Fresh Pack of Smokes — Cassandra Blanchard . (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Fresh Pack of Smokes.  Cassandra Blanchard.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2019.

Today's book of poetry's first thought, when we stepped back to catch our breath, say about 30 pages in, was that I was back with Billy Hays in a Turkish prison ala Midnight Express.  Fresh Pack of Smokes feels so vividly harrowing and morbidly exciting that you can almost smell the decay and feel the defeat.  Cassandra Blanchard's poems sound more real and honest than Charles Bukowski's sad songs.  And make no mistake, Today's book of poetry still worships Sir Charles the B.

Blanchard isn't so much down and dirty as she is candidly and explicitly blunt, with a burnt sense of humour somewhere near that darkest of blacks, the one that reflects zero light.  Other than Nigerian poets fighting in the rebellion, Today's book of poetry has rarely encountered this kind of literary slap in the face wake-up call.

XXX

I must have turned a thousand tricks over those six years, you name

it I've done it, the perfect whore, young-looking so the men buzzed

around me like bees on honey, you have no idea how many men see

working girls for a quick blow job in the car after work before going

home or taxi drivers or stockbrokers, all kinds like the author of

children's books or the man who was a politician in Native self-

government or probably your boyfriend or husband, there are the

real cold mean ones and the okay ones who were not that bad and I

mostly had middle-aged married white men and I guarantee that you

know someone who has paid for sex; once I did a blow job where he

blew his load in exactly three seconds or the vampire-looking dude

with a foot-long boner that made me almost piss myself, but it's 

always been strictly business, I've been around the block for sure.

At a Quebecois rehab centre, there was the gender rule, no breaking

gender, as in no fucking with either gender and of course I broke that

rule multiple times, at night when everyone was asleep I would slide

into bed with my woman and quietly make her cum, I couldn't not

do it and it didn't help when a chick would get a crush on me, I guess

I had to break the rules, it felt so good to be bad — I've never even

been on a date before, it has always been straight to screwing, I guess

it would be nice to go out for dinner rather than sleeping with some-

one in secret, for two years we were together, the violent psycho and

me, the pushover, but damn we clicked in the sack and everywhere

too like in a semi or on the bus or outside, the only time we got

along was when we were fucking, this bitch was a sociopath, I swear

her eyes had nothing behind them but even though I was in danger

around her, she made me feel safe and made me feel like I was losing

the hamster wheel race, seriously though, I've had enough to last me

three thousand years and that's nothing to be happy about, being for 

sale ain't nothing to be proud of.

💣💣💣

Fresh Pack of Smokes  has velocity, like it is being shot out of a gun.  Every one of these compact prose poems carries the full weight of crack exploding.  Every one of these poems sees predators and police while looking for a safe place to sleep.

Fresh Pack of Smokes assaults the reader's level of comfort in our comfortable world.  All those woman we pretend are invisible when we see them on a street corner, all those women we pretend we don't see as they fall through the crack.  Blanchard gives them a voice.  As Maryse Holder so bravely wrote "Give Sorrow Words".

Streets

It may sound very stupid but there's something about the streets that

always appealed to me, there was a type of freedom where I could do

what I wanted when I wanted whenever I wanted and never be tied

down to one place, the only rules being those of the street, never

staying in one place for long, on an endless journey for more and

more drugs until it became the most important task at hand and I

could not plan anything because I didn't know where I would be in

any foreseeable future and I had no address, however the flip side to

all this was that I was tied up — I was a prisoner and everything that

came with it, I was a coin, each side a cell with thick bars.

💣💣💣

It's a cold, grey morning here at Today's book of poetry.  It's raining "hammers and nails" as Tom Waits once suggested, it's raining as though we were waiting for an ark.  Sunday is always a quiet day in the Today's book of poetry offices.  We're pretty soft about actual attendance as all of our staff are volunteers.

One dear friend and contributor, Otis, flashed by earlier this week.  It was great to see him, he'd been living in Mexico, Belgium and Italy this past year.  No grass growing on that cat.  Today's book of poetry sent him off with an armful of chapbooks (which he paid for, bless his cotton socks), and a big Today's book of poetry hug.  We are always happy to see old friends.

Cassandra Blanchard's Fresh Pack of Smokes is gripping and frightening.  We can't help thinking that there, for the grace, luck, whatever, goes my sister, my mother, my love, and so on.  Blanchard's poems leave no room for doubt.  Any false glamour we might have imagined is sanded down to the ugly survival bone.  Spectacularly squalid stuff, it gets behind your eyes, under your fingernails, these poems make you feel dirty, used.  Blanchard has revealed a dark talent, a beautiful mind that tours hell.

Stars

Instead of calling the ambulance they dumped his body on some-

one's lawn, my father had overdosed on heroin and his so-called

friends were too afraid of the police to try and save his life and so

the cops came to our house and because we were children they

gave teddy bears to us, however I was asleep when the officers came

so I woke up to my sister crying and she said he passed away and I

thought he fell in a ditch, passing away like falling, and so I went to

my mother who was in the shower crying and she told me he was

dead and I understood; my memories are there but there are not so

many of them and some of them I would rather not remember like

the alcohol he was dependent on and the violence that came with it;

he was troubled but he loved us, I look up at the sky and to me he is

a lone star in the ever darkening cosmos.

