Book Review: Until the Last Light Leaves (Tony Gloeggler)Reviewed by Michael NorthenIn The Medusa and the Snail, biologist Lewis Thomas describes a snail that moves through the various trails of life accreting to itself bits of the various environments that it passes through so that by the end of its life despite all of that adheres to it and the changes to its outer appearance, it is still essentially the same snail. Thomas' snail is an apt metaphor for Tony Gloeggler's book of poetry, Until the Last Light Leaves. After reading the book's initial poem "The Way a World Can Change" and meeting his ex-girlfriend, her autistic son Jesse, and Brooklyn native Tony himself, readers are equipped with all the knowledge needed to carry themselves through the remainder of the book. The first poem is the snail. Far from being a negative, however, this strategy holds Gloeggler in good stead. In fact, in the recent burst of disability poetry that at one extreme tries to dazzle with its sophistication and on the other to pound home a message, Until the Last Light Leaves, is a refreshing oasis. It is one of the few recent books in that genre that combines layman's language with an underlying feel for the natural rhythm of words, evident from the very first lines of the book:
Start with a letter from a woman The six year old autistic boy is Jesse whose relationship to Gloeggler wends its way through many of the poems of the book until the final poem when Jesse has become a young adult. Even when not the subject of the poems themselves, Jesse makes an appearance in the way that a family member one lives with always seems to walk through the room where one is sitting. In addition to the first hand familiarity with autism that his relationship to Jesse's mother brings him, Gloeggler has a professional knowledge of disability. For over 35 years he has managed a group home for developmentally disabled men. Readers familiar with group home or residential care settings will recognize the jaded attitude Gloeggler displays in his poem "Training."
The director Nevertheless, Gloeggler is a careful observer of the residents under his care and it is his poems about these young men combined with his Jesse poems that makes Until the Last Light Leaves an interesting book for those involved in disability studies. To Gloeggler's credit, his poems never attempt to take on the persona of Jesse or any of the men residing at the group home. The poems are in his own voice and while the others are players in his poems, he never pretends to speak for them. This position makes his role as an interested observer valuable. A couple of examples of these portraits suffice. From "In the Building:"
The group home is getting dressed And from a less objective standpoint in "Time Out":
Lin, if you wouldn't bite the ball A number of other poems in the book with titles like "Bath Time," "Vistors Day at the Group Home" and "A Good Bad Day" allow readers to get a glimpse of the men that Gloeggler interacts with every day. In terms of the book's purpose, however, these portraits, interesting as they are, are essentially pieces of conglomerate on the snail's shell. It is the poems comprising the Jesse story that carry the book. The narrative that springs out of "The Way a World Can Change," the book's first poem, tells of the relationship between Jesse, his mother Helen, and the poet. In short, Helen moves with Jesse to Brooklyn where Gloeggler helps care for Jesse. Helen's affection for the author unaccountably wains. Mother and son move back to Maine where Gloeggler periodically visits them. Ten years later, whenever he flies into Portland, the poet still visit, but the time between visit lengthens until in the end, it is only Jesse, who is in adult training program that Gloeggler visits. It is against this backdrop that the author is able to describe Jesse's behavior. He makes this visible to the reader in many different circumstances – on the bus, at Coney Island, on his birthday, in the middle of the night, at his "job" as an adult, listening to music. On a visit to the aquarium:
He rushes by the walruses When they reach a beach,
Jesse runs toward And when he is told it is time to leave, Jesse
is too busy having a good time Gloeggler describes how in preparation for his thirteenth birthday, Jesse is read stories about what birthdays are and what happens at them. While he plays mp3's like any teenager, it is the same Sesame Street jingles over and over. When the author sticks his finger in his mouth and makes a popping sound for Jesse, Jesse makes him repeat it over and over. Throughout the book one of the questions that haunts Gloeggler, who for periods of time was essentially a surrogate father, was to what extent Jesse actually has an emotional attachment to or even remembers him. In "Visits," after spending what seems a fun afternoon playing with Jesse, Gloeggler wonders if Jesse would be just as happy if it were the woman down the hall or a hired babysitter watching him. In the book's final poem, "Magnitude" Gloeggler says, talking to a friend:
I explain The lie that Gloeggler is speaking of goes beyond just whether he is deceiving himself about Jesse’s emotional connection to him. He is replying to his own statement that he loves Jesse just as he is and that, unlike his friend who has an autistic daughter, "I never wish Jesse was different." There are times when the narrator admits that he wishes he could play Jesse in a game of one -on-one basketball, talk sports, or take him to a Springsteen concert. One of the more fascinating parts of reviewing a book of poetry written from the first person point of view is to try to assess the nature of the persona the writer is trying to project and the distance between that persona and the actual author. In his group home role, Gloeggler portrays himself as the no-nonsense, hands-on, administrator whose first concern is those in his charge and who has no patience for administrivia. The Gloeggler of his personal relationships, though, is a more slippery character. At one point in the narrative when the speaker is trying to understand why Helen's attitude towards him has changed, he says, he can't understand how things
change from Tongue-in-cheek? In addition to peaking one's interest about what Helen's version of the story might have been, it makes one look twice at how the author portrays himself. In itself, using accessible language and holding back on obscure literary allusions, doesn't automatically mark one as anti-intellectual. One only has to think of Billy Collins. On the other hand, Gloeggler (or at least the speaker in the poems), makes sure everyone understands that his masculinity is intact. He watches porn, checks out women on buses, points out that he was injured making a game-winning baseball catch, and sprinkles in a few expletives for good measure. One has to wonder if this is a barrier against the perception that because he genuinely cares about an autistic boy who is not his biological son that he is actually a sensitive human being. Or perhaps he is on the level when he says,
and no one seems to accept Until the Last Light Leaves is an engaging book. Set primarily in New York City it conveys the texture and grittiness of the city that is the backdrop to the more personal events described above. As such, it is a particularly rewarding read for those who call that area home; however, being a Brooklynite is definitely not a pre-requisite to enjoying the book. Readers who tend to shy away from poetry as erudite but have an interest in disability, especially autism and developmental disabilities, will find it especially rewarding.
Title: Until the Last Light Leaves
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