Up Rising: Rena Rosenwasser’s Elevators

I wanted to hold onto up, space of the

 

future, new building

 

You

 

               -  Rena Rosenwasser, Elevators

All manner of bodies can be seen as physical structures: our bodies are houses, our art is a cathedral, relationships are pieces of architecture buried under layers of miscommunication, missed opportunity and regret. Nowhere is this more clear than in Rena Rosenwasser’s newest collection of poetry, Elevators. In these poems, the narrator is a traveler, a lover, an artist, an archaeologist, expounding on and exploring the physical structures that we have built with our own hands. 

The collection is comprised of seven individual poems, often functioning within themselves as separate poems born of the same idea. The very first poem shows us what we might expect, what to look for. The main vehicle for the first poem is art, and the three-paneled painting invoked in the title “Triptych” shows us we will be investigating threes. (The most solid structure in nature is reported to be the triangle, and this triptych certainly harkens back to the pyramids of Egypt, a theme that recurs most often throughout the collection.) But now, the poet wants to draw our attention first and foremost to the structure of a relationship. Can the reader at first glance think of the narrator’s relationship as a solid one when so many words of loss are present?

 

Not to be undone. Not to be riddled with images. Or lost in compartments.

 

Two floors up or on the ground. Stucco cracks in the middle of night and

 

pieces fall. Sometimes I am sleeping when the falling happens. (Italics mine.)

 

 

 

Each negative word reinforces the idea that something is missing, that the structure in which we are exploring is filled with pitfalls and holes. Yet, ever familiar is the Lover: the one in the cast of characters upon which this entire poetic exploration is hinged. The poet makes clear that there are things we do not know:

 

The house has the appearance of two floors. At least two inhabitable

 

stories but if I extend myself I can see there is another floor below the

 

two we are situated on. Is there a key somewhere that has eluded me?

 

 

What we do not know could be the third person that has entered the relationship, though we do not know if the narrator is the one considering an infidelity, or if it is the Lover:

Two women ride on. They watch distant Umbrian hills fade away. A third

 

woman’s name is on a card that one of the two women has written. I read the name as the card slides back and forth along the narrow roads.

 

 

 

The relationship worries are only one way to read the structure of the narrative. Another commentary could be the ways in which the church and the obviously lesbian lifestyle in the collection are at odds with each other. That is perhaps a more feminist approach than is necessary since relationship concerns are obviously not limited to lesbian relationships. But this viewpoint illustrates one of the things I like the most about Elevators. There are a myriad of ways this work can be read and re-read. Like broken pottery unearthed from an archaeological dig, the pieces can be torn apart and restructured into many different shapes.

Perhaps the solid structure of “Triptych” makes the poems easier to comprehend at the outset. The structure is forty-seven stanzas of three lines each. Further on, the poems become harder to understand syntactically. Here, one must rely on certain keywords and phrases that put the poems in perspective.

“Gurgling in the Monster Depths” has as its most obvious trait, a solid, repetitive structure. The first part of the poem is a structure “riddled with holes” that sits upon a solid foundation of words. The dramatic differences between the sections are its strongest commentary. We are not given exact meaning through syntax in the top section of the units that make up this poem. We are given subject matter.  The very first complete statement of this poem, “WORDS TRANSGRESS”, shows us that we cannot count on the actual words to hold up their end of the bargain. They do not comply. They do not do as they are told. Here, the reader is presented with the subject matter of identity, of queerness, of masks presented to the world. (Here also will be our first glimpse into the death masks of the pyramids and the wrappings of mummies: subjects of which Rosenwasser seems to be quite fond.) The sentence structure of the first section of each poem is non-existent. We find subjects missing verbs, adjectives with nothing to modify. Yet, the intention is clear: where identity is concerned, our ideas of self and how that self relates to society are not always clearly defined. What are we to make of words that do not adhere to the places we have given them? What are we to make of words we cannot pigeonhole in order to feel more comfortable with them? But again, the poet gives us a solid foundation for such words. In the bottom section of each poem, we are given sentence structure to counter our feelings of misplacement. Whether or not we understand the actual meaning of a sentence, the fact that it has structure (that verbs follow nouns and that adjectives have objects to modify) makes us feel somewhat centered again. But the poem forces us to investigate our feelings of discomfort when we are confronted with language that defies our expectations.

