CIRCADIA - kevin mcpherson eckhoff (Gaspereau Press Limited)

Today's book of poetry:

CIRCADIA.  kevin mcpherson eckhoff.  Devil's Whim Occasional Chapbook Series.  Devil's Whim Chapbook No. 37.  Gaspereau Press Limited.  Kentville, Nova Scotia.  2018.

kevin mcpherson eckhoff's CIRCADIA gives us twelve absolutely engaging list poems.  Those of you poetry babies who regularly attend Today's book of poetry will remember our fondness of the form.  eckhoff's poems, each of the twelve is titled for a month of the year, are scatalogical gold.

Before you are finished the all too brief CIRCADIA, you really will not want it to end, eckhoff will have you travel from lemming history and Play-Doh to the Violent Femmes and the male CEO of Mother's Against Drunk Driving. This is deep-sea diving without taking a breath.

If this were a road trip, it would be one of the best; CIRCADIA is poetry rendered into hilarious and somewhat doomed hopscotch.  Not sure if eckhoff would ever take his foot off of the gas, but what a ride.

September

    Play that song,

     Play it again.

     Now, improvise.

          JOHN LENT, "INTERSECTIONS"

I ate some cotton candy. I bought a plastic Wonder

Woman cup for a dollar. I lifted some weights. I'm

not in a classroom teaching. I didn't vomit. I picked

up four boxes of books and papers and puppets and

knickknacks that the custodian had cleaned out of 

my office at Okanagan College. I ate five peaches. I

asked the president of the board of directors to step

down. I spit my gum out the car window. I brought

home an orphaned baby vole. Kiddo named the baby

vole, which we've since learned may actually be a

pack rat, Diggin' Smily. I ran. We moved the toddler-

sized armchair into the bathroom because my

3-year-old was spending so much of his day on the

potty and the milking stool gets so hard on the butt

after reading five books. I lifted some weights. My

3-year-old asked: "What does God think of John

Lent?" I flipped a table to emphasize a point. I drove

to Vancouver. Playing at the park with my 1-year-old,

the moonrise was a word thief. I ran. There were

many toads on the road. I ate some popcorn. A kid at

the park told me that he is really into parkour and

that he just learnt about it yesterday. I watched a

lawyer cage his tears, in part, because I questioned

his actions and abilities. I petted a capybara. I didn't

go to the lantern festival. I deactivated my Facebook

account. I cried. I texted so much while driving. I

wondered how dreams work. I took three boxes of

books to the bookstore to sell. I spotted a fawn on

the side of the highway nuzzling a large lump of

brown fur.

📣📣📣📣

The twelve monthly missives make for a eventful year, eckhoff is hammering out poems that are consistent, anti-cryptic, clear cut, and clean of artifice.  What more could the poetry angels ask for?

Today's book of poetry loves the way kevin mcpherson eckhoff rolls the dice and we cannot wait to see more of this obviously smarty-pants brilliant poet's poetry.  

CIRCADIA makes it all simple, a grandfather dies as easily as a snack of warm nuts appears.  A crossword puzzle and Max Ernst's The Hundred Headless Woman appear on the same palette and with the same simple but vivid colours.

March

     Between thought and expression, let us now kiss the culprit.

     Ooh, I don't know just what it's all about

          VELVET UNDERGROUND, "SOME KINDA LOVE"

I almost had sex. I ran. I didn't wear a seatbelt. I got

shit-eared by Laurel because her favorite foliage in

the front yard, a red twig dogwood, which she kept

calling forsythia, was by her judgement, irreparably

over-pruned by my mother. I played at the park. I 

auditioned for the role of James. I Googled "how to

cook frozen steaks." I drank three coffees. I lifted

some weights. I watched my 3-year-old reveal how a

cattail that has survived the winter contains the fluff

of roughly a hundred thousand billion dandelion

seeds. I had a new passport photo taken. I went to

the chiropractor. I went swimming in the public

pool. I cleaned up my 3-year-old's puke from the bed.

I lifted some weights. I bought the hedgehog a 

wheel, in which it ran for 90 minutes. I threw up. I

did not lift any weights. I wondered about the word

"hide" --how its noun and verb meanings collide. I

threw rocks into a creek. I lifted some weights. I had

sex. I momentarily fell asleep on the hardwood floor

while my 3-year-old and I hid from Jehovah's

Witnesses who were knocking on our door. I started

watching the second season of Daredevil. I shaved. I

ran. I beat up the cherry tree using a scythe to sap

my anger. I ate a lot of chocolate. My 3-year-old

tossed a shred of toenail into the hash browns

as they were frying. I picked up my new passport.

I didn't buy my mom a birthday gift.

