Saigon, Hanoi Or Da Nang, David S. Cross. Poptritus Press, Reviewed by Lynn Alexander.
This is the second book of poetry by David S. Cross, and the second publication of Poptritus Press of California, U.S. Cross is a Canadian poet who has been published in both the United States and Canada, and more can be found about him at his website here. Saigon, Hanoi Or Da Nang is available now, through the publisher.
What are the memories of wicked men, pretending to be good?
What is history to a nation whose goals, enumerated, noble- become the goals of selective and strategic interests, in the service of the powerful? Who are the heroes?
Cross begins by directing the reader’s attention to the black caped men who have left behind rags: in the theater, on battlefields, in the opera house, in the jungle, under the earth, in the coal mine. More than capes and costumes, Cross is looking not at the props but at the deeds and the subjectivity of character. What scene HAVE we seen? What fears are real? What is going on while the drivers doze? What about the hypothetical “Gotham”, the American Dream, is really being protected here?
And so the reader is prepared for the questions that follow. The poet takes a nostalgic turn right away: the lost republic, the age of black and white televisions, a different time where there was a different sense of economy and prosperity. Society once NEEDED tv repairmen. People traveled the “asphalt ribbons” of highways, before “in disappointment”,“we slipped away, letting others possess our tongues.” (Career Change, Driving With My Baby)
“There was another time” (Decades) reads like a refrain when we hear it more than halfway in. What has changed? Have we changed, or the people who speak for us? What have we become?
To me, Cross is also talking about engagement with one’s country, not only participating in the economy and working toward something common- but being actively engaged in the structure, and voicing concerns as part of civic involvement as opposed to retreating into our own lives.
The poems themselves seem to move between the person, to the person in societal context, observing a neighbor as readily as a nation. Like the inventor (Dead Genius) who quietly invented Big Things, Cross connects his observations on the quiet, small ways of individuals to a larger scale. They work in mills, talk about pensions, live by “rules” and find heroes in hockey players and entrepreneurs and bosses who kill the desire to work.
Life is not necessarily about living great lives, but about adequate lives, like the “adequate but not really good” slice of pizza. (Who?) Life takes the form of regular people, and Cross is taking a look at two important things: who we are, and what is done in our name.
When Cross writes about who we are, he renders us as generally forgettable people and he seems to be doing this because he is making the point that many actions around the world are undertaken with this elusive “citizen” in mind. But who are they? And how do the actions connect?
From Who?
Someone eating pizza
Will not remember your name
Someone outside the bank
Will forget who you were
While remembering that you are dead
Maybe a punk rock band
Will call themselves after you
Maybe a young communist
Will arm peasants in a jungle
And call out your name
Kill in your name
Then emigrate and open a pizza shop
Maybe he’ll serve adequate
But not really good pizza
Stand outs: Too Little, Home At Last
Saigon, Hanoi Or Da Nang by David S. Cross
Poptritus Press, www. poptritus.com