And now, perhaps, is a chance for us to rest. The most incomprehensible poem in the collection is also the shortest. Yet, it is most clear in this poem that there are many things we do not know. There is an internal life in this poem that is hidden from us. The poem resides in the liminal space between sleeping and waking:

 

drift        sleep’s sheeted sounds        starched

 

perimeter

 

motion the bed round                         Father…

 

 

 

The poet drives us to sleep immediately, thus obtaining a license to speak less than coherently about this liminal dream space. We know that  “Father” is involved, but the ellipsis hides his emotional import from us.  The very existence of the poem is fragmented. As the title of the poem suggests, there is no narrative.  No clarity. No closure.  This poem also signals a shift in the arc of the collection. No longer will the poet make the ideas contained within easy for us to understand. The hand-holding is finished. The Traveler persona adapted by the narrator for the previous poems shifts now to the Archaeologist, signaling that the reader must now do the work.

What better place for us to truly begin than with “Real Mummies Wait Out the Hours?” Setting: Egypt. Lore: Egyptian mythology. The reader must begin by understanding the purpose of the gods the poet has chosen to punctuate the story. The significance of Shu, translated literally as “he who rises up”, is the personification of the title “Elevators.” The elevator’s primary job, as its name suggests, is to rise up, so Shu is the obvious choice as a vehicle for the poems that follow. Here, also, is the idea of collapse. If Meidum is a collapsed pyramid, the structure of the poem also mimics collapse. The stanzas appear to the eyes as inverted pyramids, the lines becoming smaller and smaller as they proceed down the page. The footnotes also direct us to the “breaking apart” of sections of the mummies in order to find the artist’s color mommia brown. (A reader may also spend time considering and re-reading the idea that mommia brown was used to make shadows on canvas and how the dead have long been considered shadows of their former selves. The poet’s preoccupation with mummies lends credence to this view.) The Archaeologist will visit Luxor, the necropolis and will read The Coffin Text. The reader, as Archaeologist, will consider the many allusions to death and the difference between the physical body (Ba) and the soul (Ka). The spacing inherent within the poems is reminiscent of an archaeological dig: pieces of pottery, the remains of a hearth, bones. It is our job as readers to piece together the meaning in these objects—if indeed there is any—based on what we know of the lore of the people whose artifacts we unearth.

“Structure Breaks” brings on a replay of the structure of the previous poem, “Gurgling in the Monster Depths.” In this poem, the bottom stanza has become larger (seemingly creating an engorged foundation) and the upper stanza has shrunk. Does this indicate that the reader should now be becoming more comfortable with the idea that language (and perhaps relationships) do not always behave in the ways we expect? Have we grown more comfortable with transgression?

The book’s title indicates that we should find a certain kind of closure in the final poem. What does the elevator have to do with the book’s overall vision? What, if anything, are we supposed to glean? In this way, the final poem is perhaps the most daunting for the reader. If one is expecting a swift, final act of closure, one will not be granted. This act of defiance could be the aim of all language poetry: to resist the “natural” inclination towards closure. The human eye depends on closure: a filling in of missing information based on patterns. While Elevators is full of patterns, it does not deliver the succinct ending a more traditional reader may be expecting. The setting of this final poem is obviously New York; but it is the poet’s New York. Buildings rise without actual structure. Whereas the poems make the structural objects feel tall, there is distinctly little detail about them:

Skyscraper

 

fire-resistant steel

 

How I spent the afternoon

 

turning Eiffel’s bridge vertical           Possible  plumb-

 

 

 

referent-

 

line

 

 

We are given no walls, no foundations. Our reading of this final poem is fragmented. Does it give us the idea of how little we actually know about the United States’ most iconic city? Does it impart us with some understanding of how structurally unsound is our knowledge of the world? Only the reader can decide this for herself. But through this decision-making process, she becomes a character inside the unfolding drama. She is New York. But something else also happens: we see the pull of the elevator. If we look closely, we understand that the purpose of the elevator is to test our view of the world in which we exist. Stepping into the elevator takes faith. It also requires a certain amount of optimism. There is a joy in leaping to the top floor of our existence, of embarking into the unknown. Essentially, the poet gives us a choice. Stay on the ground floor, with all of its seeming certainty, or brave the elevator, allowing ourselves to be lifted out of the mundane, the accepted, the normal. The poet gives us her choice, even though she allows us to decide for ourselves:

When we roam our own     Nouveau

 

 

 

 

 

York

 

join me

 

 

 

let the platforms rise

 

 

 

Rena Rosenwasser
Elevators

Kelsey Street Press
ISBN: 978-0932716750
Pages: 72

“Handing The Cask”, poetry by John Swain, published by erbacce press, UK. Reviewed for Full Of Crow by Lynn Alexander.

