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REVIEW:
Songs In My Begging Bowl
By William Mawhinney

Heron Hill Press: 2002
ISBN: 0-9722072-0-1
60 pages, $12.00

Review by Robert Yehling

One is always at a disadvantage when discussing a book of poetry as a printed literary work. Poets like 62-year-old northeastern Arizona resident Bill Mawhinney clearly express the reason why: Poetry is often a spoken art form first, a written art form second.

Songs in My Begging Bowl, Mawhinney's maiden voyage into the world of book publishing, is a very good book of poetry. When reading the tightly woven 35-poem collection, one wonders how (and why) Mawhinney has waited this long to bring his work out of its lifelong incubation. His poems cover various portions of his oft-contemplative life, his experience as "An Elder of the Tribe" – as he writes about his long years of service in the new warrior movement– his often difficult relationship with his father, his delightfully deep relationship with nature, and his own strengths and limitations as a human being.

In this book, Mawhinney lays down revealing tracks about his immense stature as a quiet warrior, his brilliance as both a student and writer of poetry, and his love for the precisely-placed word. There's not a misplaced or spare word in the collection. One gets the drift by experiencing such pieces as "Crossing His Own Tracks," "The Wake of a Dream," "Birdsong in His Begging Bowl," "My Father's Contract" and "Light, Water and Shore."

Mawhinney opens Songs in My Begging Bowl with an immediate sense of his poetic eye and voice, reflected in the gem "A Question of Scale":

The staircase in a doll's house
leads to an attic of comfortable size,
a space of manageable intimacy
for a six-year-old.

A father who cares for a malleable mind
hunkers down to eye level
when his boy asks wondering questions

Such innocent inquiry shouldn't have to look up
into the foreshortened, distorted features
of a giant adult. A child is already a full-blown philosopher
when asking, "Where did I come from?"

Jogging under a winter morning sky
I still wonder that same question,
wishing the universe would kneel down
so I could hide my face in the stars
and run on forever.

Now, imagine what this poem sounds like when it is read aloud. Keep imagining. Go as far into the halls of excellence as you can. Only when you get there will you experience a sense of what it is like to hear Bill Mawhinney read his poetry. Pretty soon, someone in our country's literary elite is going to recognize what the fortunate ones in America's southwest already know: Mawhinney is one of the best readers in the country. He grabs hold of the innermost spirit of a poem – not hard for him to find, considering he writes from this place – then takes us away with a combination of cadence, body language, intensity and sheer knowing of the absolute truth of these words. He mesmerizes audiences and leaves behind memories that don't dissipate. This reviewer hopes Mawhinney will one day bring out an audio version of Songs in My Begging Bowl to demonstrate how the spoken word works when it comes from a master.

I'm already looking forward to Mawhinney's next book of poems, which he is writing and gathering in his wooded Arizona abode. Meantime, I will continue to feast upon the jewels of Songs in My Begging Bowl – while I hear, once again in my memory, some of these poems recited by the deep, magical voice of a tall silver-haired man whose heart is immersed in serenity.

Further Information:
• Excerpt from Songs In My Begging Bowl
• Interview with the Author