reviews

Days in Heaven Nights in Hell
By A.D. Winans
May 13, 2009

For the last several days, I have been carrying A.D. Winans’ Days in Heaven Nights in Hell around in my pocket.  Some days I read a poem or two, other days I forgot it was there. This is easy to do with the Pocket Protector series of books from Propaganda Press.  Tiny in size and supremely portable, I believe they are nearly a perfect creation. (except for the week I misplaced one and feared that it had been accidently laundered.  turns out it was in the pocket of some jeans I’d hung back up in the closet.)

Until today, I had merely popped open Days in Heaven Nights in Hell and read a poem while stuck in line or waiting for something, anything.  Today I sat in the warm pre-summer sun and started at the beginning.  What a revelation! The first poem, called “On My Way to Becoming a Man,” was a like a punch to the gut, in best of ways for a poem. 

An elderly black man approached me
Wanting to know where the restroom was
And when I pointed in the direction
Of where I had just come from
He shuffled his feet nervously
and said, “No, the colored room”

The second, “Panama Memories,” worked like a jab: 

Six girls lined-up
Like bowling pins
Rooted to the long
Wooden bench with
Zombie-like stares
Doing a woman’s thing inside
A child’s body

Setting me up for the third and the fourth. I began to wonder just how much of this I could take. All were powerful memories from Winans’ younger years.  

Later in the book, he begins to reflect on life at 70+ years and the book takes on a whole new appeal.  From “Approaching 70”:

bukowski told me in a letter
you seem like a man
who knows where it’s at
didn’t then don’t now

From “Untitled”:

At, 71, death plays with me
Cases my apartment
Like a cat burgler

From “Words”:

At 72, there’s still meat to these bones
Squeezed like pulp from a ripe orange

Winans is a heavy hitter. I have read his poetry scattered here and there, but never a collection, and it becomes abundantly clear that to appreciate a poet of quality, one must investigate more than just the occasional poem. One must dive in.

So dive in. Order up your own copy of Days in Heaven Nights in Hell HERE.  You’ll thank me.

+++++

Short Shots
by Alan Catlin
May 6, 2009

Another in the wonderful line of Pocket Protector books comes Alan Catlin’s Short Shots, published by the folks at Propaganda Press.

Anyone who has read Alan’s work will know without my saying where these poems are set, what the resounding themes are.  Familiar readers will have an idea what to expect. Alan is like one of those great bands that keep churning out album after album of kick ass rock. Buy the album; you know you won’t be disappointed.

If you haven’t read Alan before, you’ll get a clue from the cover: a drawing of a shot glass. Open the book and you find Part One: Short which begins with several pages of very short poems with a shot glass icon at the beginning of many of the pieces. This little icon acts as the title.

Alan’s poems live in the world of drunks and alcoholics and other denizens of your neighborhood tavern. Some fine examples:

Inside sleazy dive
all the bar flies are flush

spending welfare check
cash on long neck Buds

and

Old men silently drinking
tap beers sliding exact

change across the wood
for each new draw;

same time, same place
every night

These poems are brutally honest. They are real. They are the truth.  Often the truth is tough to look at, but as a bartender, Alan is paid to look and thank goodness.  This is, perhaps, the most fascinating part of the whole collection. We see this world, not as a participant (as most of us would be in a bar), but as a sober, removed observer.

Some choice bits:

From “Dead Head:”

He drank the way he
was talking, all sloppy
and confused,

From “Between the Sheets:”

There was nothing subtle
about her technique:
get them off balance with
a nice sweet smile,

The second half of this book, called Part Two: Shots, is filled with poems taking their title from different types of drinks: “Flying Dutchman,” “Irish Bastard,” and “Kamikaze,” to name a few.

This is another wonderful book from Propaganda Press.  More than worth the price of admission.  Order Short Shots here.

+++++

Taxi Cab Poet Confessions
A Small Press Tribute to Dave Church
(1947-2008)
April 2, 2009

Books like this are a tough thing to do right. You have to line up the best people, those people have to write inspired poetry, and you need an editor who can assemble all that into a fitting, touching, and appropriate collection.