💣💣💣

Today's book of poetry loved Cassandra Blanchard's Fresh Pack of Smokes and will be on notice for Blanchard's next book.  It's going to be a killer.  This kind of talent and honesty is going to burst the seams somewhere.  Kudo's to Nightwood for putting their ass on the line.

Blanchard burns like she came up with the expression all on her own.  Today's book of poetry is an instant fan.

Cassandra Blanchard

ABOUT THE POET

Cassandra Blanchard was born in Whitehorse, YT, but called Vancouver home for many years.  She holds a BA from the University of British Columbia with a major in gender, race, sexuality and social justice.  Her poetry has been published in a handful of literary journals.  Fresh Pack of Smokes is her first book of poetry.  She lives in Duncan, British Columbia.

BLURBS

There's tremendous pressure on underrepresented artists to diffuse complex stories so they may be made more easily understood and consumed by the mainstream. Debut author Cassandra Blanchard's unapologetic, immersive and veracious voice cannot be diffused! Her prose poems stand bold and true on the page, with barely a stanza break to mitigate their power. I am honoured to stand with her poems — I've been a big admirer of Blanchard for years.  Read Fresh Pack of Smokes and become an admirer too.

     — Amber Dawn

This is a book, ultimately, about dignity. These poems spill over like a sentence as long and relentless as a lifetime. Grasping for what feels fleetingly like a normal life, the narrator instead wrings words from blood. This is a book of a city that is everywhere, of policing, of using, of survival that is all-consuming, of fear and pleasure and hallucination that are three sides of a coin. This is a book about the wisdom of not caring and yet the pain of still doing so.

      — Ray Hsu

Truly distinctive in vision and voice, Blanchard's Fresh Pack of Smokes probes the pain and elation, the silence and clamour, the confinement and the freedom of life on the street. The power of Blanchard's poetry arises from its rare combination of raw honesty, remarkable detail and spiralling accumulation, producing a collection  that is as difficult and unrelenting as it is exceptional, necessary and wise.

     — Daniel Scott Tysdal

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DISCLAIMER

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

The Age of Revolution - Darren Bifford (Anstruther Press)

Today's book of poetry:
The Age of Revolution.  Darren Bifford.  Anstruther Press.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Ok, Today's book of poetry is in.  Any poet who stream of consciousnesswise throws in a line from Sir W.H. Auden's best poem in the world along with Jackson Pollock and the Rue St. Denis, has my full attention.  In fact Today's book of poetry is going to celebrate it.

Try this one...

This Sunset Lasts Forever

There must have been a lot of beauty

At the end of empire. Scratch that.

Strictly the usual amount,

More or less, like in a movie

When before he is shot

The soldier considers the dewy grass or the dawn

Over yon golden hills. Which is to say

I doubt it. Consider the fowls of the air and beasts of the field

Christ did not say on the Cross. Why, why, why, why, why, why?

Is closer to the mark. And it was no ordinary day

For those who were otherwise occupied with their lives,

Even given the torturer's horse scratching its innocent behind on a tree.

For there was a breaking sound in the sky;

We were all as terrified as other slow-witted animals, desirous and hungry.

I'm not getting over this in record time. Oh my heavenly days

Is what my grandmother sighed. Now which book will I take?

Will there be a record player? A mistake in these matters

Will commit us to eternal boredom. Help me

With a Jackson Pollock from the MoMA, whose paintings,

In lieu of small fires or snow storms, will serve to increase our contemplative

Capacity. Now if only we could get some help—I mean,

Help with the moving, not the moaning.

I've heard no pianos are housed on the isles of the blessed

Though the wind plays the trees and the trees are willing.

Nor that my will is broken I am either left for dead

Or I shall see them forever: my wife, my little boy. They are crossing

Rue St. Denis on a winter afternoon, holding hands. Flaring in the mind

Awhile longer like a flare shot to the height from which it falls in the night sky,

Tumbling into wine-dark oceans,

We went down to the ship —

💫💫💫

The Age of Revolution is an unassuming little chapbook of a mere nine poems - but when Today's book of poetry finished reading it felt like a tome that we'd been waiting for.  It was a much larger experience then Today's book of poetry usually finds in nine poems.  Expansive.

It is because Darren Bifford's poems are not fast food, these poems have been simmered, they have been stewed and tenderized, until the flavours are all rich and complex.

False Spring Is The New Thing

The first spring is always false. They call

It that because everyone wishes further

Hibernation. There's a town the existence

Of which I learnt when I was a child: all its

Inhabitants sleep as much of the day and night

As is possible. It's a thing to arrive into

Their public square unannounced.

My one practice is to summon indifference

To the most consequential events: what's left

Of the Great Barrier Reef, for instance; the situation

In Syria; my brother's long illness. I wish for a say

In what qualifies as an externality. That woman

In Toronto who, when asked about the last

Federal election, responded I don't know

What that means. The guy next door

With that fucking dog, for instance. Or Mark, who sits

Outside the liquor store, hat in hand, all spring,

Reading. Do I care what he's reading? Not all hope

Is great hope, even given this as if spring.

