Clayfeld Holds On

In this new collection, Robert Pack reprises Clayfeld, a character he created in 1987, who is the book’s protagonist as well as Pack’s doppelgänger and alternate self, the self that both enacts the life that Pack has lived through his dramatic exchanges with Clayfeld, as well as the life Pack “might” have lived, given their shared proclivities and appetites. Written in short, rhythmic lines, the lyrical narrative recounts Clayfeld’s and Pack’s formative memories, anecdotes, and episodes involving parents, family, and friends, all against a backdrop of the natural world, the lakes, mountains, birds, and wild animals that have always been a fundamental part of Pack’s writings. In colloquial and lucid language, the poems explore a number of concepts and beliefs—such as loyalty, generosity, commitment, and an awareness of the cosmos—as Pack reminds us of the mysteries and complexities of human awareness and unrelenting human desire. Above all, the persona Clayfeld loves puns and jokes, humor and music; these, he maintains, are humanity’s greatest gifts in facing contingency and loss, accepting the body’s humbling frailties, and enduring the inevitable sorrows of mortality. Together, Pack and his shadow-self enjoy what can be celebrated in the sweep of passing time, all the while acknowledging, as Clayfeld does, that he, perhaps, has “too many ironies in the fire.”