So what about this book?  First, the cast: Dave Church himself is very well represented, Alan Catlin, A.D. Winans, Glenn W. Cooper, B.Z. Niditch, David S. Pointer, T. Kilgore Splake, Robert M. Zoschke, Nathan Graziano, leah angstman and Jonathan Church (Dave’s son) make one hell of a list. A small press who’s who and I’ve named maybe half of the poets included. On that score, this book is a coup.

Second, how’s the poetry? Inspired? Because, let’s be honest, a bad poem about a tree, or a river, or even a lover is simply a bad poem. But a bad poem about an important figure? Tragic. Unfortunate. However, these are not the best poets in the small market by coincidence and most of them knew Mr. Church on some level, so the pieces are also quite personal. (And full credit to leah angstman for her choices on Mr. Church’s poetry.)

Which leads to the third criteria, perhaps the most important: Editing. This book is brilliantly put together. Poems from Mr. Church interspersed with poems from others, an interview with the late poet, and longer prose tributes to Mr. Church. The best of the bunch, from his own son, is revealing, loving, and honest. Touching.

An excerpt:

He was real. He was eccentric, difficult, stubborn, disagreeable, but more than anything…alone, a gentle poetic soul, alone in his unease for the demands of respectable society. Maladaptive, yes, but it was true to form…

If you knew Mr. Church or ever read his work, this book is a must have.

If you want to glimpse the kind of bonds that make the small press great, buy this book.

Simply want to read some great poetry by and about a huge small press figure? You know what to do.

Order Taxi Cab Poet Confessions here.

+++++

no one gains weight in the shoulders
leah angstman
March 25, 2009

Though we cannot truly judge a book by its cover, we can perhaps allow the cover to influence our mood in those short moments just before we enter the book itself. In this case, we have a beautiful cover scanned, it appears, from an impressive painting. A beautiful young woman stares across her shoulder toward the opening of the book. Her look could be interpreted in many ways, though she is blue, literally. Her cheek and neck painted in an azure tone.

Once we turn back the cover and begin reading, we see this image as an obvious portent. The poems inside are beautiful, all, open to interpretation and, in many cases, melancholy. Or simply: blue. A prime example is  the poem “mr. ledger, sir, it’s too late for your autograph,” in which ms. angstman writes:

i didn’t worship you
i waited till that tide fell in and out
to write you now for your autograph

This is a fantastic poem, not just about Heath Ledger’s untimely death, but about celebrity in general.

This book contains far too many wonderful lines to mention. The poem “airports”  is absolutely packed:

i am sitting cross-legged in the ugly levittown-style
mass seating projects area of gate e2b
in the entirely unnavigable boston logan

My favorite poem of the collection is “a bronchitis story” because it reveals, perhaps, a great deal about ms. angstman and gives us a peek into her younger years:

silly doctors of course
not knowing i could read lips
my secret plan for world domination
was not to tell them
and my thought was
how cool it would be
to crack my own ribcage
with the power of my wind
and my heaving lungs
i desperately wanted to try it
like it was my own superpower

One can easily imagine the connecting line that travels back from today’s talented poet to this precocious, pigtailed girl who may or may not have tied towels around her neck as capes and flown about the house, up and down the stairs. This poem has such a wonderfully fresh perspective.

Certainly, I cannot end this review without mention of the poem “on poet justin.barrett,” which is deservedly praiseworthy:

whose words are like cancer
and candy squeezed up
into cellophane together
as one glistening pitched package
marketed to a
cavitied and chemo’d
shopper in a
tidy book aisle

That is brilliant. I wish someone thought so highly of my poetry and, further, I wish I could craft such lines regarding ms. angstman’s work in particular. Just to try and do them justice.

Flipping again through this collection, I see a dozen more poems I want to quote, but instead I will end by saying it comes as no surprise to see that ms. angstman is the artist who painted the cover image. The story comes full circle and, while a picture may be worth a thousand words, each word in this collection was chosen with such care as to be worth a thousand pictures each.

Order no one gains weight in the shoulders here

+++++

The Light Of Fields
Michael Kriesel
March 5, 2009

Love these little Pocket Protector books from Propaganda Press, they’re genius. I’d steal the idea, but they look like a lot of work to produce.

