Valuing
Christopher Kondrich
Reviewed by Ali Hintz
Christopher Kondrich’s second collection of poetry invites the reader to explore what it means to be human by going inside the speaker’s “asylum” of a mind. This experience is at once centering and disconcerting, captivating and uncomfortable, perhaps because Kondrich’s asylum is built out of the choice “to love” and “to value” in defiance of a hateful world. In the titular poem, Kondrich writes, “I dreamt that I was only, one / of one. I dreamt that I could tell you / and you would know.” The speaker yearns for a form of elemental understanding intrinsic to humanity. However, here, true communication is only possible in dreams. That doesn’t dissuade Kondrich to keep trying.
Elemental understanding requires elemental language. Kondrich uses simple, elegant phrasing to illustrate complex philosophical concepts. Throughout the book, he plays with prosody, varying his line lengths and stanzaic forms to fit the message of each poem.
The inward gaze of the book pushes the reader to question where the self begins and ends. It also questions what the value of the self is, or rather, what gives value to the self. One poem posits, “We determine the value of a thing / by how much we owe to those who remove it.” Another, “I live as long as you are singing. / The end is a passage through another’s face.” Kondrich pushes to find the limits of his asylum—where the mind begins and ends, who the self is. Do not expect a clear answer.