RED — Chase Berggrun (Birds, LLC)

Today's book of poetry:
RED.  Chase Berggrun.  Birds, LLC.  Minneapolis, New York, Raleigh.  2018.

Chase Berggrun climbs inside of Bram Stoker's Dracula and comes out the other end illuminated, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.  

Today's book of poetry is only ever looking for fine poetry to share, but we also want to make a point of looking everywhere we can.  Gender has become an important issue, delicate and beyond our limited reasoning, but it is important to Today's book of poetry to be blind to gender at the same time as we are trying to give unlimited access regardless of gender.  

Chase Berggrun wrote RED while transitioning gender.  As though that weren't enough to do.  But Today's book of poetry is damned glad Berggrun showed up and took on the Prince of Darkness on their own terms.

Berggrun takes apart Stoker's masterpiece from inside, word by word, using erasure as a methodology.  The resulting text, sub-text, is a hidden masterpiece.  As Chase Berggrun pares and redacts, dissects the original text, an astonishingly fresh and essential new story is revealed.  This is construction at the pyramid level, we can see the seams but are completely baffled at how it was actually accomplished.  Our hats are off.

Chapter I

I was thirty

I was a country of queer force

rushing east to see the strangest side of twilight

I was a woman      in the usual way

I had no language     but the distress and duty

I have been taught to doubt my mother and fear tradition

but my queer tongue    would not     could not shut up

The afternoon sun seemed mighty

and touched my arm with a delicate pain

A woman     kneeling in self-surrender to the new

weeping silver into great masses of greyness      the clouds

which ceaselessly walk and pause as though unmercifully urged on

Through the darkness I could see a stormy sea

a strange mixture of movements

Something slight and flickering seemed to mock my universal yes

I asked what this all meant

I struck a match

and its flame somewhere far off in the distance plunged

Suddenly a faint and endless absence

began beetling around

the howl that swept

the ruined sky

💫💫💫

Sherlock Holmes at his infinite and clever best could not have deciphered Chase Berggrun's Red out of Stoker's Dracula.  This is world class winnowing of red gold.  Not to diminish Bram Stoker's great book, but Berggrun has completed the harder task.  Somehow, beyond reason and out of sight of witnesses, Berggrun has gutted the original and discovered new fresh meat.  

     "We never refer to sadness

       as something that looks

       secrecy

       but it does"

                          CHAPTER VIII

Chase Berggrun reaches into the Gothic patriarchy, puts their arms elbow deep in to all of Stoker's horror and comes out the other side clean, bold, brave, with certainty of purpose.

      "I want to believe in a universe

       willing to understand"

                          CHAPTER IV

Chapter XXV

Note this

I have come to understand      a particular freedom

without restraining mood

aglow     as if loosened

God     you are going to be so good to me

I know a poison you do not

beginning and ending with my hand

the blackest prelude

Note the quaint seriousness of my voice      low and strained

The flesh     the rough flinch

My fast-bending hand

which subdued the whiteness of his hair

I shrink into all wives       and their hands

their hands      that loved me best    I have not forgotten

that set me free     from the thrall      my husband held over me

What I have arranged to do will be no murder

Even if it were

I know now what men feel

that special excitement when in active danger

This necessary task        euthanasia         a comfort

I am in a fever of hands

I found him whetting

the edge of his throat      driven by cold

His hands instinctively sought

my smooth arrangement

He is sure I will come at his call

but I have not lost the grace a woman has

a power he may not take away

I      with perfect nervous poise

let loose wings       a thought-strong swan

When the time comes        I alone slaughter

I alone         ultimately triumph

The tight country he had tried to invade

he kissed it         sick and keen

There is more to tell and I shall tell you

Forgive me if I seem remorseless

selfishness frees my soul somewhat

Not even God is with me now

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry treads with some trepidation, tripping all over ourselves to be gender sensitive.  Why?  Isn't Today's book of poetry just about poetry?  Mostly, but in our poetry world we want to be sure we send the right message to all of our brothers and sisters, all of whom deserve our love and respect regardless of how, when, where or why they have their present identity. Our only job is to be inclusive until the need for such discussions vanish. 