This one, book seven, carries on the tradition of quality. It starts with the following statement:

The Light Of Fields is a reprinted edition of Michael Kriesel’s second chapbook, originally published by Jump River Press, Inc. of Prentice, Wisconsin, in1982, when Michael was 20 years old.

And while these poems reveal a young poet beginning his journey, there is no shortage of quality verse. This is an impressive collection from a 20 year-old poet. From the opening poem, “Breaking Silences”

For days
I have watched each cloud in the river
broken into speech against the rocks

Kriesel based these poems in the natural world using words like grass, stone/rock, river and wind with great frequency. At times, I wondered at this repetition, but by the end of the collection I was struck by this thread of commonality winding through and pulling together these separate poems, making one cohesive whole.

Kriesel brings the reader on this journey with him, immersing us all in his wilderness. From “Prologue to a Season”

I go beyond the poking stubble
to the stand of spruce
to wholly know the greenness of this snow’s still soul

From “Marriage”

speaking
the meaning
of wind touching us

From “Opening”

Now let me open myself

to this surging field brushing my flesh

And perhaps these lines are the ultimate example, the best representation of this collection, boiling it down to the barest bones. We are all on this journey through the natural world. We are all this field of grass.

Order The Light Of Fields here.

+++++

These Poems are Not Pink Clouds
Timothy Gager
January 22, 2009

This collection begins to impress before the reader even cracks the cover, with a fantastic title and a seemingly perfect cover image. And the poems inside combine to make a solid collection.

“149.99 per week” is a great little poem with a great title, short (the way we here at nibble like ‘em). It is one of those poems that effectively shows a lot by saying very little.

We all sat in The Pilgrim Motel/with dusty drapes/and television/playing, on the bed/with nothing to do/but jump

I often rate poems by whether I wish we had published them first. This poem definitely fits the bill, as does the poem “On the way home from Maine, 1970.”

carsick in my father’s Beetle,/he uses an ice scraper/to remove the vomit

and

the spinning orange orb/of this Union 76/becomes my head

And there are plenty more worthy poems that fail the test simply for being too long for the silly format of nibble.

This is a wonderful collection and there are many rewarding moments.

From “Brown Nose Works the Job”

Brown Nose smiles/like a freshly painted picket fence

From “Howdy from Ohio”

The man breaks into a smile/which is fighting a duel with my wince

And from “EXTRA!! EXTRA!!”

caught/a tiny new hope of your nipple/behind a partially clothed robe/which I reached for and/pulled us slowly/fucked down lost/under the table and chairs

Perhaps the best poem of the bunch, “A Walk After Dinner on a cool August Evening, Somerville, Ma,” seems to chronicle a drunken trip home.

searching/for a heart of gold/or cupcakes

and

we are old/and must stop every fifteen minutes to pee/at a Dunkin Donuts

This collection is worth the price of admission, get it here: Propaganda Press

+++++

Poiesis #2
Propaganda Press
February 21, 2009

I’ve had Poiesis #2 on my bedside table for at least a month and I think I’ve finally read all 58 poems inside.  Amazingly, there are 54 poets represented here.  54.  The very scope of this project is enough to boggle the mind and the folks at Alternating Current do this TWICE A YEAR! And that’s in addition to  all the other books they publish.

Honestly, a project of this magnitude is something I would never undertake, but I am thrilled that someone does.

This is so much more than a biannual “magazine.” It’s an important collection of the best and brightest poets of the small press. From “old-timers” like Ed Galing, Alan Catlin and Hosho McCreesh (whose poem is perhaps the best of this massive bunch) to poets who are new to me, like the talented Jason Fisk  (whose poem pretty much blew me away).  And the poem “no place like home for the holidays (by leah angstman)  is not to be missed.

This collection also includes poetry from some small press poets who are no longer with us: Giovanni Malito, Charles D. Thacker, Karl Chamberlain and “possibly Catfish McDaris…quidnam can dico?”

As a fellow publisher, I have to wonder at the cost of such a project.  54 poets means 54 contributor’s copies.  54.  And then the cost of the book is $4?  Hmm, perhaps some bailout money factors in somewhere? (Thank you Mr. President!)