I've also felt the desire to join the slumber

Of that hidden town behind the mountains.

The kid who made it there came not without

His own questions. As for answers, what seemed

To him like reasons were little better than a roll

Of the dice, a yes and a no and a no and a no.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry went into Darren Bifford country back in June of 2016 when we looked at his Wedding In Fire Country (Nightwood Editions), and you can see that in the link below:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/06/wedding-in-fire-country-darren-bifford.html 

Today's book of poetry liked Bifford's poems then and we like them now, even more.  If the reader pays attention, Bifford reveals it all.  The Age of Revolution could just as easily been titled "How I See The World."  Well, Darren Bifford seems to have better than 20/20 vision, he sees just fine.

The Age of Revolution is one of those books you readers will thank me for, if you can get your hands on it.

The Scene From Here

So I see near the beach beside the docked

and decommissioned ferry, a makeshift flagpole

on which hangs, half-mast, the French Tricolore.

I run past. The route I take follows

the trail beside the channel, its slow waters

flowing from lake to lake, its currents shallow,

benign, so that no danger troubles the swimmers

who recline and drink on their rubber floats before

they leap in and submerge. Nothing is hidden of summer

in the Valley where all along the shore

children build tiny sand castles, dig twisting moats

into the mud. Lone suckers feed on the lake floor.

It's been a weird July. Every afternoon for over a week

storms break over the mountains—lightning, thunder—

the rain falls hard. Conversation turns to the weather.

What's the worst they've seen (if they've seen it before)

those who've been here a long time can't recall

or won't say, and the weather anyhow has its own way

of doing things. It's easy to stare at the hills and think

about nothing. As if the mountains would have you wander

into them, burrow into a fallen pine needles, stay there.

Soon I turn from the trail and run up-hill on the old track

or where the railroad tracks were that once ran the span

of the valley from the coast into Alberta. History marks

landscape like a scar, like the flesh healed into woven stitches

above my right eye, so that a reddened furrow is cut close

but hardly visible except to those women who've pressed

their fingers there. In the evenings I'm reading Euripides

on my mother's patio, near the lakeshore where a giant peach

is open until late; teenage girls serving ice cream floats

later flutter about the beach above the glow of their cell-phones.

Early in the morning last week I woke to the sound of a voice

announcing on a megaphone the names of marathon runners

as they crossed the finish line. AC/DC's Thunderstruck, applause,

all the spent athletes like in Ovid, that story near the end

about the runner who had escaped the finale of the last age,

when iron returned to fire and fire to sand. He moved like an ant

below the gods who at that point were left with little to do;

they say Apollo caught him easily, pressed him between his finger

and thumb, squished and ground him up until he too was sand,

flicking him down to where he was left with the rest of civilization,

subject to the wind's shifts. In the afternoon my three year old son

learns to swim. I prop him on my knees in the lake, cup my hands

underneath his arms; he does not let me relax my grip but screams

delight and terror when I throw him into the air and let him fall

again into my hands and collapse in my arms, splashing

cold water over his face and hair. He cries because water

is in his eyes and complains that it got into his mouth.

Later, on the sand, he tells me Babi, you protect me. The truth

of what he says, that total trust, turns my heart transparent.

He is a diamond cut into the air. My midway run inclines to dust-

dry ponderosa bluffs, the shelter of my ear like caves carved into the clay

cliffs which rise here on either side, the trail metamorphosed into scree.

The Trojan Women all wail and wail. There is no happy conclusion.

The ships on which they sail take them elsewhere far away.

Last week in Nice a few young drunk Brits took selfies next to a family

mourning their dead. Life returns to normal quickly.

Out on the lake the boats pull skiers; above the water a man

harnessed to a parachute is pulled around awhile. The scene

from here shows him minuscule, like a dead man in an airborne pulley.

What is normal? The air I breathe is dry, dry. The mountain flowers

are yellow. No sound from the trees.

Not even birds.

💫💫💫

Darren Bifford's The Age of Revolution, complete as it is, is a teaser.  You can't pick it up without wanting more of this intelligent poetry.  Bifford can open your heart and your mind.  

Simply splendid.

Darren Bifford

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darren Bifford is the author of Wedding in Fire Country (Nightwood Editions, 2012) and False Spring (Brick Books, 2018). He's the co-editor (with Warren Heiti) of Chamber Music: the poetry of Jan Zwicky (WLUP, 2015). He lives in Montreal.

Interview with Darren Bifford about his poetry collection False Spring

Video:  Brick Books

anstrutherpress.com 

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Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Bec & Call - Jenna Lyn Albert (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Bec & Call.  Jenna Lyn Albert.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2018.

Jenna Lyn Albert is going to blow the lid off of it all.  Today's book of poetry is sending out our crack team of researchers, we want to confirm Albert's birthplace, birth date.  Why?  These are otherworldly poems of screech and joy.  

We love this stuff.

Bec & Call has just the right amount of brio and just the right portion of brash.