📣📣📣📣📣

It's almost spring here in Ottawa and we are all anxiously awaiting "open-window-weather", in the meantime we will rely on poetry like kevin mcpherson eckhoff's refreshing CIRCADIA.  There is so much to enjoy in these inventories, catalogues, lists, poems.

Today's book of poetry has Pharoah Sanders blasting out of the box, his seminal recording of "Oh Lord, let me do no wrong."  Today's book of poetry bought this recording many years ago, in Los Angeles, and then played it non-stop as we drove our rented car up and down California.  Sanders always gives Today's book of poetry more than we asked for, always a life-confirming Walt Whitman "barbaric yawp."  CIRCADIA dances like that, a rhythm all of its own.

June

          I waited in the shadow of my stupid house.

               JAMES FRANCO, "THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT"

I rolled down a grassy hill. I went to my first gala film

premiere. I lifted some weights. I only had one

coffee. I sneezed. I killed a mosquito. I cleaned the

vegetable crisper. I saw my best friend. I self-taped

an audition for the role of Shawn in a film called He's

Out There, even though I know I won't get it. I was

hot. I ate some buffalo-wing-flavoured combos. I

swam in Okanagan Lake. I ran. I didn't get a

callback. I thought about Orlando, the city, not the

book. I clipped my fingernails. I saw a fly trapped in

a Ziploc bag at the playground and I didn't let it out.

My parents visited. I read 36 chapbook-length

manuscripts. I tried teaching my 10-month-old how

to gesture "momma" in American Sign Language,

which he could only imitate as "bitch." I lifted some

weights. I lamented not having found Anne Tardos

and her work 10 years ago. I felt like a hammer. I

nabbed a feral kitten out from under a red minivan at

Caravan Farm Theatre and brought it home. I went

swimming at the green boathouse. The kitten went

to live with our friend Cody. I signed up for a 

LinkedIn account. I ran. I read about Yuxweluptun's

proposal to rename B.C. I worked out at the Vernon

Boxing Club for the first time.

📣📣📣📣📣📣

Today's book of poetry looks out over our big wooden desk and sees the room Michael Hewko built for me.  A quick and simple look at our shelves quickly reveals how poetry beasts like David Clewell, Stuart Ross, Cameron Anstee, David Collins, et al., have showered on our office with generosity.  The poetry world can be like that.  We have much to be thankful for in these offices and it gives Today's book of poetry hope.

In CIRCADIA eckhoff circumnavigates some difficult terrain but with such elan that the lasting impression is one of giddy comfort.  You will have a poetry smile on your face after reading this book, our new intern Tomas guarantees it.

kevin mcpherson eckhoff

ABOUT THE POET

Kevin McPherson Eckhoff is a writer, an actor, a teacher, a hubbub and a daddoo. The Globe & Mail described his most recent book—their biography (BookThug)—as “wide-ranging” and “incredibly playful.” He plays one of the lead characters in Sean Braune’s feature film Nuptials. By day, he teaches writing and shit at Okanagan College with his very star bff, Jake Kennedy; by night, he lives on unceded Splats’in Territory with a Laurel and two miniscule muscular men.

gaspereau.com

809

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.

This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album - Alan Chazaro (Black Lawrence Press)

Today's book of poetry:
This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album.  Alan Chazaro.  Black Lawrence Press.  New York.  2019.

Black River Chapbook Competition Winner

Being a sixty-three year-old grumpy white man in Canada, Today's book of poetry is sadly unfamiliar with contemporary music.  Bird, Trane, Prez and so on, Billie, Sarah, these are the musicians I know.  Hip hop, as I've only very recently discovered, is rock n roll as much as any other.  But until I started to write this blog/review I had never heard of Frank Ocean or Christopher Edwin Cooksey, I certainly had never heard of Odd Future or listened to Channel Orange or Blond.  But after a first reading of Alan Chazaro's This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album we figured we needed to hear Frank Ocean's acclaimed Blond.  Astounding.

Alan Chazaro's This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album is like a slice of some new fruit, spicy, fragrant and tasty.  Alan Chazaro can cook.  So can Frank Ocean.

Self-Portrait as American

I say fuck

because it feels right

about now,

and I say love because

what wrong

could it bring?

I haven't shot a pistol

since my stepdad

flung his Desert Eagle

from the bedroom and took us

to burst freedom as kids.

The smell of sulfur

and devil, the pinch

of steel between my 10-

year-old finger. I didn't

seek this, was never good

at hitting body-

sized targets,

kept my eyes

shut while I curled

the trigger. It's heavier

than you think,

to hold and re-

lease thunder.

Not like the movies but

somehow like the movies.

Ears still ringing,

vibrations

in my bones.

💥💥💥💥

Alan Chazaro is doing some singing of his own in This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album.  But wouldn't you know it, he's also looking at colonialism, toxic masculinity and tenderness.  Chazaro is using a multi-coloured brush and painting broad strokes when he paints his landscapes.  And of course he paints in the detail so that it all fits.