Happily, this is none of my concern and I can dive again and again into my own contributor’s copy (that’s right) and taste the sweetest fruits that the small press has to offer.

Frankly, it just doesn’t  make sense not to own Poieses #2 or, for that matter, not to have a subscription.  Dare I say it might be the only small press mag you need?

Well, clearly not, because you have to have your nibble! But every issue of Poiesis is an event not to be missed.

Order yours here:  Propaganda Press

+++++

an alien here
by leah angstman
january 23, 2009

The first in the series (now numbering six) of Pocket Protector books from Propaganda Press, an alien here is a fantastic group of poems. The best feature of this series of tiny, matchbook sized collections is the convenient portability. I stuffed this on in my pocket on a trip to the beach, hardly knowing it was even there, until boredom began to set in and I longed for something to read.

And I was far from disappointed, thrilled in fact, because angstman’s poetry is wonderfully honest, personal and so layered that one, two, even three reads later I’m still plumbing its depths. From poems like, riding bareback which is so sexually charged as to inflame feelings both erotic and embarrassing, as though in some moments you are a participant in the poem and others you are the voyeur:

the final breaths coming in
jagged cliffs
a small collapse on my chest
sucking his tummy in
trying not to touch his
contribution
or my sweat
he is warm
so fucking warm

To poems like 1926, about her grandfather, which is a fantastic personal journey that gives such insight into angstman’s life and genealogy the reader feels she has given out the very pieces of herself.

what i remember of you
are the things a grandfather
would want his grandchild
to remember
just that there are not enough years
of musings to recall for me

and later

when you died on my sixth christmas morning
my family didn’t tell us
we kids opened our presents
with delectation
at the prospect of sharing them with you
at the hospital where
months had taken life from you

The poem covers so much, it is impossible to simply quote it and do its grandeur justice. 1926 alone is worth far more than this book will cost you.

angstman uses no capital letters, in her writing or her name, and there is not a comma to be found anywhere in these poems, except in the occasional title, and yet the poems are written with such wondrous skill that the reader is never at loss as to her exact intentions.

From the empty house, a nuanced poem about a break up and how life goes on, changed, in the absence of a lover.

the rats are out
in the walls tonight
i hear them now that i don’t hear you

and

the quiet is a fog
creeping like a cancer
into my throat and ears

and later

it is bare as a branch in boston

angstman has a clear talent for weaving together beautiful words. She paces her rhythms perfectly and creates poems like deep, glistening pools you stumble across in the middle of a lonely wood, unable to resist the urge to dive right in and see how deep you can go on a single breath.

From the trek to d-town:

i’ll tell you what’s surreal
driving through spastic june
cotton woods
like snow in summer rainbow days
and speckled tori amos days
and robin eggs
broken at my feet

Generally, when I review a chapbook or magazine or other collection, I will read it through once or twice, write out a review and either send the book on to a fellow poet/reader or, to be honest, toss it in the recycle bin with the beer bottles and old copies of Sports Illustrated.

But not this little piece of genius. This one will be riding in my pocket for a long time to come and, NO, I will not let you borrow it. Get your own!

Here’s how:

Propaganda Press
$3 (so little!)
$1 shipping on domestic orders
(overseas add $2 for shipping)
Author receives royalties
U.S. Dollars Only
Cash/Check/M.O. paid to:
Alternating Current
P.O. Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
or PayPal to alt.current@gmail.com
or online @ alt-current.com
NOTE: For every chap
you purchase, you get one
random chap for FREE!

+++++

nowhere UTAH
by justin.barrett
january 22, 2009

Let’s face it, justin.barrett is one of those poets you either really dig or you think “I could do that.” The fact is that you probably can’t. Go ahead, try. We’ll wait….

See, not that easy and when barrett is really on his game, when he’s really exploring his own emotional depths, you can’t get anywhere near him. As in a tangle of hair and arms:

a brown dusk filters
through the canopy
above the playground
she straddles a
see saw, held aloft
by my heft
as i stand on the other end.

The occasional awkward line break aside, this poem sings.

barrett has a talent for writing short, snarky poems that usually aim their contempt squarely at the poet himself, as in Perspective from the 10,000-Foot View: Or What We Learned in Couples Therapy (in its entirety):

It turns out that from
The 10,000-foot view
I’m still an
Inconsiderate asshole
And she a spiteful
Condescending bitch.