I keep saying that John Swain is a poet to watch, and I have published as much of his poetry as I could get my hands on including “Burnt Palmistry” and “The Feathered Masks” as well as including two of his poems when I guest edited the September 2011 issue of Graffiti Kolkata Broadside. His work has been nominated for awards and prizes and has appeared in Red Fez, part of our small press family.

The late Nobius Black of Calliope Nerve stated that John Swain “paints the world in words.” Sandy Benitez of Flutter Press said that “he has only begun to enchant us.” And I couldn’t agree more.

John Swain is a humble, reluctant artist who seems to shy away from the trappings of ambition and persona and somehow remains above all of that. It is this tendency that is part of his charm because it is refreshing, his work speaks for itself, and it reaches you without imposing. You want to let it in. In my opinion, some arrogance would be well deserved- but you won’t find it. When I first started reading his work, I couldn’t help but wonder: where the hell has this guy been? But every poet has their time, and here’s hoping that we continue to hear more from him. 

His latest collection from UK-based erbacce press, Handing The Cask, is an assemblage of poems, many have appeared online but you will still want to get the book because you will likely revisit them, as I do. Swain’s vibe is introspective, thoughtful, romantic, surreal, an exertion of unique descriptions and oddly coupled terms that together bridge the physical world with the ethereal:

Rain became another queen of the peak,

she tore at her breast to strengthen the young.

(Binding of Branches)

Twilight grants relief to the person I am seldom

like dogs emerge from burrows to scavenge

the elusive paths illuminated by absence,

I held a weathered limb to stable my ranging.

(The Offered Garments)

The frozen river kept the skeletons of horses

in a pyramid diamond

I knelt in my wound like the drowned rider

(Over the Broken Room)

Nature, rendered in her primal environment, beautiful and cruel, qualities found in the writings of one of my favorites, Annie Dillard. Swain is less apart from the physical world as he floats peripherally in transcendent verse, as he is rooted in the firmament of the landscape as it truly is, acknowledged and honored:

I turn the loose earth

searching the murmurs for presence.

(Epitaph Seven Years Past)

Nature is not apart, but of this realm, creatures the constituents and mesh of her dominion:  

The crows rejoice in their roost at the calm darkening. (Invocation on the Gravel)

Scattering of Migrations

At scattering of migrations

these blue movements flood

as every bird becomes the sky,

as every fish becomes a wave.

We rain

lit into the unceasing horizon

where sunset halves the world

in silhouette of man and woman.

The transient nature of physicality, and shared consciousness of mortality:

I was glad

my reflection vanished

(Queen Anne’s Lace)

Inheritance

I fear for the unborn

and fear for the wild,

all that passed between us

will drift away.

And as glass beads fall

from around your neck, 

this fear is the extent

of our natural inheritance.

Handing the Cask is available now from erbacce, information here. 

Read the last review of Wolfe’s work here: Review of Jennifer C. Wolfe’s “Healing, Optimism, and Polarization”, BlazeVOX Books.

Once again Jennifer C. Wolfe takes aim at American politics in her newest collection of poetry, forthcoming from Buffalo’s BlazeVOX books. In them, Wolfe goes beyond the current political climate to explore the role of the media and pundit-ainers who “report” with seemingly unprecedented partisan bias, and do so shamelessly. She is critical, and she doesn’t pretend otherwise. She is a political poet and she goes with it, her point of view obvious, and in my opinion the targets are pretty deserving of her scorn. As Wolfe argues, though, it isn’t so much about specific people as much as it has come to be about a certain mindset. And while few of us take a naive view of harmonious co-existence, the nastiness often catches us off guard and we find ourselves wondering if we are watching an episode of “Punkd”.