Today's book of poetry has never cared about poetry trousers, except for Vladimir Mayakovsky's "A Red Cloud in Trousers."  We only really care about the poems.

And here is where Chase Berggrun is aces all around.  RED is such a freaking pleasure to read you will be hacking into the air around you.  Sounds will come out that you haven't heard before.  Surprise, joy, satisfaction.

RED is really a master class, it is simply excellent.  Berggrun's utterly fearless burning transforms Dracula into a new and essential read, a new modern marvel.  And this time it is all about turning into the light.

excerpt from Chapter XXVII

               I was a high wind between flurries

               he was lying like a black ribbon

               I mounted his square chest

               I felt imprisoned there

               I saw him below me

               he came quickly

               a sudden cry from the south of me

               he shouted in glee

I got out my revolver

It was strange to see the snow shining brightly around us

Every instant came in bursts

The hollow sound swept the air-space

It was hard to distinguish the real

as the sun dropped lower and lower

He was unaware at first

he fell forward in an unmistakable way

and gave a quick movement of his fist

I felt no fear but only a surging

In the midst of this the sun set

No time seemed to pass besides

By now the blood was spurting through his chest

his eyes glazed with the vindictive look I knew too well

As the moment plunged into my body

I sunk to the ground

Blood between my fingers

Red upon my face

My eyes followed the falling snow

And he died

💫💫💫

Frankly, until reading Chase Berggrun's Red, Today's book of poetry wouldn't have believed you could redact gold and come up diamonds.  

Chase Berggrun take a big bow.

Chase Berggrun

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chase Berggrun is a trans poet. They are the author of R E D, forthcoming from Birds, LLC. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Lambda Literary Spotlight, Pinwheel, PEN Poetry Series, Sixth Finch, Diagram, The Offing, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. They received their MFA from New York University. They are poetry editor at Big Lucks.

"Discontent and its Civilizations" Poems of Erasure by Chase Berggrun

Video: Susan Russell

birdsllc.com 

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                                                                                                                        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.

Pockets - Stuart Ross (ECW Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Pockets.  Stuart Ross.  ECW Press.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Anyone who has read Today's book of poetry knows about Stuart Ross.  

But just so we are clear from the beginning Today's book of poetry loves Stuart Ross as though he were my brother.  Stuart edited my last book, Bad Engine, and I sincerely hope he edits my next book, Low Centre of Gravity.  I love Mr. Ross enough that K and I have named our guest room The Stuart Ross Room.  Just last year Stuart Ross's A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent won the 4th annual prestigious Kitty Lewis Hazel Millar Dennis Tourbin Poetry Prize sponsored by Today's book of poetry.

You can see that here:   

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2016/05/a-sparrow-came-down-resplendent-stuart.html

Today's book of poetry will go you one further, Mr. Ross will be spending a couple of nights here, at the Today's book of poetry headquarters, next week.  All of this lead just to be clear of the road we're plowing, Today's book of poetry remains convinced that Stuart Ross, inspite of being my buddy, is one of Canada's very best writers.

Pockets, the most recent Stuart Ross publication is ostensibly a novel.  But it is a novel constructed of short prose poems.  That's where we come in.  And as much as Pockets holds it narrative these short prose poems have no trouble standing on their own.  Ross mines some familiar territory in Pockets visiting family terrain and his brother in the clouds.

Mayakovsky had his "Cloud in Trousers" and Mayakovsky might not be a bad, but brief, comparison to our surrealist inspired Ross.  The language Ross employs in Pockets results in his most accessible work to date.  Ross is only a few generations away from being a beautifully sad Russian himself.  And make no mistake, even when Ross is punching out prose he remains a poet at heart.  And I always remembered Mayakovsky's 'Trousers' as red.