Yes, Today's book of poetry uses metaphors like cooking, singing, painting, to describe poetry and we feel good about it.  And just in passing, our photo does not do it justice, the cover of This Is Not A Frank Ocean Cover Album is one of the very best we have seen in a long time.  Splendid.

Self-Portrait as Cartographer

Have you ever retraced the borders on a world

map with your abuela's lipstick? Post-

colonialism is a word that means re-hustle,

but should never be re-Tweeted. This isn't

a political statement. The states have been on fire

for as long as they have been stated. What happens

when GPS can no longer locate what you are

looking for? I'm talking cartography,

the fog-swallow of clouds, a wandering

mathematics. Since we've come a long way

from the art of papyrus. Since we've come for more

than your blood can script. Return to your proper

homes. This land is full of forsaken places

I've never visited. What is a sign if it only points to you

in one direction? How can you sleep with your eyes

open and an open road ahead of you?

Is it possible to be found when you've fallen

off the map? I've been in wilderness. I've been in fluorescent

cities. I mean this literally--how the lights raged

across both places. How I know the silence

of hands that can draw worlds and hands

that won't even try.

💥💥💥💥

Today's book of poetry was listening to Frank Ocean this morning, but when we typing up this blog it was Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, that lot.  I don't think Mr. Chazaro would object.  

The world is on fire and Alan Chazaro is pointing fingers.  This poetry takes place in a world Today's book of poetry has not spent much time in - so why is it so compelling?

Actually, this is where Frank Ocean really comes in to play, listening to Mr. Ocean it was easy to imagine Chazaro writing these poems.  The same casual elegance and a little embrace of the classic "fuck you."

Chazaro writes about Oscar de La Hoya fighting Julio César Chávez and Today's book of poetry is in the room.  Today's book of poetry has nothing but admiration for this poem and the poet who got it down.

Julio César Chávez vs. Oscar De La Hoya, 1996

That night our apartment was an armpit, testosterone

and sweat-washed as if Papi and his friends were the ones

entering the ring. When he let me sip his Heineken I knew

it was a big deal. I stumbled and hiccupped, imitating

Dumbo from the cartoon I'd loved. The men laughed, easily

entertained until Chávez appeared on screen. The Mexican

Warrior, they called him. Papi reminded me

how he had battled one hundred fighters, more

than Ali, or Tyson, or Dempsey. The De La Hoya

entered. Everyone booed, telling him to go back

to his locker like the traitor he was. The Mexicans

thought he was gringo and the gringos thought

he was Mexican. I should've smiled

with missing front teeth for The Golden Boy

in his mixed-up outfit, a combo

of US and Mexican flags, but I didn't, I don't

remember the actual fight, a flurry

of blurred punches and the card girls in bikinis. I wasn't sure

what took place until everyone on the couch started

grumbling, their movements a slow and beer-confused

disappointment. I swear someone must've cried. Chávez 

was hunched over in his corner, right eye swollen

from repeated jabs to the brow, while De La Hoya

stood center, undefeated.

💥💥💥💥

Poetry may be the uniter of worlds, Alan Chazaro was not considering the attention of an aging Canadian, his house surrounded by snow, when he wrote these fine poems.  A true poetry voice always has a clear sound and Chazaro cooks that up proper.

Today's book of poetry will be waiting, both hopeful and anxious, for Chazaro's next poetry title.  The man is a stone cold poetry assassin and Today's book of poetry loves that madly.

Alan Chazaro

ABOUT THE POET

Alan Chazaro is a high school teacher at the Oakland School for the Arts, the former Lawrence Ferlinghetti Fellow at the University of San Francisco, and a June Jordan Poetry for the People alum at UC Berkeley. A Bay Area native, his poems have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Puerto del Sol, Huizache, Acentos Review, and Ninth Letter. He is a recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award and has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. His first poetry collection, THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM

(Black Lawrence Press, 2019), was the winner of the 2018 Black River Chapbook Competition, and his second book, PIÑATA THEORY (Black Lawrence Press, 2019), was awarded the 2018 Hudson Prize.

BLURBS

"Listen: This book is so good it makes me want to curse. Better still: it makes me want to go write. Alan Chazaro's THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM is full of neon imagery—a blunt passed around like 'just-born stars,' an apartment full of men watching boxing as an armpit. Chazaro's lyric is expansive; his music is tight. Nod your head & find yourself going back to each poem to trace its wisdom like a kid hitting rewind on a Walkman to hear their favorite punch line over and over. Chazaro's poems explore masculinity & machismo with tenderness, they define & redefine ideas of home, and they shout out the Bay Area with love & precision."

