Playing in Overtime, by Barry Wallenstein
Review by Richard Levine
In his introduction to Carl Sandburg’s Harvest Poems, Mark Van Doren noted, “Humor is the final sign and seal of seriousness, for it is a proof that reality is held in honor and in love.” This is a good thought to hold close while reading Playing in Overtime, Barry Wallenstein’s rewarding new poetry collection from The Ridgeway Press, St. Clair Shores, Michigan.
From its playfully metaphoric title, there is a smart, often ironical humor animating these poems. So let’s begin with that title. If you can read growing old as a figurative twist on Playing in Overtime, it’s only a tweak away to accept sudden death overtime as another acceptable, if more sardonic, turn on the title. And look: We haven’t even reached the table of contents, and we’ve already attended a wedding of humor and seriousness. Not bad. And let’s not overlook “playing” as playful.
The book’s first section, “Persons of Interest,” is bound to arouse your curiosity, as it seems a bit out of place in a volume of poetry. I know this term from whodunit novels and the tense real-life press conferences after a terrorist attack or other deadly crime. In those contexts, the term means someone who is not a suspect—though they might later prove to be one—but may have knowledge of the crime or a suspect who may have committed the crime.
But between the covers of Playing in Overtime, a person of interest is likely to be someone living beyond the age expectations of, say, an insurance table. Or they may be a younger person who knows of or is related to an old person. Mostly, the crimes these people of interest have knowledge of or commit are within the confines of their quotidian lives. Whether they inspire frustration, lament, love, or laughter, Wallenstein’s characters of interest are pleasingly familiar.
There is, for example, “The Waiting Man”: Not large enough to loom / he hovers. Not small enough to disappear / He’s here. There is “The Impatient Man”: One day, on the verge of joy, / with everything promised / but not yet delivered. There is also “A Questionable Man,” “At the Bar,” “Boy, 6, Found Wandering Drunk,” “The Depressionville Man,” and “The I Am Variations”: I am an old engine, waiting / for a shot of oil, . . . I am lassitude itself, last in the list. None of these poems or the people populating them are over-the-counter or off-the-rack types, but they are all oddly endearing and lucky (unless they’re not), because they are getting to continue playing in overtime.
I found the serious heart of Playing in Overtime beating in a poem titled “Inosculation.” There is a footnote explaining the inosculation process: “The term is derived from the Latin roots in + osculari, kiss into/inward/against. . . . Trees having undergone the process are referred to in forestry as gemels, from the Latin word meaning a pair.
In the poem, Wallenstein tells of bearing witness or having a dream that is as touching as it is spare and sadly beautiful. The narrative tells of two trees merging in the woods. A smaller, broken tree leans on and is fed and cared for by its larger neighbor. Be it witness or dream, Wallenstein is so moved by the beauty if their interdependence, he ponders:
Is it fatuous to think / of wood in love, affection in bark— / the sweet sap? / I blanch at this exposed intimacy / unavailable to my kind.
The poet’s poignant observation of this soulmate-like boreal relation compelled me to reread that question and confession several times, especially intimacy / unavailable to my kind.
The poem appears in the section titled “Intimacies.” This part examines many types of intimacy beginning with a rash—poor choice of words?—of carnal ones: once there we’d need amnesia / and millions of feathers to cushion the fall. From “Carnal Life”: the week ahead is blank and dull / but for a date with the Gonad Twins. And from “Carnal Life 2”: Smack me a kiss—quick /. . . an hour in which to play / shy, but please, / be shy in my mouth, osculate.”
Age teaches us that carnal pursuits are the easy, hypnotic types of intimacy; the flirtatious temptations of flesh that you do not really have to work at, unlike the more complex intimacy in “Inosculation,” which requires commitment and sacrifice. In “Fathers,” Wallenstein muses on another, deeper form of intimacy: Foolish is the father / not to fear and madly love / his son / . . . when the son is missing from himself / the dad too goes missing. / . . . And in the final chapters / of his condition / as he confuses his son’s anger / with his foolish own.
There are also hard-won examinations of a daughter become a mother, and its impact on the long-established father-daughter sparring dynamic. Following the form of a dialogue, they begin: why hide the pages / written in the dark / my blue-eyed / straight-backed daughter?/ Because you’ve taught me well / about the elves who snoop and tattle / while caught in your spell. Then, getting or being given the last word, she says: Poppa—smile, you’d have the last lines, but the composition’s mine— / you pine, you elm in the woods.
It follows from the daughter, the sing-songy, babbling intimacies of “Song for Maya—First Grandchild (at 2).” But even at two, Mother Goose finds the test of intimacy: Deep in the wee hours / she’s a well of tears, / and her crying swamps / the angel minutes of her day / and challenges my concentration. / The whole round world is riotous / with the old clanging of swords. / The new generation of arms / weighs on the scales / of her terrible wailing.
Is this not a proof that reality is held in honor and in love. “Intimacies,” indeed! By the time we reach “The Daily News” section, readers may be onto the idea that everyone we have met and will meet in the remaining poems will be a person of interest, who will be playing in their overtime, and, in doing so, allow us to walk in someone else’s shoes in another time and place, though it will be as familiar as our own here and now. And as the daily news anywhere, there’s trouble, corruption, bad weather and heartbreak abounding everywhere, so fasten your seatbelt, and CYA.
“What Is” poses questions, questions we are maybe always asking ourselves: What is this day but an allowance / . . . What is this music but a refuge from / the clatter of arms / and deafening certainties, . . . What is this ocean but a lot of water / that touches on seashores and bathers . . . / swimming very far out.
In “Wartime” and “Wartime Blues” we are reminded in one, two, three BLAST(s) that War now as in the past / troubles the living / to bury the dead.” We will also learn of Ida and Isidor Strauss, who died together on the Titanic, and that “Charlie(’s) in Danger,” who did not. And in the Wallace Stevens–like “Folly,” which opens with another commentary on war: Fit armor on the chest of boys / let them play in the fray / with a good luck badge / pinned to their chests. / They step off the measure / they sing songs off key / . . . cheer for the upward motion / a bip the bop of zam.
The book’s titular final section begs some questions: Does this then mean that the first three sections might have been called “Game On;” metaphorically meaning too busy living rather than looking back on one’s adult life—finding yourself, your lifestyle, your career, and your idea of family? Or are all the persons of interest merely versions of our past or present selves?
The narrator of the section’s first poem, “Survivor,” opens with a seriously existential concern about his remaining life, but can’t resist an ironic tease: Surely it was an error or a lucky punch / that let me slip through / to continue in this living room / best room on the planet. Similarly, in “Last Leaf,” the poet hopefully says, Come spring / I could be lingering still, / the last leaf upon the tree.
There is a hope-to-the-end yet sober resignation in the closing poems of this memorable book. For example, in “Penultimate Words,” a man near to his end, / glimpses the mound up ahead, / and cries out: All this goes with me. Then, he lists sixteen lines of “All.” And the narrator concludes, He said all this and / put his feet up on the table. Not to be outdone, the book’s last line calls to improve / What’s left of the day.
Playing in Overtime is a compelling collection of poems that are love letters to life and loss. The poems do not merely skim the surface of their subjects, like striders passing lightly over water, they plumb the depths of human experience and reward readers, even as they laugh at our funny ways.
Richard Levine is the author of Taming the Hours: An Almanac with Marginalia (forthcoming), Now in Contest, Selected Poems, Contiguous States, and five chapbooks. A Vietnam veteran, he co-edited “Invasion of Ukraine 2022: Poems,” is associate editor of Big City Lit and the recipient of the 2021 Connecticut Poetry Society Award.
