Review of QueerSexWords by Caseyrenee Lopez (by Clara B. Jones)

QueerSexWords*

Caseyrenée Lopez

2016

Yellow Chair Press

Waco, TX

$10.00

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

Recently,, I have given serious thought to my ongoing interest in reviewing books by LGBT and non-binary poets. As a hetero-normative, somewhat conventional, female, it has crossed my mind that I may be trespassing on territory that is not my own and appropriating material that does not belong to me. In spite of these concerns, I have, also, been aware of my longstanding comfort with gay, lesbian, non-binary, and transgender friends. I have never felt an unnatural association nor have I considered these individuals different in any sense other than that each of us has a unique identity. Another source of comfort has been the affinity I feel with the “queer” world because, as a person of color, I am, also, an “Other” in American society. Reading Caseyrenée Lopez' first chapbook, QueerSexWords, led me to another, surprising, yet, reinforcing, insight. Like Caseyrenée, I am, also, a “sexual minority” because, for almost twenty years, I have had a celibate lifestyle based on Wabi-Sabi, minimalist philosophy. This identity feels authentic to me, removing any feeling that I am an imposter when I review work by other “sexual minorities,” whatever their conscious, personal identifications might be.

I have learned a lot about myself and others by reviewing Lopez' chapbook. The author is Editor and Publisher of Damaged Goods Press, and my thinking about identity and identity politics, as well as, sex and gender, has been enhanced, even, changed, because of the “interpretive power” [Helen Vendler's term] of the poet's volume. Lopez has developed a “queer femme” identity—non-binary and feminine at the same time. In an e-mail interview with me, Lopez shared information about the poetry practice that they have embraced. The author has written poetry “seriously” for about two years. They continued, “I realized that I was drawn to poetry and experimentation with form and language. I, also, started discovering how contemporary feminist poetry uses trauma in writing and writing as catharsis. I've since gained the strength to deal with my own violence and to come to terms with my history.” Using writing for these purposes, Lopez' poems are vulnerable without exhibiting self-pity, and they communicate the capacity for resilience and personal growth. The author is married to a transgendered individual, and their relationship is the focus of several moving poems.

Lopez' forms are highly experimental in ways that I have not seen in combination before, including, “found” work, creative use of space, repetition [especially, variations of the word, “finger,” perhaps, suggesting a tool, like braille, for deciphering the world: “/paths leading to the lines that flow from my warm fingertips”], as well as other conventions [breaking words with dashes and inserting white spaces between syllables: “/Being the/Pragmatists that/we are—/We're completely/Aware...”; “/Light breathing/shrouds/womanhood/in un attainable,/pre con ceive d notions...”]. These are only a sample of the poet's innovations, that, when taken together, imply a mature poetics and that situate the author with other innovative female poets among whom Rachel Blau Duplessis comes first to mind. Related to Lopez' innovative skills, their prose poems are the best that I have read in a very long time, comparable in, in my opinion, to the work of prose poet, and, openly lesbian, Holly Iglesias.

Most of the experimental female poets of whom I am aware write/wrote "associative" poetry strongly bound to Modernism [e.g., Gertrude Stein], the post-war period that challenged classical conventions in form and language. Lopez' work is more closely affiliated with later female innovators who might be classified as Post-modern or Post-structuralist in the Language School, the Beats, the New York School, and, to some degree, the Black Arts Movement. These poets [Diane di Prima, Susan Howe, Eileen Myles, Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, Sonia Sanchez, others] “push the envelope” and write their own rules, leaving interpretation in the reader's hands. In my interview with Lopez, Fatima Asghar, Lisa Marie Basile, and Lora Mathis were mentioned as significant influences. According to the author, “Mathis's The Women Widowed to Themselves is “an excellent exploration of femininity, the self, and recovery from abuse.” Lopez has, also, identified with Mathis' “concept of 'radical softness'” and Asghar's “ferocity and authenticity” in the book, After. Throughout QueerSexWords I had the sense, not only, that the author is engaged in a process of constructing her own identity but of constructing innovative ways for feminists to view themselves and interpret their experiences. For example, “/...Desecrated,/my former self—/tattered & lonely—/left to wilt underfoot,/as a dead girl rising from the grave.”