Just on a much
Smaller scale.

While this poem is powerful, simple and has an appealing depth to it, too many of such poems would surely sink a collection, as most readers would stop taking the time and effort to find the depth and would simply see a poet who appears to be pandering to his audience, but barrett wisely uses these pieces between poems of greater length and deeper personal revelation. They are almost an interlude or a bridge.

Not one to waste words or pretty up his language, barrett is always “to the point” with his writing, but there is much beauty here and the images are burned into your mind. From The Luminiferous Aether:

She reaches across
me to turn
on the bedside lamp

A cone of yellow light
knifes through the
darkness
and
I squint into it
as she picks up
the receiver.

It’s her mother

and later:

The sun is choked
by a knot of
gray clouds.

My wife, in
black, stands stoic
against the
afternoon gloom.

Also in black,
her mother
weeps into
a balled tissue.

Now go ahead and try to write a poem like that. You can’t. I can see you don’t believe me, so here’s what I want you to do: buy this book, take it to your study or your Starbucks or wherever you write your best stuff. Read a few poems, then try to write like justin.barrett.

My guess? You’ll be inspired to write some interesting stuff, but you won’t quite be able to marry the simplicity of verse to the depth and beauty displayed in this collection.

But by all means, give it shot. Here’s where you start your journey:

Propaganda Press
$3 (so little!)
$1 shipping on domestic orders
(overseas add $2 for shipping)
Author receives royalties
U.S. Dollars Only
Cash/Check/M.O. paid to:
Alternating Current
P.O. Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
or PayPal to alt.current@gmail.com
or online @ alt-current.com
NOTE: For every chap
you purchase, you get one
random chap for FREE!

+++++

Ice Age
by david s. pointer
a pocket protector book
january 19, 2009

This is another in a line of wonderful little books from Propaganda Press. Tiny little things not much bigger than a matchbook, they stow easily in any pocket for a quick-draw when life throws you an unexpectedly long line or broken down commuter train.

This collection shows a great variety of form, from longer pieces with words packed margin to margin like In Line at the Bookstore to very short, haiku-like poems. While the packed poems can, at times, feel a bit heavy and prose-like, they are often interspersed with the shorter pieces. A kind of word relief. Here is an untitled poem in its entirety:

ex-Marine
atop Mt. Fugi

contemplates Nagasaki

There is a considerable emphasis on the distrust of government, religion, big business – all the sworn enemies of the left-leaning (rational) poet-citizen. In True Poetic Justice, Pointer writes of beached marine mammals having their revenge on corporate CEOs.

In Donations, Pointer pulls off the rare anti-establishment Trifecta and does so rather brilliantly:

The church
helps big business
and government
feed the Chupacabra
by donating
to charity
and not

social change

That’s just wonderful. And if this political attitude is in line with your own, you’ll love this collection. If, on the other hand, you were devastated when Sarah Palin failed to mount the Whitehouse (steps), then perhaps you had best look elsewhere.

Pointer even finds a way to blend both John McCain and poetry (no small task). From The Little Sound Byte That Wasn’t:

McCain

has been
asked to name a poet laureate or two.
…
but McCain doesn’t name any poet
laureate

Now and then there are a few odd metaphors/similes that clank a bit. From A New Start:

I wish I was a
tracheotomy tube

and from Power Tools:

The fireman’s eyes
were like electrical
burn blowholes

But there is plenty here to like. Pointer has a lot of important things to say and says them well. As in Parts Aren’t Always Parts:

a custom breast
prosthesis, small,
non-grey, somewhat
scary like President
Bush’s…brain.

These are the moments when this collection really sings.

Here’s how to order:

Propaganda Press
$3 (so little!)
$1 shipping on domestic orders
(overseas add $2 for shipping)
Author receives royalties
U.S. Dollars Only
Cash/Check/M.O. paid to:
Alternating Current
P.O. Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
or PayPal to alt.current@gmail.com
or online @ alt-current.com
NOTE: For every chap
you purchase, you get one
random chap for FREE!

