Tongues of Men and Angels

Mary Ellen Miller was a poet and Associate Professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.

A jacket blurb says, “In these two dramatic monologues, Maggie Helwig explores the visions of two early men of science, Johannes Kepler and John Dee. The poetry is very haunting, almost hallucinatory’ (Northrop Frye).” High praise from high quarters.

A few of the poems here, especially “The Mystic Marriage” from the Dr. Dee section, are very bad poems. There is nothing mystic about the drunken first sexual encounter depicted here:

These are the last lines of the worst poem in the book. It is probably unfair to quote them because they are far from typical. Ms. Helwig has a powerful gift for capturing the magic of astrology and astronomy. The first section, not entirely a monologue, tells the story of Dr. Dee (astrologer to Queen, Elizabeth I), his wife, and his helper, Kelley, who is in love with the doctor’s wife, Jane. Theme is nothing soap opera-ish about this spell-binding tale of men who “catch sideways sight of shapes past thought” (“The Doctor and the Stars”).

The Kepler section contains so many beautifully handled poems that it would be impossible to choose a favorite. Helwigs subjects are on the grand scale: science and pseudoscience, the fear of the unknown, and the enchantment with it. These subjects are handled in an appropriately grand manner: forward-marching metrical lines and rich, dark images. An unforgettable collection.