As a trained scientist, I was struck by Lopez' many references to Science and scientists, indicating a concern for objectivity [perhaps, detachment?], order, relief from emotion, and classification. Indeed, the cover illustration of the author's chapbook is a human heart, highlighting an interest in anatomy. In Lopez' erotic poem, “The Kiss” [after the title of one of Gustav Klimt's paintings], the work of astronomer, Stephen Hawking, and physicist, Einstein, are mentioned, highlighting Lopez' utopian view of love as “radiation and photons” and “/a mushroom/Cloud.../” reminiscent, perhaps, of a cosmic explosion [the allusion to orgasm is obvious]. On the other hand, in several poems [see, “Hands”], the author seems to say that relationships are finite and infinite at the same time and that she is still in the process of trying to understand her life, her relationship, and, perhaps, existence, itself [see,“Antidepressant”]. This lack of finitude acknowledges that, as Post-structuralists [e.g., Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; Judith Butler] put it, identity is “fractured” and complex, though not, necessarily, that identity is bro ken, un-natural, or ab-normal.

I would be remiss not to point out that, according to critics such as Jacek Kornak¹, there is no consensus about what “queer” means except in the broadest senses of “sexual minority” or the “Other.” Kornak documents variations in the use of the term since the 1960s [especially, Paul Goodman] and beyond [Stonewall, Act-Up, etc.]. Apparently, the history of this term was, until the 1980s, primarily, associated with and dominated by gay men's movements; though, Kornak points out that lesbian groups existed in every period. The critic notes that a project, The Lesbian Herstory Archive, is housed in New York City, existing, among other reasons, as a recovery project of texts, biographies, and other documentation. Kornak, also, makes it clear that, in many cases, “queer” activists and Queer Theorists from the academic realm use the term differently and, sometimes, in opposition. As an aside, Lopez, as well as some other “queer” poets [e.g., Maggie Nelson] appear resistant to or opposed to Queer Theory and academic treatments of “queer” topics, and I hope that, in future, Lopez will expand on her views regarding the role[s] of theory relative to “queer” identity. Unfortunately, even though Kornak's study is recent, there is virtually no analysis of the use of the term, “queer,” in the transgender, non-binary, and related communities. Further, Lopez' use of “queer femme” introduces several issues to discussions about what “queer” means, such as, non-identification with biological sex while, at the same time, maintaining identification with normative traits [e.g., “feminine”: “/Just as it should be, as we're meant to be, a dying breed of/hyper-corrective classical love.”].

The reader is not to assume, however, that Lopez' “femininity” is an imitation of hetero-normativity, since the author is clear to point out that, in the sense that it is used in QueerSexWords, “queer” is employed as a political as well as a personal statement [“/...the ven eer of /womanhood/as prescribed/by/patriarchy.”]. As mentioned at the beginning of this review, Lopez' chapbook is characterized by “interpretive power,” permitting the reader, not only, to reflect upon the author's perspectives, but, also, the perspectives of the readers themselves. This chapbook is an important work that deserves to be read by anyone interested in sex, gender, non-binarism, and any other type of personal, social, and political identification. Indeed, this chapbook shows us that the definition of what it means to be Human is evolving, under control of the Self rather than authorities.

¹Kornak J (2015) Queer as a political concept. Ph.D. Dissertation, Gender Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland, pp 211. (available online)

*Originally appearing in Yellow Chair Review, 2016

Review of Registration Caspar by J. Gordon Faylor (by Clara B. Jones)

Registration Caspar*

J. Gordon Faylor

Ugly Duckling Presse

2016

$15.00

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

“...or were they rather the one imagining things big bag village that I'd place Caspar, as if they went along courting local parents, fat diaries, birds, celebratorily unleashed dogs, the farm to table staff service tracing Leah's house in their panting endurance, thinking they were remote to this incisional social horror about them, only to learn they were already its ostensible illusory fixtures?” Registration Caspar, p 28