 

+++++

A Sound to Drive Away the Coming Darkness

by christopher cunningham

january 1, 2009

With Christopher Cunningham, you’re going to get poems of truth, not a lot of flowery language (if any), no unnecessary strutting. You get stark, precise writing in every poem with one, maybe two, striking bits of imagery. Like this, from the opening poem titled, end of the world party:

bones that creak
like
old wood 

Cunningham speaks of things we are all familiar with in language we can easily understand, but his talent lies in presenting these common things in ways we may not have considered, a new perspective. This from the starlings:

…they
looked like a silken sheet thrown into a black breeze
by nervous hands.

As wonderful as his imagery can be, the real strength of these poems is their honesty. Several poems address the plight of the homeless in unflinching terms, neither pitying nor melodramatic, Cunningham just shows us the truth. Many of the poems are written from the perspective of the Watcher. Someone who observes and records, like a historian, leaving us ample room to draw our own conclusions. It takes no small talent to invite the reader in and allow him to bring the sum total of his own experience to bear without the poet nudging him in one direction or another. With these poems, you get out what you put in, save a new perspective and an invitation to consider that which may have slipped your notice.

This book is a must have and here is how you can get it:

Propaganda Press
$6/includes shipping
on domestic orders
(overseas add $2)
Author receives royalties
U.S. Dollars Only
Cash/Check/M.O. paid to:
Alternating Current
P.O. Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
or PayPal to alt.current@gmail.com
or online @ alt-current.com
NOTE: For every chap
you purchase, you get one
random chap for FREE!

+++++

Sweet & Sour (Life Poems)
by ed galing
december 8, 2008

Ed Galing has a near complete mastery of what he writes. In addition, he holds no illusions about that writing. As he writes in the intro to Sweet & Sour (Life Poems):

these observations were written just plain, without pretense, or flowery metaphors. because i am now ninety one years old, i have a lot to say and don’t have time to be cutesy about it. poets need to loosen up, and stop trying to be poets. just write the stuff as you think and feel about it. then the one reading it might feel the same. i don’t pretend to be rimbaud, or even bukowski, but who the hell cares. i am just a short, old man, with a chip on his shoulder at various times, and a soft spot, too. there are times when i cry, and i don’t care if someone sees me or not. the best writers are those who know how to cry. i know some people who never shed a tear. oh, they are so damn brave about everything. i say, if it hurts, damn it, cry. okay? i hope these sweet and sour poems will do both for you. that’s what i call poetry.

After that, you almost don’t need to read the poems, but of course, that would be a grave mistake indeed.

Having read, and published, Mr. Galing in the past, I am very familiar with his work. I have learned more about Mr. Galing in just a few poems than I have in whole volumes by other poets. His honesty is both refreshing and, at times, hard to take. Complete honesty can do that to you. Take these lines from Sex and Pity about intercourse with a prostitute:

the room was small/and dingy-/outside was a big/man watching every/thing…(she was) doing this to/keep from starving,/I puked on the/way out the door…

And then there are poems like Sweet Love which alternately awe you, thrill you and leave you feeling a little oogie:

you complain/about my left/hand/grabbing you/by the waist/and hugging/you tight, too/tight…/don’t worry about/the left hand,/baby,/it’s the right/hand you gotta/watch, baby,/that’s the sucker

Having read many of Mr. Galing’s poems, I have to admit that I doubted I would read anything new here, but I was wrong – and blown away. The poems here are intense, personal and damn good.

Mr. Galing’s poetry has appeared in more places than I can name and, likely, you have read him, but you’ve never read him like this. So I say, simply, GET THIS CHAP.

Here’s what you need to know:

Sweet & Sour (Life Poems) by Ed Galing
Propaganda Press
$7/includes shipping
on domestic orders
(overseas add $2)
Author receives royalties
U.S. Dollars Only
Cash/Check/M.O. paid to:
Alternating Current
P.O. Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
or PayPal to alt.current@gmail.com
or online @ alt-current.com
NOTE: For every chap
you purchase, you get one
random chap for FREE!