Actually we suspect that Albert might buckle and baulk at both "brio" and "brash."  Both wildly insufficient words - so Today's book of poetry will try again.  Jeanna Lyn Albert's Bec & Call is beautifully raw and raggedly precise.  These are gems cut from rough stuff and Today's book of poetry couldn't be happier.

One and Only: A One-Night Stand

I cabbed over to your bachelor, hair braided and in a low-cut

black dress without the emotional support of a bra, wind-

shield wipers pleating November rain like a ballerina skirt.

You paid my fare when I got there, glowering from behind

thick-rimmed glasses as I took my time getting out.

Janis Joplin called Pigpen "Daddy," but it doesn't sit right

with me. I'd barely made it through the door before you

thumbed my thong to the freshly-shaved bikini line, using

a wet finger like a weather vane to test the direction this

was going, canoodling my mouth inelegantly: tongue al dente.

We got as far as the couch—did you even own a proper bed?—

my swollen tonsils fighting against your hand at my throat

(we'd established choke-play as okay) but my stomach rolled

as ferociously as my eyes when you called me your little slut.

I returned the insult with insolence and you red-handed my ass.

We talked about your job afterword's, how you got to Freddy,

my Santa Sangre lipstick matted into your stubble, your pores

like dried blood from a shoddy shave job. I forgot my cardigan,

you'd said, and I forgot your number on the cab ride home,

avoiding eye contact with the same driver who'd driven me over.

💫💫💫

Jenna Lyn Albert simply doesn't care, she'll say the fearless thing and then back up her play.  Our morning read was hysterical.  Not only does Albert's Bec & Call cut the heads off of some chickens, she barn dances 'em right into the pan.

Today's book of poetry simply loved how much fun Albert has in these poems, and you will too.  Deadly, heart-wrenching, and funny like Red Skelton's Clem Kadiddlehopper.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, just asked me who Red Skelton was.  Kathryn is now glued to You Tube watching old bits with Clem.

So, funny like Robin Williams, if he were an Acadian feminist poet.

Today's book of poetry wants to quote Zoe Whittall's blurb from the back of Bec & Call, where she simply states "I love these poems."  Because Whittall echoes our own sentiments exactly.  In our office we always do a blind taste test with books that knock us out.  Bec & Call scored abnormally high on our test.

There have been many fine poets to come out of New Brunswick, remember this is the province that gave us Sir Alden the Nowlan.  Gallant knight of the poetry realm.  But Albert just might be the best thing to come out of New Brunswick since.  She's dirty witty and some smart.

Bec & Call

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? Non, merci.

Note to self: abstain from sharing French origins

with men at Dolan's or Callaghan's or Cougar's—

any dive bar this far from Kouchibouguac. Shediac.

Bouctouche. This much I can deduce. Yes, my lips

are the colour of cabernet: sashay away. I'm throwing

enough shade to eclipse Jupiter's moons. I will drop

you like Pluto's relationship status: Solar. Sole. Single.

Ask me if I can French kiss and I'll flood your mouth

with marmalade. Memere always had Crosby's fancy

molasses in the cupboard despite years of factory-floor

labour. Arthritic hands squeeze Honey Bear nectar

into my little bird mouth. Ask me again, and I'll regurgitate

thick, brown sugar down your throat until it overflows.

Blackstrap is rich, snarky syrup. Kiss and tell yourself

that it's mutual. Mutiny. You were never any good

at differentiating desire from just plain fucking tired.

The women's washroom is stained chatterbox pink,

suckulent scarlet, lewd lavender. The contoured

impressions of pursed lips pressed to Winter White

Benjamin Moore paint are more artful than the Sharpied

proverbs customary of bathroom stalls. I study the curves 

of each kiss: Cupid's bows bent with pouts flavoured

like circus concessions. Bubble gum. Cotton candy.

The artificial cherry syrup pumped over snow cones.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry does not share Jenna Lyn Albert's fascination with cats, we would argue that only a superior skill set (along with Jenn Huzera like tolerance) could carry a feline to the end of a poem and still have my attention.  But damn it all anyway, Albert catnipped Today's book of poetry with her poetry wiles.

Albert arrives fully formed and boiling over.  These are energetic poems full of colour and cynical contempt.  They are also flavoured with candy floss lipstick and kisses so hard your lips will bleed, and the smell of the sea will seep into your brain, and not always the good smell.

Hors D'oeuvres

Cream cheese and maraschino cherry pinwheels add

colour to the reception platter, pyramid-piled amid

tuna and egg salad sandwiches, pates spread on

"wholesome" whole wheat bread, crustlessly cut

into squares as small as this church basement feels.

Clear plastic cups and cutlery start off the banquet

table, fruit punch and soda tie-dying the white

tablecloth—the drops of juice blooming on cotton

like sympathy flowers. A great-auntie, or is that 

a cousin, butts in line to grab a napkin, feigning

obliviousness, like the driver who merged into our

funeral procession, a deer in hazard lights turning

tail as soon as possible and failing to be inconspicuous.

Under fluorescent lighting, Dad's flask gleams

discernibly and no sermon'll guilt him today: an open

casket warrants an open bar, in his opinion, and I'm

hard-pressed to disagree. We're all brought into this

world with finger foods and it's how we'll all go out.