—José Olivarez

"Welcome to the blood hymn of the fast-moving body. In THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM, debut poet, Alan Chazaro, breaks open—beautifully—the contemporary poetry landscape, crossing bridges, contemplating borders, and reckoning with the legacies of a rumbling boyhood. The voices here are tender, intellectual; hungry for desert wonder and midnight hoops, they wind their way through the ruins of Athens, the streets of Mexico City, and back to the yards and bars of Oakland. 'We are byproducts of earthquakes,' confesses the speaker; 'Do not look away.' A burning and beautiful achievement by a poet on the rise."

 —Brynn Saito

"Alan Chazaro's THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM challenges us to listen. To reckon with the troubling vibrations of diaspora and masculinity in the landscapes of a gentrifying America and postcolonial world. In these pages you'll find a poet who has done that listening, who has listened to himself, his loved ones, his community. Who knows 'there are streets that have retained the noises of ghosts,' and has found a way to remix those vibrations as a way of navigating the joys and perils of his world."

—Malcolm Friend

"THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM is a full-throated song, a reclamation of language, history, and memory that resonates across time and space and generations. Here, the Bay Area is sentient and brimming with sound, possessing a body and blood of its own. Chazaro's language is pure electricity, revealing the sonic landscapes and silences that surround lineages, memories, and displacements. By alchemizing loss into light, these poems are both cosmic and deeply embodied. Chazaro rewrites masculinity and reckons with colonialism, all while guiding us toward the mythic possibilities of creation: 'how constellations are formed / from the darkness of our mouths.' Each poem contains a home within itself, a home that defies nation and gentrification, a home that can hold all of us. This collection is kaleidoscopic, alive with joy and mourning and defiance. With each singing line, it brings the future to us: 'One day, / let us all return to ourselves.'"

—Kristin Chang

Alan Chazaro -- "16 Reasons Why a Dreamer Will Be the First Person to Build a Spacecraft"

Oakland School for the Arts-- Heart of Oakland 2019 Written by Alan Chazaro Performed by Alan Chazaro and OSA students

blacklawrence.com

808

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.

Local Haunts - David White (Pedlar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Local Haunts.  David White.  Pedlar Press.  St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.  2019.

There is all the sad glamour you are every going to need in the first section of David White's Local Haunts.  The first section of this book, titled "Port Franks, Looking Towards Kettle Point" makes poetry out of distressing and disturbing childhood travesties.  There is an electric current running underneath this section, when you are reading Local Haunts you can feel it hum.

In White's poems coming of age comes at a cost.  Some of these poems hit the reader like a punch and others like a weep.  Either way that hum keeps you plugged in.

For Today's book of poetry there is some common ground between David White and myself.  The first section of Local Haunts reflect some of White's experience growing up in and around London, Ontario and having a father in the military.  Many of White's locations are familiar to my childhood self.  My father was a member of the RCR (Royal Canadian Regiment) and stationed in London, where I was born just two short years after Mr. White.  Today's book of poetry was born at St. Joseph's Hospital, London, Ontario.  I have memories of Wolseley Barracks.  Apparently my misbehaviour was a factor in the formation of rules about children watching movies on the base.  Enduring the beach at Iperwash was a regular happening in my family, I enjoyed it about as much as Mr. White, so not much at all.  Although our complaints were somewhat different.

Narcissus

Dragged out of the bathtub, held there

naked, dripping, suspended in my Daddy's grip

before the full-length mirror,

six years old, skin and bone,

bruises all on display,

scrawny genitals shriveled up,

while he wails away beyond words:

You fuckin' little brat! Goddamn skinny little puke.

People'll think we don't feed you, you god-

damn little bastard.

Bone dance of throttled skeleton

held there, purples turning black.

One last thrust. I'm flat against the mirror,

face and body grotesque,

a dangling distortion, more

emancipated Third World child

than suitably fattened North American,

Daddy screaming, beer breath

hot on my shoulder:

fuckin' skinny little son of a bitch.

💥💥💥

David White is gay, but Today's book of poetry would never mention such a thing unless it was relevant to the poetry.  In the remaining two-thirds of Local Haunts much of his poetry concerns his journey in a world that can still be frightfully hostile.  Yet for Today's book of poetry there enough moments of splendid joy, optimism and celebration in Local Haunts, to entice all you poetry babies.  White's community, like all others, looking for love and happiness, and rightly so.

The second and third chapters/elements of Local Haunts share and revel in the experience of searching for and sharing love.  Entirely admirable end game plan.  

Days of 1986

Last time I saw Greg Van Patter,

Gay farmer, he was walking,

hobbling with a cane

past Kingsmill's Department Store.

That was out of character, but soon,

too soon, he was dying of AIDS.