As an addendum, I was fortunate enough to get, as a bonus, Ed Galing’s Scribbles which is a “pocket protector book,” also from Propaganda Press. I strongly recommend the whole series. These tiny books, measuring 2 1/2 X 3 3/4 inches, fit in even the smallest of pockets yet pack all the poetry of a full size chapbook and are highly readable. Filled with more poems of a life lived long, with honesty, this (as with any collection from Mr. Galing) is not to be missed.

Ordering info same as above, but the cost is $3 (including shipping), $4 outside the U.S.

+++++

 

[untitled]
by justin.barrett
october 1, 2008

Everyone who has read nibble or cruised the “poets” section of this website knows that we have a relationship with mister.barrett. We have read a great deal of his poetry and have always been impressed with his voice, style and skill. For that reason alone, we were excited to get our grubby little hands on this latest collection. We were even more thrilled once we began reading.

One thing that struck us from the very first poem, a piece titled a poet dying in a bar, is that there is no conceit in this collection. In many of these poems, mister.barrett cuts himself open and shows us the color of his blood. From Alone: “an empty/ beer bottle/ sits on the curb// just like/ me”

mister.barrett’s style had us wondering if this were in fact a personal journal and not a book of poems. Though every piece must have been meticulously crafted, there is the sense that each of these is a first draft. This kind of honesty and openness cannot be faked and, in much of the poetry out there, usually gets revised out. The writing in [untitled] is so powerful, so authentic, you begin to wonder if you are in fact thumbing through one of your own dusty journals, reliving ancient memories that you barely remember. You soon realize your own writing could never capture life so vividly and you are left with a vague feeling ownership over the words. As though maybe, in another life, you could have summed up the world so perfectly.

Some of the best poems of the collection are the shortest. These look you in the eye, say what they have to say and then dare you to try and digest the words, dare you to look into your own life from this new perspective. Chances are you won’t, or can’t, but if you do the rewards are plenty. Here is entropy in its entirety: “you and i/ were just further/ proof of the/ second law of/ thermodynamics”

while mister.barrett has clearly worked hard to polish his craft, he does not waste any time in polishing his image. The life on these pages has not been edited, the words not chosen to improve your opinion.

[untitled] brings you only the truth laid open before you as all great writing should be.

Here’s what you need to know:

[untitled] by justin.barrett
Propaganda Press
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on domestic orders
(overseas add $2)
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Cash/Check/M.O. paid to:
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NOTE: For every chap
you purchase, you get one
random chap for FREE!

+++++

Where the Hummingbird Goes to Die
by Justin Hyde
october 20, 2008

This is a beautiful book with wonderful art on the front and back covers. It has one of the better titles for a collection that I have read in some time. But this is not an easy read.

I can see where a great many people would be able to gloss over this collection, read a few poems, claim disinterest and move on, but the truth is if you have an ounce of human compassion and are honest with yourself, than this collection will challenge your emotional strength. These poems are hard, very real and frighteningly honest. Mr. Hyde speaks in startling words about his wife, his family and his situation in life.

In “i know it’s been said, but don’t show your poems to your wife,” Mr. Hyde writes: “if you’re unlucky enough/to be saddled/with a curious one.” In “a drunkard feeds his son bananas from a jar” he writes: “the wife and I reconcile twice a day/only to have it explode in f bombs.” In “in laws over for dinner,” he mentions his wife kicking him under the table, his father-in-law’s low opinion of him and how attractive his wife’s little sister is in “a paisley tank top/that goes quite low.”

Some of these poems, many of these poems, are hard to read, but all are well written. The writing is simple, precise and doesn’t gloss over anything.

A poem titled: “what have you done in the real world” is a direct question from his wife, “her problem/ is that she believes in karma,/love,/a clean home.” Another poem is titled “I stole my wife’s smile.”

This kind of truth hurts. It hurts to read it and I can only try to imagine how much it must hurt to write it, to live it. I made the mistake of reading this collection all in one sitting and I’m not sure, honestly, how I made it through. It was unsettling to read such intimacy poem after poem, but I do feel better for it.

Perhaps in some ways, I’m glad the ‘I’ isn’t me. Or perhaps, the ‘I’ is me and reading the truth written in such stunning clarity makes the truth more beautiful, more bearable.

This collection hits hard, like most truths, but it is so pure it is a must read.

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