Feel Happier In Nine Seconds - Linda Besner (Coach House Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Feel Happier In Nine Seconds.  Linda Besner.  Coach House Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Today's book of poetry feels, with no disrespect intended, that Linda Besner's Feel Happier In Nine Seconds reads like a future television sit-com that we are all going to love.  These poems whip by at a punchline per second pace.  And make no mistake, Besner is as funny as she is clever, she is also juxtapositionally jolly.

But it is not all fun and games in Feel Happier In Nine Seconds world.  Linda Besner isn't above putting a dramatic ending in the proceedings to make a point.  Besner has one of those elastic imaginations, a time-shifting ESP at her sonic fingertips and, as if that's not enough, these poems are outrageously entertaining.

Panting Under Ripped Parasol's Lacy Enclosure

In an elopement no one noticed,

              I fled the public lecture with my lover's

                              espadrilles. It was the pinnacle of the tulip season,

me hardly bulletproof but for the periwinkle

              in my buttonhole, my roll of crepe paper,

                             and the rupee bundle under my petticoat.

My chevalier lay with his picnic basket

              and pince-nez, sumptuously crumpling

                            the Riesling label.

'Don't parade on my rain,' he begged.

              But I've been propelled to unreason

                             like a spectral helicopter.

I'd rather be  LARPing. My utopia?

               A luau before yuletide ships

                             rammed the island. Before

puritanical undertakers in period drapery

               unclasped their popsicle rods

                             to dripple into the Pacific.

Though I sculpt my emancipation

              from a rockface trimmed with pelicans, I know

                             I'll long forever for my lover's lotioned elbows.

💫💫💫

This here is superior word play, mastery of a sort, Linda Besner is clearly two-hundred and thirty-two years wise inside of her disguise.  This is mature writing, perhaps Besner has been reincarnated?  If that's the case I'll pro-offer a scenario:  Besner is part Emily Dickinson, part Dorothy Parker, part Anne Sexton and with a modicum of my personal heroine, the under-rated and mostly unknown Linda Pyke, thrown in.  A better writer than Today's book of poetry wouldn't have to resort to comparisons to accurately report on Feel Happier In Nine Seconds with precision and flair.

There's no denying that sometimes reading Besner it feels as though she is playing with the rest of us mere mortals, patient, while laying out easy to follow tracks to her light speed wit and world view.  Besner even has a few bawdy, nee romantic frissons.

Midway through Feel Happier In Nine Seconds there is a psychedelic monologue of epic proportion, it is colour coded and almost certainly candy coated.  It's a bit like the first ride you ever took on a motorcycle without a helmet.  

Linda Besner will entertain you, guaranteed.

First Kiss

The famous nonconformist

whose camper van I left

my pants in says I'm a rube

who's never seen the inside

of an apple seed.

That I'm a shade

overruffling the lamp

he can see is turned

on. Imagine my surprise

when, stepping outside,

I ran bang into his parents'

cows. Bessie, does it hurt

when common trilliums

graze your personhood?

Your infinity sign of flies

reties my shoelace lows.

I raise a stranger's trace

to clear the nimbus

of snot from your mouth.

💫💫💫

Our office reading was splendid today.  We did finally hear from the newly wed Milo, our new silent partner, and Kathryn his bride, our former intern turned Jr. Editor, who will be returning from their pilgrimage/honeymoon in San Francisco and City Lights Bookstore.  Today's book of poetry was present at their lovely nuptials before they slipped away.  They chose to go small and quiet and asked that Today's book of poetry respect their wishes and not give anything away.  Done.

The rest of the Today's book of poetry staff wishes they all the best and will, of course, fete them properly upon their poetic return.

Linda Besner's Feel Happier In Nine Seconds was like chum to piranhas for the morning read.  We just made the office air churn with these wildly playful poems.

Vacuum Meets Harmonica

in a motel bed nostril to nostril

where panflute madrigals play

on golem bones, a numbing verve

squeals the SOS of unmoored clarinets,

ushers yellow leaves to hollow logs,

haunts a house with sixteen doors,

neighbours of ascending heights

borrowing hairdryers, borrowing ice,

and fans the scarves of spin doctors;

sunken foghorns cue the skirmishing

vapour of exhumed gladiators,

their helmets crested with spinning

weather vanes, a mummer's dirty

squall-nozzle flutters the blinds

while dervishes sweep the carpet

of its mackerel sky, then speed

to scatter a passing gale of mary's hail,

concuss the hockey team, and pull

through regal cyclone the heaviest

tractor, a humbling valve

that whirls off modesty,

two raging female ends,

that glorious moment when

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry is no genius for telling you that Linda Besner has a certain grasp of her own genius, certainly a hand firmly on the ring.  Feel Happier In Nine Seconds is proper solid.  Besner can burn any recipe she wants.

Today's book of poetry is already setting the table in wait for her next adventure.  We are sure it is going to spectacular.

Linda Besner

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Besner is the author of The Id Kid, published in 2011 by Véhicule Press and named one of the National Post’s Best Poetry Books of the Year. Her poetry and journalism have appeared in numerous magazines.

BLURBS

Brave art, raw not cooked, a pure pleasure to experience.’ 

     – Globe and Mail

‘Besner's imagination doesn't appear to have an upper or outer limit – Reading her poems is a bad trip and a transformational experience.’ 

     – Ken Babstock

‘Besner is one of the funniest poets writing in this country.’     – National Post

Linda Besner

Poets reading their own poems.

"Moonlight on Komatzu Extractor."

Video courtesy: Howpedestrian

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