💫💫💫

If books like this Bec & Call bundle of miscreant joy arrived at Today's book of poetry every day our job would be a lot easier.

Like Zoe Whittal loves these poem, Today's book of poetry loves these poems.  So does Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, Maggie, our new intern, loves these poems.  Freida and Tomas visited today and loved these poems.

Jenna Lyn Albert is going on our list.

Jenna Lyn Albert

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenna Lyn Albert is a poet of Acadian decent and a recent graduate in creative writing from the University of New Brunswick. Her writing has appeared in The Malahat Review, Riddle Fence and The Puritan. Albert lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she is an editorial assistant at The Fiddlehead and poetry editor of Qwerty.

BLURBS

"I love these poems."

     - Zoe Whittall

Bec & Call's elliptical contemplations are both almanac and road map for contemporary New Brunswick. Albert is eyes open in her search for raw experience, buried light.

     - Tammy Armstrong

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Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Cruise Missile Liberals - Spencer Gordon (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Cruise Missile Liberals.  Spencer Gordon.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2017.

Spencer Gordon's Cruise Missile Liberals sounds like the astute patter of a poetry carny convincing you to step right up.  Gordon is slick and his slick poems blister past in a new age be-bop patter of sophisticated memes.

Gordon has a vise grip on the necessary lingo to storm the castle but he's not about organizing the revolution.  But he certainly is going to record it.  Take names.

The feel of these poems, this book reminds Today's book of poetry of Joe Orton's "Kicking Against the Pricks" because Gordon showers the reader with a sustained marvel of devilish disenfranchisement.

Here and Now

More people believe a wafer

becomes the body of Christ

than a slick strip of bacon

comes screaming from a pig.

But what do you want from nothing?

Focus groups? Blood from stone? Ex nihilo?

Suppose everything wants to be alive

so long as life is not all pain.

Suppose god sees all time as one--

then imagine the fulcrum

of screams She endures as each

woman and man and dog

gives up the only thing it wants.

Two men stomp a lamb to death;

a woman French-kisses a doomed

sow through the frost-bit bars

of a trailer. Kiska the Orca circles her pond

300 times a day for the rest of her fucked life.

Today, I see an animal online, I dive for cover.

It's going to be unbearably cute, or it's going

to be torture. Inshallah. I had to stop

looking at things, talking to faces.

A woman locks a puggle in a closet

and starves it to death. A child

watches Peppa Pig and chews

a ham sandwich. "It's Earth Day," her mother says,

turning off all the lights before grilling steaks

on the barbecue. No, nothing new, nothing

the maniac won't enjoy mansplaining

as human nature, God's will, economics,

evolution. Jobs. Another perspective

on your little cell. "I have PTSD," says

the filmmaker, the photographer, the eyeball

that can't look away. Dear God, I prayed,

and I mean a very traditional Catholic God

except a Mother:

Please make everything better for all

the suffering bodies on the planet.

Signed, a tiny child with a tiny head.

Then I sat in Catholic Mass and wept, wanting

my God back, or to be real. Everything is flayed

by one very sharp knife, because #vintagefur.

Because McDoubles.

But one day, instead of wine and bread, one

man to one chalice rimmed with ghostly life,

we'll become one mass, one set of eyes, wet

with salt, sentimental as old hysterics--

and what we'll eat is only love.

...

In hopes of continuing our record of full disclosure Mr. Gordon wrote a review of my own Coming Ashore on Fire (burnt wine press, 2009).  You can see that review here:

http://mansfieldpress.net/2010/07/reviewed-by-spencer-gordon-coming-ashore-on-fire-michael-dennis-burnt-wine-press-2009-135-pages-16-now-these-are-poems-i-could-get-into-says-my-partner-who%E2%80%99s-been-reading-michael-denni/

Spencer Gordon isn't someone Today's book of poetry knows and we were a little post-review skeptical when we first opened Cruise Missile Liberals.  Not all of what Gordon said in his review was easy to take - but it was all true.  Some of the minions had their dander up but I assured them that I was very proud of Gordon's review.  He treated my poetry with respect.  Today's book of poetry tries to do the same but our biases come out all over the place regardless of how much I try to rein them in.

Gordon quickly allayed all of our fears with his "detailed passion" and spontaneous enthusiasms. Once you align your gears properly Gordon steamrolls.

Survey

I have a loving mother and father and baby sister and girlfriend and I 

am surrounded by people who respect me and take what I say seriously

and meditate on the things I say to them and want to know my take on

things and think my feelings are important and

                                                                           when I drive through

the slanting autumn light in my car I think about all the aching leaves

withering into next winter and when I get home my girlfriend puts her

arms around my neck and we eat and talk about our days and the light

is slanting and then some music and wine or television

                                                                                        which I watch without

guilt and then work on things people value and respect and the work

goes well because it is honest and the phone rings and it is my loving

mother and father and they say we love you and I say where is my baby

                                                                               sister and she comes

on the phone and tells me she drew a picture of me driving through

the slanting autumn light in my car and I am smiling and going home

to my girlfriend who is pretty and intelligent and someone I rely upon

when things are tough so yes I would say I

                                                                     strongly agree.