Are they for real? But the sad thing is, as we read these poems, we are reminded that they are. We are reminded of some of the most egregious and ridiculous examples of politicians and their antics, reliving our ‘head shaking moments’. This is Wolfe’s diorama: an assemblage of some of the ugliest vitriole that the political arena has to offer. Wolfe will remind you of bridges to nowhere, elementary school style hand scribblers, crosshairs as “humor”, the golden 2012 ticket, memoir fiction, selective amnesia, and more. She covers a lot of ground, and if you share her disgust, much will resonate. Unlike many political poets, Wolfe doesn’t throw blame in one direction. She includes our culpability as well, as citizens often asleep at the switch. So many of us buy into these “talking points” and the facts- as can be discerned, anyway- are relegated to the back burners. We eat what we are fed and we don’t care if it is good for us, we care that it appeals to our lower selves, the selves that emerge when we watch Jerry Springer, something in our nature. It is some strange fascination with conflict, with discord, with drama, with one-upping, with smirks.  It doesn’t have to be true. We can suspend our ability to discern reality, like the days of Wrestlemania, when people everywhere thought Hulk Hogan was real even when we saw the smoke and mirrors. We know better, and yet we want something that distracts us perhaps from the truth. The truth isn’t fun.

It doesn’t even have to make sense. It only needs to be repeated, the gimmick steadfast, and whenever possible the reality and difficulties facing so many Americans today can be obscured, as long as the formula is followed, including boasting about tax cuts despite record spending, national security, and who remains more true to the supposed intentions of the “founding fathers”. (The actual writings of said founding fathers are irrelevant, and the idea of our nation being founded in part so people would not have the myopic intolerance of a state sanctioned theocracy seems also to elude them, strangely enough…) Wolfe explores these issues, and more, in her direct style.

She starts with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, one example in a pool of many that could have been described with similar terms. She quickly moves on to the catalog, laying down layers of squawker indictments. The key concern of Wolfe’s, as in her previous poetry collection from BlazeVOX,  is the polarization, the agenda of divisiveness that one would think to be at odds with the right’s purported “patriotic unity”. What they mean, we clearly see with the likes of Fox and co. and talk radio, is that this unity is based on an agenda of conformity to a pretty specific platform, discourse be damned. To be patriotic is to tow the line, and often to lie and agree to be lied to. It is to be a perpetual revisionist, to love the sound of your own voice more than the sound of your neighbors with genuine and valid concerns, to lose sight of accountability beyond the rabid assignment of blame to those they see as the opposition.

And that is one of the problems, as it matters little what politicians actually do. They will be blamed and credited along party lines, irrespective of history and chronology. We see history being rewritten as we are living it. Perpetuating it is a profession. They are part of “journalism”, pundits, they are “expert commentators”.

Wolfe seeks out this dynamic, shining the light. She does so by looking both at the actors and issues themselves, and how partisan politics often plays out in the media coverage of issues and current events. She doesn’t shy away from the influence of race, class, and gender and she brings an awareness of the role of corruption and special interests, such as through lobbyists and the career power seekers.

The poems give us a “who’s who” in contemporary politics, from Jan Brewer to Michele Bachmann to Tony Hayward. She identifies the key players, like Palin, and speculates about their persistence. (sometimes, their baffling persistence)

As I stated when I wrote about Wolfe’s previous poems, it is difficult to be a political poet and there is debate among poets about its place, some argue that it is our duty to comment and criticize. Some argue that politics have no place in a poem, and that there is no obligation to go there, or that the poem should never be burdened by an “agenda”.

I always say, and will say again here, that there is room for diversity and for poets of all stripes and persuasions, with or without a message, with or without a sense of obligation to delve into politics or social commentary. That Wolfe has decided to put her views out there is something to respect in my opinion, in an age where people worry about perception and often try to play it safe. Her poems are clear, straight, accessible, and reflect many of the news interests of regular people, from disasters to profiteering, the stuff of conversations.

Look for this soon over at BlazeVOX : here.

“Jazzbo Wind”, by Michael Layne Heath, published by Kendra Steiner Editions, reviewed by Paul Corman-Roberts for Full Of Crow.

Michael Layne Heath’s poetry is about nothing if not music.  An original Washington DC punk rocker expatriated to San Francisco, Heath has found himself a nice little home with Kendra Steiner Editions, a poetry press that has now also become, surprise, surprise, a music label as well.  KSE publisher Bill Shute has had a long standing commitment to independent rock and roll and literature, and he’s got the writers to back up the commitment from the literary side of the enterprise with other rock  writers like A.J. Kaufman and Doug Draime.

Heath however, may be the most “Rock & Roll” of poets in the KSE house.  While the long periods of his life living hard and broke in pursuit of the glory of the literary and rock music lifestyles have been well documented in previous titles, his third and most recent title for KSE, “Jazzbo Wind” represents another significant step forward in his commitment to deeper poetry. Gone are the exploits of the fire breathing exploits of the street hustler (though they do get a nod in his poem “Golden Gate Park, 1992.”) Instead, Heath opens the collection with a surprising quatrain which even rhymes on the B lines (& how often do we see that anymore?) romantically titled “The Last Testament of Charlie Nothing,” quite literally a smart and satisfying pop song from a traditional rock writer.

