dogs, cooked up,

cubed, or left skinless, muscle

under the bed, did he hide, they wanted

to know, his struggles as he went,

his loves, and when he loved was it open-

armed, was it as warm

as his death, can we sing of his loves,

they asked, can we count his lovers,

and between shows turning pale,

under thickness, his tired body,

did anyone know what was he like,

they asked was he crumpled in a pile

by the pike he was shackled to

when he was found, did he resemble

a large coat tossed on the ground

after a night of drinking,

or was he like a folded dress shirt

ready to wear, did he resemble

loved ones I know, was he

human, when everyone left him,

was he a human, was he dignified,

a small voice asked, did he die

a dignified death, do any of us?

_______________________

NO ONE IS PROUD

No one is proud of a drug addiction

or a son with addiction or a cousin

who stops calling his mother no one

is proud of an accident no one is proud

their grandmother was mean like a dog

a secret smoker no one spends Saturdays

talking about house painting how they

would have made it pro at house painting

if they could have figured out school

and going to class more times than not

no one is proud as they get hooked on pain

killers wrapping car after car around the same tree

no one I know goes to church and believes

much but it’s nice to see everyone no one likes

when they can’t find a job and spend hours

surfing the internet for what might take them

away a little feel a certain way or feel anything

at all even if it's anger no one likes anger

no one likes losing it at their kids throwing

their kids toys that were left on the G D ground again

no one likes slamming doors broken doorjambs

leaving the television on for hours

passing in and out of sleep watching the game

and what kind of game is it anyways the warm

hours fading when someone comes home

in a tone already already already at it again

I don’t want to hear it have already heard it

enough anyway lets have it out have the fight

no one wants to have my parents were throwers

they didn’t brag when the doors slammed shut

and someone turned again needing

to make clear what they said which was always

I’m scared I’m so scared I’m so very

scared we might not make it.