...

Our morning read was interrupted by a small snowfall that we quickly brushed aside.  Post brooming and shovelling, Milo, our head tech, said that he was particularly taken by Gordon when he lets down his guard and plays out some of his emotional wisdom unbroken by skeptical analysis.

Today's book of poetry is always going to appreciate any poet who finds a place for Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker in their poetry and Spencer Gordon folds both of them into his roadwork.

Today's book of poetry also likes "list" poems, Gordon's "The Winter Wind" is one hell of a list.  Dead wrestlers falling out of the ring and into despair as though they were dominoes someone cruelly set on fire with fatigue and grief.  This is heart-wrenching and powerful stuff.  Cruise Missile Liberals is full of marvelous stuff.

A Good Life

Keep busy, keep frantic and active. Don't let the chest

slow, the mind find time to seek its reflection, for what

it will show cannot bring release. Engage in difficult,

repetitive activities: scrub the kitchen sink, strip the linens

from your squalor, scour the floor with bleach and rip

the shameful pages from your diary. Run, mouth agape, with dogs

through blinding parks. Swim in frigid lakes. Agitate the skin

with acidic lotions. Give yourself wholly to the feeling

of inherent calamity. Drink sixteen cups of coffee, then get falling-

down-drunk in the doorways of your cold, ugly trysts. Only

eat when you are gasping, sputtering with sobriety, and then

only the foods most rich in carbohydrates, proteins, sugars

and the bile you need to keep on ravaging your body. Find

toxic streams; give yourself over to charity; make yourself cum

incessantly while bleeding from wounds with no end, and no beginning.

If you are crying, you are not winning. There is no good living.

...

Today's book of poetry thinks that Spencer Gordon is eloquent with quirky reason, Cruise Missile Liberals is a very tasty well-cooked repast.

Gordon's poetry sometimes revs high with a "gaudy opulence" but that is when he is at his best.  When Gordon takes his foot off of the brakes he speeds into some beautifully hellish chaos, when it breaks his previously calm surface ripples over all of us.  These poems are a new type of missile.

Spencer Gordon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Spencer Gordon is the author of the acclaimed short story collection Cosmo (Coach House Books, 2012), called “startling and invigorating” (and “Canada’s Most Underrated Book”) by Quill and Quire, “rare [and] brave” by the National Post, “poignant and hilarious” by This Magazine, “both heartwarming and heartbreaking” by The Winnipeg Review, and “both ridiculous and absolutely perfect” by The Walrus.

He is also the author of the poetry collection Cruise Missile Liberals (Nightwood Editions, 2017), one of CBC’s “16 Poetry Books to Watch.” To the Winnipeg Free Press, it showcases a “disturbing, wry intelligence … [and] taut, careful craft.” The Toronto Star writes that it “offers plenty of laughs, but it’s also got heart.” The Globe and Mail claims that it’s “completely submerged in the zany, disturbing thick of it … [and] might be the oddball balm you need.” And, in a starred review, Quill and Quire comments: “Cruise Missile Liberals is a complex and accomplished first collection from a writer who has honed his voice by listening. Gordon’s examination of the self in late capitalism is not always optimistic but is, in its humanity, enormously affirming.”

Spencer also wrote the poetry chapbooks Anno Zombie Dance (Emergency Response Unit, 2016), Conservative Majority (Apt. 9, 2013) and Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!(Ferno House, 2011, shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award). He is one of CBC Books’ Writers to Watch and the winner of a CBC Book Award for Cosmo.

He is co-founder and was senior editor of the ten-year-old magazine The Puritan, one of the country’s premier literary journals (nominated for a National Magazine Award and a regular submitter to Best Canadian Poetry and The Journey Prize). He often serves as a reader and judge for university publications (such as the University of Toronto Magazine), literary magazines (like The Antigonish Review), national prizes (like the CBC Short Story Prize), and arts councils (namely, the Canada Council for the Arts). His writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, EVENT, THIS Magazine, Poetry Is Dead, The Winnipeg Review, CNQ, Broken Pencil, Joyland, and many other periodicals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Sports Writing (ECW, 2017).

He holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto and a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Ottawa, and he has taught writing, both professional and creative, at OCAD University, George Brown College, Humber College, and with the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. He works as the senior writer for The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau in Toronto (the traditional lands of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and other peoples).

BLURBS

Spencer Gordon’s Cruise Missile Liberals is, as its title suggests, a very funny, often despairing book. Jammed with on-point pop and breathtaking turns of phrase, this collection of poems is genuinely compelling: it is hard to stop reading, so sweetly twisted is Gordon’s world.

