The Devil Every Day
John Nyman
Poetry
Palimpsest Press, 2023
83 pages
ISBN: 9781990293467
$17.95
Reviewed by Lee Groen
John Nyman’s A Devil Every Day is a holy trinity—verse, rhythm, and form—compiled into a diabolical 3-part collection of poetry that examines classical Christianity through a modern lens: Becoming, Becoming Evil, and Praise God. Topics range from houseplants to dreams, government to whiteness, divinity to hellish incantations.
The genesis of John Nyman’s A Devil Every Day is a quote taken from Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “But if all are alike both right and wrong, one who believes this can neither speak nor say anything intelligible; for he says at the same time both ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ And if he makes no judgement but thinks and does not think, indifferently, what difference will there be between him and the plants?”
Aristotle’s quote stands in as a thesis, a sacred foundation from which Nyman explores not only the dichotomy between good and evil, but the banality of humankind’s relationship with both.
Throughout each measure of this 3-part collection, the Devil acts as both Nyman’s and the reader’s close companion. It takes many forms: an enigmatic figure who is more riddle than villain; a sweet-talking hypocrite; good and evil incarnate. “He knows that talk is cheap, / though speech is free // He’s fluent, but obtusely // perhaps his evil’s mostly / just banality.”
A Devil Every Day is also a scattered love letter to the natural world—a place unimpeded by a moralizing society. Gaia, whether a house plant or Mother Earth, is a grounding element, something pure outside of the muddied morals of mortal life: “My species keeps its evil in statistics, / our reptile selves careening aggregate // towards the Devil, while yours accepts it’s mindless / at the level of the individual.”
The importance of this connection brings deeper meaning to the striking art on the cover where the Devil waters a house plant with fire. A Devil Every Day can also be read as a critique of humanity’s complacency and passivity: “The Devil only instigates / passivity. / He handles conflict with / outstanding care. / He has no trouble winning / advocates. / The games he plays are fair.”
Nyman’s own words linger like the Devil’s whispered sweet nothings: “Blessed are those who need not prove they’re human, for they can do something else entirely.” The collection is a subtle marriage between the divine and the natural world: “God commands ‘no.’ / Gaia says yes. / The Devil is in between. // God is the dreamer, / Gaia, the bed. / The Devil is the dream.”
That said, A Devil Every Day can be inaccessibly dense and deliberately abstract at times. Readers will need to spend time with each poem, motif, and incantation, carefully examining the speaker’s intention. Nyman respects the reader enough to make them work for it, even if there’s devilry in this approach: “God is violence, / Gaia’s sex. / The Devil? He’s obscene. / God is the Other. / Gaia, one. / The Devil must be me.”
Nyman is a poet, critic, and editor of mixed European and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage from Toronto. His previous works include Players, Your Very Own, and The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: A Selection, among others. For more information visit johnnyman.ca.