But in between the bookend poems (the title poem concludes the chap) Heath digs deeper:

Look out honey
They’re misusing technology
Too busy looking in their hands
To make nary an apology

Consider this then
My clawing out of the corner
I was forced into by your mediocracy

Consider this then
Your final notice
Your welcome mat heartily shredded
Your contact unwelcome
And overtures better off recycled
Like the a capracio scores of historical discord

For I altogether prefer
Sure shot poems from
Occasionally damaged but
Invaluable players

From “Out Lemons Out”

The most refreshing thing about Heath’s poetry is that it’s not afraid to be poetry, that is, it’s not too cool to be poetry…which is actually the essence of real cool.  Heath praises other poets in the Bay Area; he touchstones on musical influences and genres, and yes, as pointed out previously, he rhymes.  It’s poetry that is comfortable with itself as poetry, and this conceit forms a kind of freedom for the writer of such poetry, and Heath makes the most of it to tell his truth, which is easy to see as real and genuine.

An exchange of angry words, empty wine bottles
Rolling across scarce cubic feet of
Worn carpet, exposed varnish wood.

An emaciated frame, once termed consumptive
Franklin topiary skull, stunned afternoon drunkard
Sitting emotional yet mute amidst his archives.

In the car going home,
A new Rolling Stones song on the radio,
Resolved to burn creative writing notebooks,
Avoid corpuscular imperative;
Pick up a guitar, a microphone.
Take a safer, healthier path.
(It didn’t last)

From The Bloodline of Words

In other words, Michael Layne Heath will always have roots as Rock & Roll poet, but his poetry has long since transcended that simplistic label.

Visit Kendra Steiner Editions here.

The following is from Bill Shute, for KSE, about “Jazzbo Wind” and Michael Layne Heath:

KSE is proud to announce the publication of the sixth poetry chapbook (his fourth for KSE) by San Francisco’s MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, “JAZZBO WIND” (KSE #185). Mr. Heath was one of the founding-fathers of punk-rock writing with his seminal VINTAGE VIOLENCE ‘zine, covering the under-rated Washington DC area scene in the late 70′s, and then moving into the early 80′s he was a fixture at other ‘zines of the day such as CAPITOL CRISIS and TRULY NEEDY. He’s been one of my favorite writers for 30+ years, and he was one of the first authors I approached to join the KSE family.

Michael moved to San Francisco in 1992 and began taking his work to new levels as he moved into poetry, a perfect fit as his writing always had the specificity and detail and metaphor needed for verse. With the  musicality one would expect, a timelessly hip voice, a mastery of reference and allusion, and a gritty streetwise presence—along with a cynical wit and a unique ability to capture the delicious pain of longing and physical desire in a way that is neither cloying nor cliche-ridden—Michael’s poetry is a breath of fresh air in today’s phony poetry world of post-Bukowski losers and posers and pretentious academic pasticheurs.

Like Corso or Patti Smith, Heath often writes from a poet-finding-his/her-way-in-a-barren-world persona, on the hungry streets and in the seedy transient hotels of San Francisco, seeking transcendence through a cheap thrill, looking to score, looking to connect with a fellow member of the diaspora, his head full of ornate Nino Rota film soundtracks and trippy Jamaican dub, his stomach empty, his heart overflowing, paying for drinks with pocket change, selling his Kerouac books and Prince Far I albums to pay the overdue rent, wondering if that lanky, ponytailed, sandy-haired, jean-jacketed guy from the midwest at the other end of the bar notices him, and wondering how he can get busfare home…if indeed he goes home tonight.

Michael Layne Heath creates/evokes a rich sensory world in his poetry, and we readers share in the poet’s insights, fears, and small pleasures. He’s intimate without being confessional, and he always leaves a lot unsaid, so his work cries out for multiple readings and also begs to be read aloud and savored. JAZZBO WIND may be only an 8-page chapbook, but it’s got far more content and far more depth than most 300-page books. Mr. Heath is, to me, one of the ten most essential poets writing in America today…no surprise that one of his earlier KSE chapbooks was listed as one of the ten best reads of the year (2007) in Arthur Magazine. This is a hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 67 copies, available for $5 postpaid ANYWHERE.