     — Lynn Crosbie, Author of Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Life Is About Losing Everything,                                           and Liar

There is a generosity of spirit on offer here for we who are tired, placeless, saturated in social media, and wasted on the bright horror of a future that never arrives. This collection is deft, intelligent, and tender, if tenderness is something that can also crush you—an intimacy that panics shut. For we who are “Nature Woke,” “alchemical kids with gold teeth,” “wanting to live as I do, shockingly new,” Gordon sings and memes against “Canada the Good” and presents us with an arresting portrait of our present moment

     — Liz Howard, Author of Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent (Winner of the 2016 Griffin Poetry                                  Prize)

Cruise Missile Liberals could easily be called Late Capitalism. Spencer Gordon voices the anger and dejection that many of us feel as we survey the detritus of our political and corporate ideologies and attempt to find an alternative to the cultural crack that has previously pacified us. But Gordon does not patronize us with false hope. “There is no system to replace the ruling system,” he writes in “Ticker Tape.” Elsewhere, he notifies us: “If you are crying, you are not winning. There is no good living.” As a solution: “You should burn down your life.” Like an excitable social media stream, these poems persist to the point of “sincere emotional fatigue” yet somehow Gordon manages to make an art of exhaustion, an art of the rant. Reading Gordon’s poetry and fiction, one feels caught in a Mobius strip where life and entertainment loop infinitely into each other. We are sometimes ourselves and sometimes we are Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, and Peppa Pig. Or they are us, our teetering elected representatives.
     — Ian Williams, Author of Personals (Shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize), Not Anyone’s                                          Anything, and You Know Who You Are

To see video of Spencer Gordon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcxCxHOmvGE&feature=youtu.be

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651

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Next Door to the Butcher Shop - Rodney DeCroo (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Next Door to the Butcher Shop.  Rodney DeCroo.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2017.

Back in August of this year Today's book of poetry wrote about Rodney DeCroo's Allegheny, BC and you can check that out here:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2017/08/allegheny-bc-rodney-decroo-nightwood.html

Today we're looking at DeCroo's recent firecracker from Nightwood Editions, Next Door to the Butcher Shop and let me tell you, the wick is lit.

Who hasn't been drunk and stoned and holed up in a stinky bathroom with the door barred and locked so that your giantly misinformed and closeted giant of a friend won't break it down with further entreaties for sexual demonstrations of affection that may or may not have been earned.  In Rodney DeCroo's world this may be a less unusual event than you think.  These poems are a long way from main street.

Next Door to the Butcher Shop is one hard scrabble motherf**ker.  Things get broken that hurt more than hearts.  This is a world where love comes with bruises whether you can see them or not.  The worst crimes aren't always visible.

The Debt

By day I stole jeans from department stores

in Thunder Bay and sold them at night

in a booze can with my friend Wayne. We

sat drinking from stubby brown bottles

of High Test, the jeans piled on a chair

next to me bristling with price tags.

Wayne was a large Ojibwa man who used

his size to intimidate customers when they

tried to haggle. He'd stand up to look down

on them. Pay him what he wants or fuck off.

The stranger would stammer an apology

and give me the cash. After they left

we lowered our heads to hide our smiles.

Wayne owned a hair salon and spent his days

giving perms to old ladies who came

to tease and gossip with him. His mother

had been a barmaid and he grew up in the bars

of the oil patch and logging towns and knew

the ways of violence. Wayne and I met outside

his salon as I sold cigarettes on the street.

He bought the entire carton of Player's Lights.

and offered to take me to lunch. I knew

what he wanted by the way he placed his money

in my palm. I'd been approached by men

before but I was hungry and it was winter

so I went with him. We spent the day and deep

into the night drinking at a bar filled with old

men who sat alone with sleeves of pale draft

beer tasting like vomit and piss. We left

after last call staggering over icy sidewalks

and falling into parked cars, the moisture

of our breath freezing against our faces, the ache

of coldness pulsing through my finger-bones

and wrists to pierce my drunkenness.

I had to find a place to stay the night. Wayne

beckoned me to follow. I walked head-down,

crushing ice and snow beneath my boots

until we came to houses separated by vacant lots

along the lake. Wayne pulled a portion of chain

link fence high enough to scramble beneath.

We crossed under the opposite fence and into

the backyard of a brick house the colour of dried

blood. The windows blackened out with newspaper

and tin foil. The only light, a bulb above the basement

door. Wayne lurched down the steps steadying himself

against the concrete stairwell and banged the door.

As we waited, I felt the silence swirling around us

coming in from the huge night over the frozen wastes

of Lake Superior, the freezing wind as hard

and unforgiving as iron or steel. Light rushed out

through the open door to reveal a woman: black

hair streaked with grey. Her fact thin with narrow

eyes that cut like the neat, sharp teeth of a fox.

I followed Wayne and the woman into the acrid

warmth of the smoke-filled, weakly lit basement:

a wide room with a concrete floor and oil cloth

card tables between metal poles bearing the full

weight of the house. I could see the hunched shapes,

people in groups of twos or threes around the tables.

In the back, the woman sat by a yellow refrigerator

filled with bottles of beer. Next to her a space heater

glowed and rattled like an angry coiled snake, a stench

like burnt plastic. Wayne and I sat and drank. Cigarettes

burned in the alcoholic gloaming like the red eyes

of demons. For four months of my twentieth year

I sold stolen clothing, stumbling with Wayne through

desolate winter dawns to pass out on his couch where

I fended off his drunken tearful gropes. Locking 

myself in the bathroom as he punched the door

cursing me for failing to pay what he was owed.

