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Antigonish Review
# 128
| Nathaniel
G. Moore |
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A Ruckus of Awkward Stacking by Matt Robinson (Insomniac
Press, 2001, $12.95, 104 pgs.).
The Invisible World Is In Decline by Bruce Whiteman
(ECW, 2000, 102 pgs.).
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This debut poetry collection from Robinson is
not only stunningly written but Insomniac Press has designed a powerfully
dark and disturbing cover. It seems to be an abandoned door lying face
down in debris. The collection is broken up into five distinct sections.
The first poem I flipped to was "at the funeral home" and its
poignant effects were a bit too stirring. "lack of sleep swirling
in / morning; a non-dairy / creamer in our coffee. / expiration dates
and / containers: this a new / vocabulary, truth."
He doesn't fool around with fluorescent price
tags and cleverly marketed spokespersons. Robinson's work makes poetry
matter again. His lines seem incomplete; I got the sense of being stunned
without a source. Then, moments later it came through in full on the other
side. Like a big fat marker. The words themselves aren't heavy, it's the
way they're set down on the page, there is no margin of error, these events
happened and are shot down in a controlled tantrum of talent. "late
june" has this effect. Even at his simplest moments "morning
flights" the setting for a cheesy love poem is replaced with stark
images and conversations without punctuation. (I'd asked you last night
if I could call and change your ticket, and you said the idea of marriage
scared you some days.) I prefer the more abstract pieces that don't rely
on the traditional lexical sets of two or three words per line. When Robinson
lets loose in near rambles he's at his best. What appears to be a rant
is really the documentation of that which comes into his range; for him
the essentials as in "October, once removed" ("there are
cigarette butts / on the pavement: bee-frantic, they hive and gather here
in a moist asphalt depression. Spent, even they manage some attempt at
animation, at reincarnation. And you have been dead for year.") These
are very concentrated tiny fisted thoughts, committed to pulp. I wasn't
as impressed with the blood and death poems such as "a death of neurons"
which seems to focus on scab imagery, ("once we catalogue them here,
even if the heart has long since washed its hands of them. There is no
fiction in the blood remnants of scab, or bits of earth..."). In
these pieces I found myself getting lost in language, bumped off the track
by drama without a central pulse. "poem; or, 18 lines on desire"
and "fever" remind me of early Cohen ("here, tonight, I
can lose myself in your sickness.") With such a range of voice (a
definite new voice) however, Robinson will still manage to hit more times
than miss. There's a lot of texture to his work - a real feel to it -
especially during chilly poems like "winter felt" ("winter
has announced itself today; has taken the form of an itch of peacoat felt
that bothers my arm..."). Robinson's most admirable trait is his
ability to remind us he's a human with both simple everyday experiences
(like saying hello to dogs in "the park") while remaining true
to his own feelings towards loss and resolve. This collection should be
read with a well-trained eye, and read often.
* * *
Whiteman writes with stellar pomp. The pace is
predatory; it's about the body as a thing and as a tool. Abstract thoughts
rich with parallels, air and power, words, vision, light, words, eyes.
"Nothing declines save knowledge of the heart.... The body's love
for the world is permanent." Whiteman makes vapid his position in
the cosmos. He is just another bit of the many bits. Sometimes scientific,
sometimes new religion. The battle of light and dark, of flesh and sound,
"and then so much lost to the hungry ghost of reason." "In
the end we are still left with the small word heart. It is more than dust
and red uncomprehending blood." Whiteman describes the gulf between
what we think and what we do, but he never really points the finger. What
we are left with afterward, those eerie transitional memories that come
in dreams. In "There is a Tenth Planet and Its Name is Eros"
we see his more personal side. "Your nipples keep the stars in their
appointed places." Whiteman is funny but logical with each of his
whims. "Most of my work comes down to sex and most of Milt's work
does not. He will not hesitate to put a hockey player in a painting, and
I would sooner have wood chips forced under my fingernails than put a
hockey player in one of my poems." In "The Forger's Confession"
we are driven into a Genet-like world of loner passion: "My attraction
to forgery began early, though I was not an art school failure like Van
Meegeren or an adolescent litterateur like Chatterton. In part, I simply
recognized the extent to which all success is an illusion." The allusion
to Chatterton, the insane genius boy who was obsessed with a 15th Century
Monk until he killed himself proves the point of success as an illusion
beautifully. Chatterton was both praised and feared for his writings on
this Monk he never met, never knew. What was the point he was making?
Did it make him happy? Was this success? Was the illusion really that
he thought the Monk was real, a real part of him, and that when his work
was brought out to the light, the illusion became real? The Invisible
World Is In Decline is an investigation by Whiteman who can take all
the air time he wants as far as I'm concerned. Whiteman's latest book
in this series begs to break out of literary medium. Philosophies, memoirs,
poems, dramatics, essays, lyrics. In "A Room Full of Jewels"
("Six naked women compile non-Euclidean forms in blue and brown.
Blue light along an arched leg.") From the section called "Ecstasy:
XXIV Short Love Poems": "what joy to think of the tiny secret
parts of your body my tongue has still to find." "the naked
ladies have come and gone again, pink and fine-smelling full of sap and
rectitude." This collection of writing is eclectic and devoted, boasting
a well-worked narrative and dedication to both language and style.
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