“This Reality Of Man”, poetry by Michael Aaron Casares, published by Lizard’s Tale press, 2010. Reviewed by Lynn Alexander for Full of Crow.

Michael Aaron Casares takes a candid look at humanity, as an observer at times, at other times a participant. He asks us how we spend our time, what we are entitled to, what it means to live with authenticity, to be a “citizen” with responsibilities, to touch down inside our own lives in the context of the “mad swirl”. We live in a vast unknowable, without any sense of how these pieces fit together.

He doesn’t make the case that they do fit together, context being relative. He acknowledges that even he is at times scribe, at times “scribbler”.

They aren’t all related thematically, as poems that have been gathered together from various publications where they first appeared. It does create a cohesive sampling of his poetry, however, as a collection. Some of the poems are at times only peripherally political, at times they are overtly so. (Taxed Wages, Bastard Practices, Corporation And State-Kill The Bank, etc.)

Casares takes a curious view of our icons, from Jefferson to Darwin to Freud, and the intellectual act of trying to make sense of things. Should we trust them, and their conclusions? Our history books are full of lies, “history books like fiction” , and we are convinced of ideas that are biased in favor of the powerful,  that perpetuate the status quo, consumption, competition…war…the convoluted messages of individualism, and “survival”, what that entails, what the goals are.

“breaking our backs to preserve a lifestyle”.

“believing our foundations steady”.

In his poems, Casares is often concerned with the regular person, the citizen victim, the powerless, and the relationship with the State and the Corporatocracy. He takes aim at the banks, at international monetary policy, at the war economy. But they aren’t all political, they are also about the self in search of meaning, purpose, connection. The role of the poet, the recorder, the celebration of regular people, and regular things.

Stand outs:

“Obtusely Abstract”

…no slinging slang to

correlate the vernacular with the layman

“Iconoclassic”

We will discover the tempered beauty of history on this fictional bus ride,

this mind-myth produced

“Integer”

Pulsars sweeping through the sky,
I become the sun of distant system
far away wanting nothing more than to warm
your life. Visible hadrons in the sky, naked
to the distant eye cannot see what hopes
and dreams are locked inside my heart. Expand,
I breathe deep with cosmic lungs the dust of stars,
inhale the swarm, fragmentary like eclipsing
planets of the sun. Light is fractured into shards
and melt into thin clouds, glowing, emanate
celestial swans with twinkling eyes and dazzling tongues.
Whisper far sweeps swift into this space, gregarious
place of mild chatter hearth with heart deep warmth
inside, pulsing, beaming, still alive.
“Resolution”

Eyes are missing, because they choked
on these they drowned. The
celestial wind breathes softly
longing for my brothers.

Michael Aaron Casares is based in Austin, Texas, where he runs and independent press called Virgogray and an online poetry blog called Carcinogenic Poetry. The cover art is his work as well.

Forked Tongue, by Craig Sernotti, Published by Blue Room Publishing.

Nothing’s out there, so stop looking

Nothing’s inside, so stop retching

If you follow Craig Sernotti, you will probably find that these poems represent the style that you expect from him, and that is a style that you probably feel strongly about- you either like it, or you don’t.  There are topics that some readers are just not comfortable with: penises, blowjobs, vibrators, urine, big tits, flatulence. I don’t think Sernotti cares.

I think it is possible to respect what a poet is trying to do even if it isn’t “your thing”, and I think that even if you fall into that category that you will find several places where Sernotti still reaches you.

Sernotti assembled this collection from poems that have appeared in web and print, and Forked Tongue is available now from Blue Room Publishing in both print and ebook formats.

In a review by Kirsty Logan for Pank, she points out a certain unevenness to the chosen pieces- differences in quality- suggesting that the collection as a whole might have been stronger with different choices as far as what to include from the range of Sernotti’s work.

I think this is a typical response to many poetry “collections”, particularly when pieces are brought together from various places. We often look for cohesion, for unity, and a sense that the work stands as a whole beyond the sum of its parts.  Certainly there are poems that stand out, and I think the problem is that this raises the bar on our expectations of him. We like the work, but we see this other side, and we want him to go there. In particular, Sernotti’s surreal and strange elements, his dreams, the places where images are twisted, scenes become odd:

“Songs of Myself”: I am singing my life/ I have gone mute/I am pulling off my nipples/I am knuckle deep in you

“Nothing Left To Give”: I tear off pieces/ of my face, put them/ into your waiting hands

I think that Sernotti will continue to grow and evolve as a poet, keeping some of the crassness as a feature of his style but perhaps developing in some new directions. I want to be clear in saying that I don’t personally take exception to his style and subject matter and I am not suggesting that he should change. I am saying that I anticipate some seasoning over time, and that some of his best work will be the work that is to come.