I first met Greg during a summer gift:

homemade ice cream

on the lawns of Eldon House

his--suited, for the party--

supple body, perfectly fitted,

consecrated to toil,

laugh lines caressed

by sun on furrowed fields, eyes

flared as his glance

irresistibly engaged,

his smile impeccable

through the extended evening blue.

I revelled in the musk

of his event horizon,

those moments

of erotic singularity

amidst all the dainty

Eldon House Garden Partiers,

those ends of June when Chris,

Museum Director,

rounded up all his friends

and, unbeknownst to the Board,

surreptitiously put on the biggest

"A-List" Gay party in town.

Gone now so many of the revellers

who danced away those evenings

as the dusk embraced

then erased their dreams.

💥💥💥

There are so many fine and precise moments in Local Haunts, whether White is in a happy poem or a sad one, his constant attention leaves the attentive reader with that little jaw drop moment with expedient frequency.

Today's book of poetry will return to David White's excellent Local Haunts in a moment.  We wanted to report that our readership just surpassed 800,000 and we're pretty excited about that here in our offices.  Our new intern, Tomas, surprised us with a cake, eight candles on top.  It was a great way to start the day.  The cake, vanilla with vanilla icing, side of whipped cream, was delightful.  That's the good news.

The less good news is that Today's book of poetry has been sad of late.  One of our greatest poetry friends, David Clewell, died quite recently and unexpectedly.  Today's book of poetry had spoken to David just a few days before his demise but David barely mentioned that he was ill.  David Clewell, former Missouri State Poet Laureate, had been a guiding light in recent years.  His knowledge of poetry and poets simply superior to any I had previously encountered.  David's generosity of spirit and action filled Today's book of poetry's heart with joy AND added ludicrously wonderful additions to the Today's book of poetry poetry library.

Our good friend Michael Hewko died last week.  If you knew about Hewko you knew he was simply the best at what he did.  But it is unlikely you ever heard of Michael.  He was the genuine curmudgeon.  K and I have artwork by Michael Hewko in several rooms of our house, he painted all the walls, built all the bookcases in my study and the permanent ones in the rest of our house, he designed and built our bathroom, and he was my curmudgeonly old friend.  The very first art I ever bought was from Michael Hewko.  It hangs in our bedroom.  Oh yes, he designed and built a sliding shelf that fits over our bed, built it out of old doors.  The man was a certain type of genius and those of us who loved him now have that big hole where he used to grumble.

Death is coming to us all, no doubt about that shit.  And my sadness is certainly no worse than yours.  But this particular double hit, following a year of funerals and grief, was simply staggering.  Today's book of poetry is looking forward to getting back on track, yesterday's surprising Ottawa sun storm of delight was a good step.

Reading David White's Local Haunts is exactly the poetry kick in the ass that Today's book of poetry wanted/needed to get our train back on the tracks.  Here's some more:

Almost As If

     It was never easy being a homosexual.

                                        -Stephen Sondheim

and it's almost as if I'm cruising Mannahatta,

arm in arm with Walt Whitman,

searching every passing eye

for resonant desire,

searching for the one

I could cling to,

electric, adhesive,

spontaneous genital combustion,

and it's almost as if I'm holding

Hart Crane's hand,

to keep him from leaping

from the ocean liner's deck

into the Gulf of Mexico.

"Goodbye. Goodbye, everybody," he cries,

and the ship sails on towards

the desolation of America,

and it's almost as if I'm howling

with Allen Ginsberg

while the best minds of my generation

are destroyed by the madness

of yet another grasping, greedy,

hypocritical, evangelical,

insincere abomination

of Capital,

and it's almost as if I'm standing

beside Marsha P. Johnson

outside the Stonewall Inn

those early morning hours.

June 28, 1969, grieving

the death of Judy Garland and shouting

"Gay Power!"

before a billy club strikes her head,

handcuffs encircle her wrists,

and it's almost as if I'm demonstrating

with ACT UP

at the AIDS Conference in Montreal

June 4, 1989,

chanting "Silence = Death,"

reading the Montreal Manifesto

(and what do I mean, "almost?"

I was there,

chanting, carrying my placard),

and my body's hanging,

broken, in Wyoming

on the fence beside Matthew Shepard,

October 12th, 1998,

pistol-whipped face

a red sea of blood

except where tears

river down his dying cheeks:

he was finally, October 26, 2018,

twenty years after his death,

laid to rest in Washington

Cathedral, and I'm attending

the marriage of friends

who've been living together for decades

but only now can legally seal their bonds

and live the dream they've held on to

all these unacknowledged years,

and I'm maintaining vigilance

against the rising tide

of far-right ignorance

seeking once again

to repeal our future.