... 

DeCroo's hard-scrabble opera mines Charles the B. territory, without the horses.  These poems know what it is like to miss a meal, or several.  What it is like to feel guilty for the smallest piece of luck.

Rodney DeCroo's poems are rough as the rebar they put inside cement when it is forming.  The surface of it rough enough to rip your skin off -- but in truth it is the strength built inside buildings to hold them up, buildings, bridges, cities.  DeCroo's honesty comes at the cost of what he has already paid.  A cost we can't know.  But the resulting poems pop like corn going into oil.

Denny

His hair was oiled and slicked

back. He drove a blue sixty-eight Camaro

with white racing stripes and worked

at the steel mill. My mother said he

didn't drink much, was a Vietnam

vet like my father. Denny moved

into the apartment next door to us.

There were rumours he'd beaten his ex-fiancee,

a girl from New Kensington. My mother

knew Denny since high school, remembered

him as the silent kid alone in the cafeteria,

who didn't go to parties or play football.

Denny had a large eight-track collection

and played the Who, Cream and Zeppelin

so loud my mother banged the wall,

shouted at him to turn the music down.

One Saturday night my mother found

him sitting outside his apartment so drunk

he couldn't stand. When he raised his head

his eyes were raw from crying. She

sat with him for hours reading aloud

from the new testament, testifying

that Christ had saved her life.

That Sunday Denny came to church

with us. His eyes were still red,

he reeked of too much aftershave,

and his large hands trembled. So much

for doesn't drink much, my brother

whispered as we followed our mother

and Denny up Colfax Street. I sat next

to Denny in the pew, mother on the other

side. He was sweating and kept pulling

at his collar to loosen his tie. He took off

his suit-jacket and hung it over the back

of the pew, dark blooms of sweat beneath

his arms. When the collection came around,

Denny stood, pulled a handful of change

from his pocket and dumped it into the plate,

half the coins spilling loudly onto the floor.

He bent between the pews as people

stared, my mother stiff as the granite columns

framing the entrance to the church.

Denny stood with the rest of us, looking

down at the closed hymnal in his hands.

My mother leaned close, holding her opened

book in front of him. He shifted his eyes

to the black print and he spoke out loud,

The Lord is my redeemer, he shall lift me up,

then began to laugh, his eyes clenched shut,

his entire body shaking. The singing

stopped as parishioners turned to watch.

When my mother touched his shoulder

his head snapped up and his eyes opened.

Don't touch me, he said, and pushed past me,

knocking me into the pew. I watched his rigid

back as he walked between rows of sullen

faces, toward the huge white doors

and what waited outside for him.

...

Spent last night drinking too much red wine and listening to jazz at a new club in our neighbourhood so this morning I'm feeling like I was in a fight, and lost.  Apparently exactly the right temperament to lead a morning read of Next Door to the Butcher Shop.  The minions rose to the occasion and dark-danced Mr. DeCroo around the room a couple of times.

What Today's book of poetry most admires about the poetry of Rodney DeCroo is that it feels alive, you can take a pulse, alive and messy with human folly and frailty wrapped into brief moments of grace and the understanding that for most of us that is as good as it gets.  These poems strive to reveal and to share those moments.  And when it is all on the line, whom of us is going to be able to rise out of it.  These are important questions, they may be the most important.

Why Can't You Be Leonard Cohen?

She told me she disliked my poems,

that poetry should be beautiful, stylish,

sad and romantic. She said Leonard Cohen

was her ideal of a poet and a lover.

She spent a week in Montreal

wandering the streets, reading his books

in cafes, listening to his songs at night

in her hotel room. She said I was just

a dry drunk with anger issues

and a penchant for making

everyone around me miserable.

And why couldn't I be handsome?

Leonard Cohen was handsome in his way.

He tried, but you, you're just ugly.

Like your poems and your songs,

just ugly and mean. And why,

why couldn't I see the beauty in the world?

I told her that her assessment

of my poetry and songs was probably

the most accurate I'd heard.

But she was wrong on one point.

I'd seen the beauty of this world and known

it was not meant for people like us.

...

Today's book of poetry was honoured to dive back into Rodney DeCroo territory once again.  You feel like your taking a bit of beating but you come out the other side knowing just that little more.  Of course we had to put on protective clothing to mine these glowing embers but it was worth the fuss. 

This is old school, tell it like it is from your busted and broken heart stuff.  Who doesn't love that.

Rodney DeCroo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rodney DeCroo is a Vancouver-based singer/songwriter and poet. Born and raised in a small coal mining town just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has called Vancouver home for years now. He has released a previous collection of poetry, Allegheny, BC (Nightwood, 2012) and seven music albums that have received critical acclaim in Canada, the USA and Europe. Music critics have named him one of Canada’s best folk/alt-country songwriters. Next Door to the Butcher Shop is his latest collection of poetry.

Rodney DeCroo's

"Stupid Boy in an Ugly Town"

Selections from "Allegheny, BC" as performed at The Cultch in Vancouver, BC during the 2014 Fringe Festival. 

Video: Tonic Records

nightwoodeditions.com

639

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration