The New Make Believe - Denise Newman, poetry

Denise Newman is both a poet and a translator. This grasp of the variances of language, and meanings, puts her in an especially appropriate position to play with words. In The New Make Believe, she does just that: changes one word in a line and changes the direction of the poem. Or she’ll substitute one word to create an entirely new pictorial image. In other words, she defies what you begin to suspect as you read. This is not in any way ‘ordinary’ poetry (if there is such a thing). It’s almost as if she’s teasing you to reconsider what happens when a train of thought is interrupted, derailed, reversed, or placed on a siding.


One of my favorite verses is in “Wolf”:

One more time
Get up off your stumbling
Blocks and stumble
One more time
Onward, humbled

In the same poem she observes the habits of thought, “the mind observes around and back, around and back in its grooves.” She’s not telling the reader to stay in that rut, and she’s not telling them everything will get better, but instead to just keep going, even if it means falling again.  In fact, the reference to blocks made me picture a stumbling toddler.

She also observes the value of self and space. In “Please Hold” she links the idea of communication and comes up with the best reason ever to not answer the phone: “when the phone rings-don’t answer-don’t flow in another’s stream, not yet”. No wonder it’s impossible to have a quiet moment to think, ponder, or ‘make believe’ if you’re allowing someone else to snap you out of your space.

The collection is divided into four subjects with four different subtle themes. I have to admit I don’t understand all of them, but I think that she intended to leave an interpretation open to what the reader fills into the empty space.  Thus, the reader is allowed to create their own 'make believe'.

Special thanks to Lindsey of the Post-Apollo Press for the Review Copy.

Saturday Poetry: Aquarius Rising, Ben Fama

This is a lovely chapbook by a sweet-talking boy, one who thinks too much and too deep for his age.  Or maybe he's just acquired a different sort of wisdom still mixed with playfulness and awe.  I have no idea how old he actually is, but the spontaneity of the poems and some of the images make me think he's in his mid 20's, tops.  A phrase like "I come bearing .gifs" is a techie twist on an old phrase.  Images of waves, bullfighters and sequins contrast with the deeper and sometimes darker message underneath.

"Angel Youth",
Later in my sleep
I say aloud:  take my word on it
this beautiful shipwreck
can never become real
but wake me up
and tell me I'm wrong" 

In "Tauromachy" he creates a list of comparisons and conditions but adds visual details to keep them from sounding like dull axioms, and the effect is of a roguish observer, too young to yet be jaded:

"happiness exists only if it can
be spread across a grouping of days

sometimes the world at midnight seems empty
like an empty room in a sad empty gallery...

this world thrives on misunderstanding
a cloud full of moods for mature situations...

some mornings westerlies prevail in my sleep
the open radio glaring I had too much to dream last night"

It's almost as if he's describing life according to a weather report, with the unpredictable nature and variety implicit.  Similar expressions throughout make this lyrical chapbook a collection more light at heart than much of what I've read, but still provocative;  it's clever without being cute.

Special thanks to Ugly Duckling Presse for this review copy.

Moscow Noir, Akashic Press

Edited by Natalia Smirnova and Julia Goumen

Note: this is not published by the Moscow Chamber of Commerce or Tourist Board.  This is not an exploration of Russian history or a guide to the city.  It is noir.  I state this because while it may be obvious to others, I kept catching myself thinking "this is so stereotypical of Russia...surely not everyone is this bad!"  Oh, back to "noir".  I needed to remind myself of that definition throughout: "crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings."  Once I was clear on that, it was easy to understand.

This collection of short stories is random and the stories themselves are incredibly varied.  However, a few things link most of them:  distrust, despair, revenge, and rage.  Physical similarities as well:  snow, night, black sedans, drugs, alcohol, and leather jackets. 
To say life is cheap in this style is redundant.  The Soviet history created characters that are immune to feeling and social conventions.  And if, without intending to, a character does show their softer side? It's guaranteed they aren't going to live long after.  Death is everywhere, as are traitors.  Many characters are cops. No one can be trusted because every underling knows their way to success means eliminating their superiors.  Strangely, money is often in excess, yet having it doesn't buy anyone a way out of the mess.

Many of the stories take place at night, often in the snow.  Train stations, deserted streets and subway tunnels are frequent settings, and most of the characters use drugs or alcohol to numb their emotions.  The anger that should be directed at the failed institutions that created them is instead directed at their fellow man.  The descriptions of the cold weather, the complicated facades of the empty churches standing guard, and the hard scrabble lifestyles are all detailed without slowing down the pace.  The stories move along briskly. 

The book is grouped into sections:  Crime & Punishment, Dead Souls, Fathers & Sons, and War & Peace.  I think my favorite was "Field of a Thousand Corpses" which illuminated the corruptness of the police and their inability to effectively handle the crimes they investigate in any sort of honest way.  Yet there was a sort of tenderness in how one detective tries to train another and advise him on how to fit in.

A word about Akashic Books...they have a series of Noir titles, including Los Angeles, London, etc.  All have a similar vein but illuminate a region in its own unique way.  Their Los Angeles Noir was especially interesting for me, trying to guess the locations that are mentioned since I've been there often. 

Special thanks to Johanna Ingalls of Akashic for the Advance Review Copy.

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, Charles Demuth

The Great Figure

I saw the figure 5
In gold
On a red
Firetruck
Moving
Tense
Unheeded
To going clangs
Siren howls
And wheels rumbling
Through the dark city.

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems
Four Seas Company, Boston, 1921