。。。

                   As I sat cross-legged on the floor on my parents'

                   bedroom at lunchtime watching The Flintstones on

                   television, I felt a tickle on the knuckles of my right

                   hand. It was a daddy-long-legs. Or maybe it was the

                   1955 movie Daddy Long Legs, starring Fred Astaire

                   as Jervis Pendleton III and Leslie Caron as Julie

                   Andre. Whichever it was, it scurried across the back

                   of my hand and vanished.

。。。

This book recycles the dreams and the horrors of childhood through the challenging lens of a beautifully fractured memory.  Wherever there is a broken seam Ross applies his masterful Kintsugi thinking.

。。。

                  I pedalled my new red bicycle to the end of the

                  block. I looked back at our house. My brother stood

                  at the foot of the driveway watching me. He wore

                  a white T-shirt and blue jeans. I was not allowed to

                  ride any farther than the stop sign. I looked at the

                  grey-and-yellow triplexes a block away. Marky lived

                  in one. I rode past the stop sign and up, up, toward

                  the triplexes. I wobbled from side to side on my red

                  bicycle. My brother snitched. The slam of my father's

                  footsteps as he strode after me along Pannahill Road

                  was like a series of meteors hitting the earth. I stood

                  with Marky looking at my new bicycle, and soon my

                  father's shadow fell over us. His large thumb came

                  down and squashed me into the concrete. Marky

                  examined the smudge on the driveway in front of the

                  triplex he lived in.

。。。

These untitled micro-chapters fit together like Lego blocks built by William S. Bourroughs and his wild Brion Gysin friend.  Stuart Ross simply never fails to delight, surprise and inform as he entertains.  There are more nods of agreement inside your own head when reading the mysterio Stuart Ross than you generally have any right to expect.  Especially considering that Ross is most likely going to take you out of your range of reason and then back in before you can blink.

Today's book of poetry doesn't really know any other poets like Stuart Ross.  But if you were to take Kurt Vonnegut's imagination, a Garrison Keillor sense of the storyteller and candy twisted it all together with a generous dose of wit and wisdom from Randy Newman and his melodious lamentations, you would be nearing the mark.

。。。

                   The girl next door had never heard of the Beatles. I

                   laughed. She laughed, too. Her name was Karen. She

                   showed me her Cowsills comic book, and her mother

                   gave us peanut-butter sandwiches and milk in glasses

                   that had once held yahrzeit candles. I looked out their

                   kitchen window and saw my own house. My grand-

                   father was standing on the roof beside his treadle-

                   operated sewing machine. He was born in Poland,

                   and he clenched a piece of thread between his teeth.

。。。

                   Spools of black, brown, and grey thread emerged

                   from the clouds, unravelling as they sailed down

                   toward earth. Earth, meanwhile, braced itself.

。。。

Today's book of poetry is not alone in our admiration of Mr. Stuart Ross.  As a regular guest of Today's book of poetry all of our staff are quite familiar with Stuart and his work.  They also see his name in book after book after book of Canadian poetry -- as editor, mentor or simply being thanked for his friendship. Ross ushers more books of poetry into print, for a wide variety of presses, than Gutenberg ever dreamed.

Even though Pockets is a novel you can carry in your pocket, Today's book of poetry treated it like a series of cleverly connected and paced prose poems.  Our morning read was a non-stop start-to-finish roller coaster as the staff connected the dots and the chapters.  It was an excellent reading.

But in truth there is nothing like the real thing.  Stuart Ross remains one of the best live poetry acts in the country.  Today's book of poetry has been to more poetry readings than you think possible and still thinks Ross is the best.  Of course Ross has great ammunition.  He has a canon of fine books but the reality is that he is getting better with age.  Ross has been adding an emotional elements to his work that has made it more directly accessible to every reader.  

。。。

                  My mother told me the large tree in our backyard

                  was called a "weeping willow." It drooped toward

                  the lawn like it was sad. It was sad because the presi-

                  dent got shot in the head.