“Whimsical ridiculous meets explorations of consciousness.” Bensko is known for her experimental poetry and fiction, work that is strange and surrealist. It seems fitting that she begins this chapbook with the poem “Non Containers”, as this is not a collection that can be easily defined, a mix of poetry and fiction that tantalizes the imagination:

We play

At being fruit and being mouth

Desperate for approval

Until we go through the crack

To the rest of ourselves,

The light

That shows

Between the cracks

-”Non Containers”

In Spencer Dew’s review, he mentions Bensko’s tendency to ask rather than answer, to leave the reader “outside”. After I read Watching The Windows Sleep, I went back to this review and I think I returned with a different sense of what he was getting at, and wanted to explore this observation. I agree, but it didn’t bother me. How important is it for the reader to be led to a destination, as opposed to a more simple submergence in the text, in the now, in the immediate experiences of language and untethered ideas? How much of a burden should be placed on the storyteller? Should we demand a destination, answers?

Is Bensko what we might call “indulgent”? Is she indifferent about the reader’s investment, a tease that provokes, then closes the door? The simple answer is yes, but I don’t think this is a negative tendency. It is a wonderful tendency. It might make the reader uncomfortable, with that sense she mentions in “The Accidental Voyeur” of  “the longing to eat something more substantial”. But is Bensko really concerned about the hardiness of the dish, is she concerned with “meaning beyond meaning’? Yes, we are left wanting, but wanting of what? She won’t answer that for you.

I am not sure that she should, and I will get into why shortly. One could take that as neglect, but I wouldn’t. Hers is certainly a defiant, confident voice that does not seem interested in meeting our expectations. Spencer Dew suggests that she wants us to be impressed by her credentials, and this might be true. But this sounds like an assertion about personality, and one that has perhaps tainted his perception of Bensko from the onset.

Keep in mind what absurdist and surrealist literature aims to do: Absurdism, in particular, is rooted in the sense of futility about humanity’s purpose, it takes aim at contrived notions of significance and renders our attempts at resolution as nonsense. Now, can you really argue that Bensko isn’t doing that when she rejects the compulsion to provide answers, and instead chooses to focus on questions?

See, I don’t think she is asking them because the answers matter, to Bensko there is art to the asking. There are places in her work where she pushes us to consider the nature of wondering itself, why do we wonder? Why do we try to resolve things that are beyond the scope of what we can reasonably expect to untangle?

“You start to wonder if you are possible.” – “The Quantum Fool”

Right in the beginning, in the very first story, we see a man who is trying to eat a melon with a spoon, and a waiter reminding him that “melons are eaten with a knife and fork!”

Bensko’s man has been transformed by his experience with the windows, he has been in the presence of something magical, and he is no longer the same man. How does a man unpack this?  He begins to question his tools. How do we unpack this? What happens when we meet another of our selves, one who has experienced a fuller communion with the sensorium, how can one rest? Again, he walks. There is no enchantment. Nothing that satisfies.

The next story, The Terrace Steps:

“When we fly together at night sometimes, we almost exchange names like the birds, but I have not yet learned their secrets for how they do that. When I do, then, I would have to teach my friends, and they are perhaps too traditional to learn new things of that nature.”

Again, the theme of challenge, the comments on tradition. Examples such as these come up often enough in Bensko’s work for us to know that they are intentional, and Bensko’s consistency convinces me that she is not in fact being “indulgent” but has a method to her madness.  In this story we come across satiety again in the grandmother’s muffins. What kind of fulfillment is she getting at?

In “The Quantum Fool”, tradition again: “Hard to make out such an arbitrary thing. The old ways of looking at things are seeming so outdated. You feel sorry for those who are still trapped with them. Whatever those ways were.”

This passage really hints at what, in my view, the author is trying to accomplish here, she is deconstructing our perceptions, the reader like the changing figure in front of the rocks. And in “this particular reality, the one you are most familiar with, they lean to one side.”