💥💥💥

All of you poetry babies, thank you so much for 800,000 hits, Today's book of poetry certainly appreciates it.  We would like to thank each and every one of you personally.  In lieu of that we will continue to bring you quality poetry at just the right price.

If you would like to interact with Today's book of poetry we are sending out a challenge:  send us your favourite book of poetry you don't think we have in the stacks.  Best entry will receive two Crying Charlies and one night's stay in the Stuart Ross Guest + Reading Room, transportation not included.

Our mailing address remains:

Michael Dennis/Today's book of poetry

111 Dagmar Avenue

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada

K1L 5T3

So Today's book of poetry is happy to be back in the saddle, happier still that we can bring you titles like Local Haunts by David White.  A big, big, big thanks goes out to the publishers, like Pedlar Press, who keep Today's book of poetry in business by sending us their best.

David White

ABOUT THE POET

David White was a participant in Renga: a collaborative poem (Brick Books, 1980).  In 1994, in completion of his Ph.D., he wrote A Territory Not Yet On The Map: Relocating Gay Aestheticism In The Age Of AIDS.  His first solo collection of poems is The Lark Ascending (Pedlar Press, 2017).  Local Haunts is his second collection.  For many years he taught Theatre History and Writing at Fanshawe College.  He lives in London, Ontario.

pedlarpress.com

807

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.

Tinderbox Lawn - Carol Guess (Rose Metal Press) + Human-Ghost Hybrid Project - Carol Guess and Daniela Olszewska (Black Lawrence Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Tinderbox Lawn.  Carol Guess.  Rose Metal Press.  Brookline, Maine.  2008.

and

Human-Ghost Hybrid Project.  Carol Guess and Daniela Olszewska.  Black Lawrence Press.  Somewhere in the upper north-east.  2017.

Today's book of poetry is entering uncharted waters.  This, our 806th blog/review, is our first post where we have tackled two books, one by a hybrid Human-Ghost, and the other by Carol Guess.  That's where we'll start, Today's book of poetry thoroughly enjoyed every second we were in Tinderbox Lawn.

Utterly charming with overshadows of dark and unforgiving wit.  Carol Guess beats the craps out of sardonic.  Tinderbox Lawn is a conflagration of tidy and tardy prose poems that collectively report on a fractured world.

Tinderbox Lawn is reporting the news of the day and every page feels like a scoop.  Think Lois Lane channeling Lucy Riccardo and Anne Sexton.  Though untitled, these harmonically connected bon bons and bon mots paint a rather fully textured picture.  Guess give us new entry points to our own imaginations.

. . .

We watched the girl through her open window. 45th Street

was hot but she was on fire. We were thinking we should

fuck her as she undressed in front of a face or a mirror. I

said look at her hair, soft. You said look at her lips, bloom.

We'd prepared our room: dog in her cage, silk over skylights

because of the heat. You said she's sweet.  I said three's

sweeter. And after we'd take notes on who was better.

Seattle had never been hotter. You had a bottle and I had a

bottle. A building caught fire, rows of condos attached at the

hip. Fire trucks slipped on glossy pavement. Water filled the

moonlit basement. A man flew from a balcony into the air.

Ash stained our hair and the whorls of our dresses. Water

caressed us, the thick blue knife slicing away burnt boards

and glass. We lit cigarettes off the burning grass and breathed

smoke until the streets were clean, the dog lay dreaming,

and you were mine again. Breezes fanned the trees and the

tinderbox lawn. Both the window and the girl were gone.

💥💥💥

Tinderbox Lawn was entirely a first class gas.

Human-Ghost Hybrid Project teams up Carol Guess with Daniela Olszewska, together they conjure the Human-Ghost and the Human-Ghost is another gas altogether.  Sublime.

Human-Ghost Hybrid Project is made up of short, prose poems, much like Tinderbox Lawn.  Human-Ghost sounds a lot like Carol Guess, but also like someone new, something new, enter Daniela Olszewska.  Today's book of poetry doesn't know how these two shared the reins but they sure do gallop.  Today's book of poetry does have some experience writing poems with another poet, my associate and I would like to think the results were fruitful.  With Human-Ghost Hybrid Project there is no doubt the success of these poems.

Humour makes up a large part of the Human-Ghost mystique but that's just a clever entry point to the radical possible the Human-Ghost seems to champion.  There is all sorts of poetry magic happening in these lines.  The poems have titles like "Parking Garage Pastoral" and "Watering the Dead", both great titles, stand alone three word poems in fact.  Once you get inside this book these poems, sometimes disguised as fables, you see that Human-Ghost has a new paradigm for Human-Ghost world.

Superstition Sale

On Sundays, we set up a fort and sell wind-up woodland animals

painted to look like moral imperatives. Let's try and sustain our

autumnal wet-fruit-wrapped-in-hair-smells. We aren't hapless; we

just dress this way to people will give us a little less guidance. On

Monday, we scrap whatever's unsold: usually crows and tube-nosed

bats and wind-up foxes. We junk their parts for baby seals. No one

wants black cats' eyes or boys raised by wolves.