。。。

                  I stood at my bedroom window, looking out into the

                  stars and at the moon, so small, drifting aross the

                  black sky. The house was silent. My room was dark.

                  My pyjamas were covered in squirrels. The thing I

                  thought was the moon was not the moon, after all. It

                  was a snow fort. I huddled inside it, chewing ice.

。。。

Pockets will garner more attention than Today's book of poetry can give it.  But we will be able to say to many of you that you saw it here first.  Stuart Ross writes with such authority that his whimsy always leads the reader in the right direction.  His startling revelations and discoveries become a baseline for an entirely new sensation of reason.

Today's book of poetry loves this work.

Stuart Ross

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stuart Ross is a Canadian fiction writer, poet, editor, and creative-writing instructor.

Ross was born in Toronto's north end in 1959 and grew up in the Borough of North York. He began writing at a very young age and was first published at age 16 by Books by Kids (now Annick Press). This book, The Thing in Exile, also contained work by teen writers Steven Feldman and Mark Laba. Ross attended Alternative Independent Study Program for high school. He went on to self-publish dozens of books and chapbooks through his Proper Tales Press imprint. As his books began to emerge from larger literary publishing houses, he has continued his Proper Tales Press project.

Ross has been active in the Toronto literary scene since the mid-1970s. He is co-founder, with Nicholas Power, of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, which has been operating since 1987 under various directorships. This fair, the first of its kind in Canada, inspired similar events in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Hamilton. Ross is a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective, which formed in 2006 to promote small-press publishing in the Toronto area.

He was the 2002 "Writer in Residence" for the Writers' Circle of Durham Region, the 2003 "Poet in Residence" for the Ottawa International Writers Festival, and the 2005 Electronic Writer in Residence for the Toronto Public Library's RAMP website for teens. He was Queen's University's writer in residence in 2010.[1] Stuart was the Fiction and Poetry Editor for This Magazine from 2004 until 2012 and from 2007 to 2016, he was Editor for Mansfield Press, where he had his own imprint: "a stuart ross book."[2] In 2017, Ross launched a new imprint for surrealist poetry – A Feed Dog Book – through Anvil Press.

His own magazines have included Mondo Hunkamooga: A Journal of Small Press Reviews (later subtitled A Journal of Small Press Stuff), Peter O'Toole (a magazine of one-line poems), Dwarf Puppets on Parade (a magazine of writing with restrictions), Who Torched Rancho Diablo? (poetry and fiction), Syd & Shirley, a magazine of Canadian and American poetry, and HARDSCRABBLE, a poetry magazine.

Although primarily known as a poet, Ross has also published fiction and personal essays. His column "Hunkamooga" appeared in Word: Toronto's Literary Calendar from 2001 to 2005, and moved to the Vancouver-based literary magazine sub-Terrain in 2006, where it ran until 2012.

As an editor, Ross was responsible for the 2004 anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence. In 2003, he issued the chapbook anthology My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush. In 2007, Ross was the editor for the Insomniac Press book Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden, and in 2010 for the Insomniac Press book Why Are You So Long and Sweet? Collected Long Poems of David McFadden. With Stephen Brockwell, he is the editor of the Mansfield Press poetry anthology Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament.

His 2009 short-story collection, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, was shortlisted for the Alberta Readers' Choice Award and the Alberta Book Awards, and won the 2010 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. In 2012, he co-won the Elaine Mona Adilman Award for English Fiction & Poetry on a Jewish Theme, awarded by the J.I. Segal Committee of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, for his novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew. In spring 2013, Ross's poetry collection You Exist. Details Follow. won the Exist Through The Gift Shop Award, the only prize given to an anglophone writer that year by the Montreal-based group l'Académie de la vie littéraire au tournant du 21e siècle. In fall 2017, Stuart's poetry collection A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent received the Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the poetry category.

