The Master Thief: A Poem in Twelve Parts

Abstract

Camille Guthrie. The Master Thief: A Poem in Twelve Parts. Honolulu: Subpress, 2000. Chapter 22 of Exodus describes laws and ordinances against thievery. In verse 8, Yahweh proclaims that if a thief who has given stolen goods to their original owner is not found, "then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to see whether he hath put his hand unto his neighbor's goods." If found guilty, the thief/master would then have to pay the neighbor back double the worth of the stolen property. Camille Guthrie, arguably, pays back double what she has stolen in this fine book, but she also shows what's been nearly stolen from her as a girl turning into a woman: the ability to tell her own story, without the aid of received narratives and types. According to Jewish mythology, the bone of a yid'oa' (beast or bird) in the mouth of a human yidde'oni, speaks of itself. In The Master Thief: A Poem in Twelve Parts, the bone and the mouth often trade places: the poet puts poems in her own mouth, where they speak of themselves-this book is filled with unattributed and unaltered quotes-and the poems put the poet in their mouths, out of which form fragments of personae and lexicons: "...Out of it, she carved a mouthpiece-the bone began of itself to sing: Now I will show myself to you in my true form" (61). We crib stories all the time, and put many bones in our mouth, but often at the expense of telling something true about ourselves. The poet here attempts to glean a truth out of this conflict. Each section in this book of twelve long poems takes on a signature form: fragmentary dialogues, mock idylls, near-pantoums. The sections are prefaced by 18 Ih-century chapter headings, which in and of themselves are poems of a high order: So she said Yes and put her hand in his hand-Snippety-snap-Fast & Loose vital currents began to circulate-The particulars of the inheritance-A number of wild useful plants-"How dare you sneak into my garden like a thief? I'll make you pay dearly for this"--Oh, that I had a letter!-A further account of the mistake-Which way? Which way? (15) Each section and preface are mini- bildungsromans at once utilizing and commenting in (rather than on) this genre. Recall Melville's chapter on "FastFish and Loose-Fish" in Moby-Dick. A Fast-Fish, whether connected to a boat or displaying a "waif" (a "token of prior possession") "belongs to the party fast to it." But a "Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it." And what, asks Melville, "to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish?" This, for Guthrie, is the masterthief's point of departure. Isn't the human self loose, finding in literature ways to fast itself? And isn't literature itself loose, waiting to be fixed to a human self? By highlighting the psychic-borrowings the self engages in, Guthrie builds a poem of experience, rather than reflection; a poem written as part of the attempt to have a life, rather than a poem written out of a life. From whence do you come & whither are you bound asks one poem in a tone that's difficult to put one's finger on: is this ironical? romantic? coy? This very confusion adds moments of grace to a book that could have been infused with the merely sarcastic and droll use of various literary dictions. …