💥💥💥

Human-Ghost Hybrid Project had much the same affect on Today's book of poetry as the somewhat haunting Tinderbox Lawn.  We were wildly amused, animals are named, a text message arrives in a bottle, the flattest robots are revealed and rowboats meet royalty.  What more could you ask?

Guess and Olszewsky have, without ego, merged into a single entity, a singular voice, Human-Ghost.  Today's book of poetry digs the Human-Ghost and gets off on their clever burn.  We can only hope this hybrid hothouse finds time to go exploring again.  Witty gets over-used and smart just won't cut it.  Carol Guess and Daniela Olszewska do it right.

Eyelet and Eyesore

The boss said prenup, not pre-need.

Here I am, married to my job again.

Sometimes a girl just has to wear white, trip over her veil on the

way to HR.

The honeymoon was downsized off yachts overlooking offshore

accounts.

It isn't easy being smarter than Marketing or negotiating a

rainbow-colored parachute without a ripcord.

Even my dress dressed down on casual Friday, leaving me unlaced

and French-cut in the breast pumping closet.

We down corporate coffee on company time ("we" meaning "me

and peeps at my pay grade").

We passed notes in infrared ("we" meaning "the two secretaries

from Legal").

My dowry was ivy-covered, everyone meant for me to wed up.

Every Halloween, I costume in a new First World Problem.

I love my ability to love whatever loves me back, it makes me stay

slim enough to look good in lace.

All day long, I've been surfing the web for vintage jewelry. My best

friend from college wanted to be an astronaut. I don't know whether

or not I should send her this link about the planet they just

discovered: it's made entirely out of diamonds, it's like four

thousand light years away.

💥💥💥

Today's book of poetry admires this poetry very much, it beyond our imagination to write, but reading it is pure pleasure.  Carol Guess and Human-Ghost partner Daniela Olszewska are welcome at Today's book of poetry any time.

Carol Guess

Daniela Olszewska

ABOUT THE POET

Carol Guess is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Darling Endangered, Doll Studies: Forensics, and Tinderbox Lawn. In 2014 she was awarded the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement by Columbia University. Recent BLP titles include With Animal, co-written with Kelly Magee, and Human-Ghost Hybrid Project, co-written with Daniela Olszewska. She is Professor of English at Western Washington University.

Daniela Olszewska is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: cloudfang : : cakedirt (Horse Less Press, 2012), True Confessions of An Escapee From The Capra Facility For Wayward Girls (Spittoon Press, 2013), and Citizen J (Artifice Books, 2013). With Carol Guess, she is the co-author of How To Feel Confident With Your Special Talents (Black Lawrence Press, 2014) and Human-Ghost Hybrid Project (Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming).

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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.

Divided - Linda Frank (A Buckrider Book/Wolsak & Wynn)

Today's book of poetry:
Divided.  Linda Frank.  A Buckrider Book/Wolsak & Wynn.  Hamilton, Ontario.  2018.

Clearly Linda Frank's poetry posse includes a world class botonist and a scientist with an eidetic memory.  How does Today's book of poetry know such things?  The answer is quite simple;  no one poetry brain could pull these poems together.  These poems require multiple experts and fathoms upon fathoms of research.

Divided is that completely unexpected cornacopia of delights.  Frank's poems pass all of our poetry tests.  Linda Frank is both remarkbaly insightful and unimaginably thorough.  It isn't enough that her understanding of human nature, emotion and character is illuminating;  Frank sees the big picture so clearly, she can use the various languages of animals and insects, she is able to use their knowledge.  The resulting poems delight.

Thomas, our new Assistant Editor, found Linda Frank's Divided "an absolutely compelling read" and Today's book of poetry couldn't agree more.

Von Frisch's Ten Little Housemates

The housefly he calls a trim little creature. A man

would have to leap from the Westminister Bridge

to the top of Big Ben to compete with the flea.

All living creatures are equal in the great law

of life, he writes. Even bedbugs. Lice can carry

two thousand time their body weight with their forefeet.

Cockroaches are a community that has come down

in the world. Silverfish, entirely harmles sugar guests.

The spider's actions differ in detail according to the weaver's

character. In gnats, the organs of flight have reached a high 

level of perfection. We cannot blame the tick for her bloodthirstiness.

Anyone who has to hatch a few thousand eggs deserves a good meal.

Moths are useful scavengers. What else would happen

to all the decaying hair and feathers that disnintergrate so slowly?

Von Frisch's little housemates are extraordinary, in their own way

exceptional. At the end of each affectionate chapter

he recommends in equally good-natured tone and detail

how each could best be exterminated.