Something else that can’t be ignored in “Watching The Windows Sleep” is Bensko’s way of connecting to the primitive vibe, whether it is the dream self in the wild, the touch of symbols, lush, the mouth that opens wide and consumes us. She connects to primal things, the mouth on the petals, conduit saliva.

You have to know what story you’re in before you can get out. The storyteller sometimes likes to just be. Outside of pretending there’s time. Outside of struggles and their interpretation. (And them anything can happen!) You’re outside of doing something to try to make something happen. Outside of questions and answers. Just plain outside. – “The Boy Who’s Floating A Flower”

Lynn Alexander is the producer of Full Of Crow Press And Distro, purveyors of web and print content as well as zine and chapbook distribution.  To find out more about our perspective on reviews, please see the “About” section above.

Constance Stadler takes us through a mindscape, the attic housing of the seemingly disparate in context and chronology, at times rendered mute and others- in the words of Rich Follett- buoyant, ebullient. The attic holds hope in the face of gracious resignation, the poet both grieves and reaches. Stadler writes with clarity and beauty about the journey, the poet struggling to live and see the present while responding to the inner tension of motion’s way, her needs. She honors the destination -even in the hypothetical- even as she acknowledges a deep and appreciative respect for the movement itself, for process. The process is something she has faith in, we find her indulging the self in transit, and it pays off. The journey no longer resembles a linear path, it becomes something that is both elusive and close to her heart.

There are certain features of Stadler’s poetry that convey this quality of “cohesive disjunction”, such as the way she places single, seemingly benign words that through pacing and structure bring the reader to a necessary pause. She is able to impose timing, and uses this skill like a musician, adapting speed to tone.

Readers might also find that she is able to achieve certain transitions imperceptibly. We don’t necessarily know what she has done until she has done it, and there it hangs in your head. What we find in the attic is vivid and incomplete, alive with pursuit, ‘reaching’.

Stadler is gifted, unique, elegant, raw. She is both reminiscent, and modern. Hers is an enduring talent and this collection is truly a gem of the small press.

Lynn Alexander is the producer and managing editor of Full Of Crow.

Who knows how long I have been interested in J.D. Nelson’s work, or how I first came across it. As a prolific poet, widely published, one is bound to run into him somewhere, in the usual places. But J.D. Nelson is not the “usual”. He’s batshit crazy!

Lest you think this departs from proper “review language”, I concede. But when I say this about J.D. Nelson it is from a place of respect and admiration, I say it in awe- because he is unique and what he does is a different kind of poetry. You are amused, challenged, entertained, and you will be transported back to whatever it was that made you love the things you loved before life made the argument for “maturity”. Nelson is playful, but twisted.

In a way, you are brought back to who you were before you started taking things so damn seriously. That said, Nelson doesn’t shy away from serious things, he just presents them right alongside. His poetry is liberated, strange.

In 40-Watt Red Party Bulb:

I’m down in the cellar

w/ the Harvard Lizard

& the pig-faced guards

I’m wearing a pig mask

I frighten the adults

J.D. Nelson takes aim at a lot, if you do some deciphering. In what seems arbitrary and randomly coupled, we see relationships emerge that- while he might dispute this on a few counts- are intentional. Many critics of the style misunderstand the absurdist elements as gratuitous silliness, without artistic deliberacy beyond gimmick. This is not true of these poems, where what is “silly” can also be sobering, the net effect of indirect references.

And regardless, I’m a fan of silly. I’m a fan of poetry that takes me on the trip, poetry that is wild and reckless. I think that J.D. Nelson is successful because he is odd but interesting, smart but artful. You’ll smirk, and there’s something to be said for doing that, and doing it well.

“Noise Difficulty Flower” is available as a free download, so you can check it out for yourself. Argotist has a pretty good catalog, Nelson is in good company over there.

From a review by Kyle Muntz, author of the “Voices”, Enigmatic Press: (recently reviewed here)

The language in J. D. Nelson’s “Noise Difficulty Flower” spirals outward like the petals of that aforementioned flower, but proceeds immediately to fold backwards upon itself (before leaping forward again): a psychokinetic flux, juxtaposing brilliant technique with scathing wit and a wry sense of the absurd. These “science fiction surrealities” are the stuff of fluctuating particles and erupting planets, manifest in precision bursts of language; a kind of stylistic kaleidoscope, composed of refracted images and fits of silent noise, sure to echo for days after reading.

Lynn Alexander, for Crow Reviews. Lynn Alexander produces web and print content for Full Of Crow Press And Distribution.