PLEASE NOT THAT THIS BIOGRAPHY WAS TAKEN IN ITS ENTIRETY FROM WIKIPEDIA

BLURBS

“Each brief page of this brief, surrealistic novel brims with the unexpected, the astonishing, the odd . . . Pockets is a beautiful little book.” 

     – The Murdock

Stuart Ross

Reads 3 Razovsky poems

Video: farmergloomy

ecwpress.com

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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.

Pin Pricks - Phlip Arima (Quattro Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Pin Pricks.  Phlip Arima.  Quattro Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2014.

Here's the thing.  Today's book of poetry is pretty sure you could walk the streets of any city in the world with a copy of Phlip Arima's Pin Pricks in your pocket and find the answers to almost any question you might be asked.  Not a direct answer, but a perfect response.

Pin Pricks is full of sharp and quick teasers, taunts, lamentations, celebrations and exclamations.   Sharp and quick but never terse.  Mr. Arima is a delight.

Pin Prick 3

Naked

I walk to the wall

count the cracks

that disappear

into the floor.

Listening

I hear a siren

screaming toward

a greater

drama.

...

Pin Prick 17

Two men of different skin

talking as they walk

down the street.

An obscenity is shot

from a passing car.

They pause, sigh

never stop holding hands.

...

Because Arima chooses such brevity in Pin Pricks Today's book of poetry has taken the unusual step of including three two-poem clusters instead our usual three poems.  Pin Pricks merits this by being constantly surprising and consistently right on the mark.  These poems are clusters of pearls.

Pin Prick 40

There's a crack in the floor

that lengthens each time

I step over it.

Its edge resemble

a cut on my hand

that will not heal.

Into it I've swept

the names I no longer

write on my calendar.

...

Pin Prick 51

The tortoise was fully evolved

before mankind existed.

There are trees that have outlived

civilizations.

Just prior to the Second World War

we split the atom.

...

At our office this morning all hell broke loose.  Everyone was in high spirits because we had guests show up for this morning's reading.  The ghosts of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Ezra Pound bounded into our offices around eight-thirty, they were arm in arm, Vladimir politely demanded vodka and Ezra demurely requested "strong tea".

Who knew that Milo spoke Russian?  Milo and Mayakovsky are now sitting in the corner, Milo talking a mile a minute, Vlad occasionally shaking his head, "nyet, nyet."  

The two giants joined in on this morning's read, each taking their turn in stride.  Hearing Phlip Arima read in Russian, Milo translating in Vlad's ear, was a gas.

The old poets are never wrong.  Not here at Today's book of poetry, and it might have been our best morning read yet.

Pin Prick 74

The elephant rolls over

and everyone applauds.

He stands on one leg

and everyone applauds.

He shits as he is leaving

and everyone pretends

not to notice.

...

Pin Prick 11

Abandoned trousers in the street

a young face at a window

someone waves an ancient flag

a glass of wine falls over.

A line of cars run out of gas

bets are placed on politicians

dogs are freed from a kennel.

A summer storm destroys a city

soldiers put their helmets on 

debates are staged for television.

Sticks of incense near an altar

lose their scent to time.

...

NOTE: VLADIMIR INSISTED ON READING THIS POEM, THEN EZRA READ IT TOO.

...

Today's book of poetry would be remiss if we didn't mention how much we liked the very striking cover of Phlip Arima's Pin Pricks.  Designed by Sarah Beaudin and using an electric image by Thomas Hendry, this book looks as great as it reads.  

Arima's aphorisms and poems are proof in the pudding that bigger is not always better.  Today's book of poetry had the ghosts of giants show up at our offices this morning to prove it.

Phlip Arima

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phlip Arima is a Toronto author of three previous poetry books:Breathe Now, Damaged, and Beneath the Beauty. Broken Accidents, a collection of short fiction, was short-listed for a 2003 Relit Award. His poetry has been adapted to video by Vision Television, and his fiction to stage by Newfoundland’s RCA Theatre.

quattrobooks.ca 

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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.