💥💥💥                                                 

Today's book of poetry had some standards blasting out of the box in our office this morning, Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Anita Baker, some Gil Scott Heron.  That sort of tone.

Divided is presented in four sections which include the closest inspections of the beetle, anthropod and arachnid worlds, accounts of women who were pioneers in their scientific fields, accounts of the first balloon flight (untethered) and an account of the first descents into our oceans.  Linda Frank even shares some elements of her own story.  

What Today's book of poetry enjoy most is the consistency of Frank's voice, she can hold a note.  Linda Frank's poems all come at the reader in the same way, as revelations.  Frank uncovers truths we previously never questioned.  All of this good.  But for you poetry monsters the most important question is "does it burn?"

Damned straight.  Today's book of poetry has never seen this particular manner of cooking before but we'd sure like to get our hands on the recipe.  Frank goes all poetry-Julia Child poetry wise and botanically bent.  Divided not only makes the reader feel smart and smarter, Divided makes the reader truly curious.

Falling Stars

CAROLINE hERSCHEL, 1750-1848

Every night up on the flat roof

            over the hayloft

the great man's sister

            with her telescope, hunting

                       for wanderers

messengers that enter the solar system.

Every night up on the flat roof

            over the hayloft

                       in thrall to the polished lens

sweeping the sky for comets.

The great man's sister

                      minded the heavens.

No longer such a lonely thing

                       to open one's eyes.

Every impulse of light exploding.

Only thirty "hairy stars" ever recorded

            and she, the Lady's Comet Hunter

alone and free up on the flat roof

                                    over the hayloft

found eight in a dozen years.

She knew those distant stars ceased to exist

           millions of years ago.

Her starry night, her stellar landscape

                        not really there at all.

Light travels long

            after the heavenly body is gone.

Her sky, so full of ghosts.

💥💥💥    

Today's book of poetry so enjoyed Linda Frank's Divided.  We've tasked Thomas, our new Assistant Editor with procurring Frank's three other poetry titles.  Poetry this exciting and enlighting is juat a full stop pleasure but it doesn't happen by accident.  Today's book of poetry would bet our fortune that Frank's other poetry titles delight as well.

Frank invites the reader into gardens of wonder, deep into the dark sea, and delightfully into an ocean of tulips that decorate an Ottoman rulers pleasure and obsession.  These are all worthy adventures, experienced through a particularly sharp lens.

Today's book of poetry can only begin to imagine what Linda Frank's reading list must look like.  These poems required both difficult magic to conger and encyclopedic dexterity to imagine.  This sort of mastery can only from a poet a the top of the game.

Dragonfly

The Devil's darning needle, ear sewer, eye poker, ear cutter,

                 eye snatcher. Horse stringer. Troll's spindle.

                                     The adder's servant, it follows

snakes around and stitches them up when they are injured.

August god, lady of the weeping willow, widow skimmer,

             water witch. The Devil's little horse sent by Satan

                         to create chaos

                                                 to steal people's souls.

💥💥💥

Here is the new deal.  Today's book of poetry will personaly vouch for any purchase of Linda Frank's Divided.  If any of you poetry monsters buy this book and are dissapointed - you have our address, send your copy to us and we'll refund your money.

That's how good Linda Frank's burn feels.

Salute.

Linda Frank

(Photo curtesy of Wolsak & Wynn)

ABOUT THE POET

Linda Frank was born in Montreal and now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. A retired professor from Mohawk College, she has written three books of poetry: Cobalt Moon Embrace, Insomnie Blues and Kahlo: The World Split Open, which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award. She is a past winner of the Banff Centre's Bliss Carman Poetry Award and has been shortlisted for the National Magazine Awards.

BLURBS

Divided, we fall ... for Linda Frank’s poetry
“Wonderstruck by nature and science, [Frank] uses them beautifully in this book to draw out the most myriad and finely observed insights, on everything from sexual politics and bedroom intimacy (or the lack of it) to species extinction, the swiftness of life, religion, control, capture, the call of the wild and children."

     - Jeff Mahoney, The Hamilton Spectator

4 Women with New Books of Poems!
"This is a vital text as there is not a single piece in here that doesn’t consider other life forms than the human. […] These pieces are more than worth an embedding in your empathetic core."
     - Catherine Owen, Marrow Reviews

A Review of Amanda Jernigan's Years, Months, and Days and Linda Frank's Divided
"None of [her] interpretations are ever in conflict with one another. Rather, they enhance an already dense set of poems by offering sundry entry points. In a time where much popular poetry resembles candid notebook entries or performative tantrums, Frank's poems arrive refreshingly and consolingly classroom-ready."
     - Zachary Thompson, Hamilton Review of Books

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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.