Samuel Ace, I want to start by saying

 

I want to start by saying I hear the filter in the turtle tank like a fountain.

 

I want to start by saying like a fountain in the middle of a field of wildflowers.

 

I want to start by saying that today would have been my father’s 84^th birthday,
            that he died eighteen days before his 79^th.

 

I want to start by saying that he was young and that death took him by surprise.

 

I want to start by saying that my mother died nine months ago, less than four
            and a half years after my father.

 

I want to start by saying the beginning of this sentence.

 

I want to start by saying that a child could have been born in that time.

 

I want to start by saying that a whole year has gone by since my godchild’s birth.

And so begins the accumulative book-length poem by American poet Samuel Ace, the deeply intimate I want to start by saying (Cleveland ON: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2024), a work composed from a central, repeating prompt. The structure is reminiscent of the echoes the late Noah Eli Gordon proffered, composing book-length suites of lyrics, each poem of which shared the same title—specifically Is That the Sound of a Piano Coming from Several Houses Down? (New York NY: Solid Objects, 2018) [see my review of such here] and The Source (New York NY: Futurepoem Books, 2011) [see my review of such here]—or, perhaps a better example, the late Saskatchewan poet John Newlove’s poem “Ride Off Any Horizon,” a poem that returned to that same central, repeated mantra (one he originally composed with the idea of removing, aiming to utilize as prompt-only, but then couldn’t remove once the poem was fleshed out). “I want to start by saying,” Ace writes, line after line after line, allowing that anchor to hold whatever swirling directions or digressions the text might offer, working through the effects that history, prejudice and grief has on the body and the heart. I want to start by saying articulates past racial violence in Cleveland, subdivisions, loss, “trans and queer geographics of family and home,” chronic illness, love and parenting, stretched across one hundred and fifty pages and into the hundreds of accumulated direct statements. Amid a particular poignant cluster, he writes: “I want to start by saying that I accepted the conditions of my father’s love.” There is something of the catch-all to Ace’s subject matter, the perpetually-begun allowing the narratives to move in near-infinite directions. As it is, the poem loops, layers and returns, offering narratives that are complicated, as is often the way of family, writing of love and of fear and of a grief that never truly goes away. Further, on his father: “I want to start by saying I was frightened to upset the balance of our connection.”

            I want to start by saying that I’ve been out of the house twice today.

 

            I want to start by saying that now I am sitting with a friend over coffee.
                        She mourns the loss of friends because she’s in love with someone who is trans.

 

            I want to start by saying the familiarity of so many stories.

 

            I want to start by saying that I mourn the rise of rivers, the smell of creosote,
                        the relief of summer monsoons.

And yet, through Ace’s perpetual sequence of beginnings, one might even compare this book-length poem to the late Alberta poet Robert Kroetsch’s conversations of the delay, delay, delay: his tantric approach to the long poem, always back to that central point; simultaneously moving perpetually outward and back to the beginning. “I want to start by saying the deep orange skies of the monsoon.” he writes, mid-way through the collection. “I want to start by saying we have returned to Tucson.” Set into an ongoingness, the lines and poems of Samuel Ace’s I want to start by saying is structured into clusters, allowing the book-length suite a rhythm that doesn’t overwhelm, but unfolds, one self-contained cluster at a time. His lines and layerings are deeply intimate, setting down a deeply felt moment of grace and contemplation. The book moves through the strands and layers of daily journal, writing of daily activity and thoughts as well as where he emerged; how those moments helped define his choices through the ability to reject small-mindeded prejudices. Through the threads of I want to start by saying, Samuel Ace may be articulating where he emerged, but all that he is not; all he has gained, has garnered, and all he has left behind. As he writes, early on:

I want to start by saying perfect in what world.

I want to start by saying desire.