Experimental or avant garde writing is a heterogeneous sub-genre of American literature. Generally, these classifications are identified by their approaches to innovation, form, language, technique, composition, and/or method. Among the notable figures of these sub-genres are writers who are found outside the boundaries of mainstream publishing (via Matias Veigner), though some authors have entered the canon (e.g., Gertrude Stein, Alice Notley, John Ashbery). The critic Paul Stephens suggests that “experimentalism” shares “a rejection of a romantic lyric ego, either as a model of artistic creation or critical judgment. Experimentalism has consistently been viewed as a brake upon an unexamined or solipsistic subjectivity.” Stephens goes on to say that “'experimentalism' derives as much meaning from its social and institutional contexts as it does from its transhistorical basis in the analogy to scientific method” and “experimental literature was often knowingly written for limited audiences—not out of snobbery, but out of esthetic and political principle.” Related to Stephens' views, the critic Natalia Cecire quotes poet-critic Lyn Hejinian as stating that “an experimental tradition in American poetry [has] sources in Pound's imagism and Stein's realism.” The present review of J. Gordon Faylor's [Editor, GAUSS PDF] new book, Registration Caspar, is an attempt to convince the reader that it is an extreme and extremely compelling tour de force of experimental literature in the tradition of associative writing and, possibly, epic [“long form”] poetry.

Registration Caspar exemplifies serious writing exhibiting a significant degree of linguistic play characteristic of many experimental works. Ugly Duckling Presse's media statement about the book provides an entry into the novel with the following information: “Caspar, a non-gendered entity, only has five hours left before it is executed by its employer. Though it remains to be seen if this execution is biological and programmatic in nature, it's clear that money needs to be made for the two partners Caspar leaves behind.” One concludes from this description that the book is a dream or fantasy or delusion or “new world” in the tradition of psychological realism [Conceptual Psychology] since prisoners convicted of capital crime are not [in a “real” world] released to tie up unfinished business before they are executed or, better, erased [sic], from society. Further, in actuality, a subject cannot go back in time; thus, regrets are irrelevant when faced with erasure. “What is, is.” in the words of Joe Guidice, an imprisoned star of the series, Real Housewives of New Jersey®. The publisher's “blurb” provides the reader with the novel's architecture, hinting at the ending before we engage with the text's complex narrative elements and identifying the writing as metafiction—fiction about fiction. Further, Caspar is described as an “entity,” instructing the reader not to assume that he/she/they/it is a character in the conventional sense though he is, somehow, registered, classified, and, thus, duly noted.

Faylor's book can be placed in a Postmodern tradition whereby meaning is surrendered to the reader him-/her-self [them-selves]. Some concrete elements are clear from the publisher's statement characterizing the novel as “form-play.” Indeed, like many examples of experimental writing, Registration Caspar is accessible and humorous, in great part because the author invites the reader to participate in the act[s] of creativity. It would be a mistake, however, for the reader to attempt to decode Faylor's meaning, a process that would be necessarily presumptuous and, ultimately, disrespectful to the author, as well as, a form of appropriation [of the author's aesthetics, perceptions, and ideas]. On the other hand, if the book is all play, it is nihilistic. As some critics have said, however, art requires a moral stance, and, following the summary provided by Ugly Duckling Presse, we might assume that Faylor's book is a form of surrealism or futurism, minimalistic because of the “story's” truncation of the temporal dimension [five hours until erasure]. The interpretation of Registration Caspar that I advance in this review represents my subjective experience as a reader of the novel. I do not claim to understand Faylor's serious or playful intentions; however, I am of the opinion that the book is both serious and playful as a work of art. Related to this, I did not form the opinion that the author was attempting to manipulate me, the reader, or to exhibit his superior skills and intelligence. Like the best literature, Registration Caspar left me feeling that my world-view has been expanded and that my investment of time was productive.

Some experimental works are codified, and I think Registration Caspar is no exception. In my opinion, Faylor permits his readers to play with words and their potential significance[s] through the interchange, addition, and/or deletion of vowels and consonants [see Wikipedia® entries for possible interpretations]. Nowhere is this more evident than in the protagonist's [main entity's or Registrant's] name, “Caspar,” which might be transformed into Caesar [an overseer of the transformation of a republic to an empire (oligarchy as in present-day America)] or Castor [mythology; a constellation; a New York art gallery] or Cortázar [a writer associated with Kaiser (sic) Wilhelm II; a contemporary fashion designer] or paradigm or parametric or Casca [a messenger in Shakespear's play, Julius Caesar] or Paracelsus [diease/disorder as psychological phenomenon]. In addition to other re-iterations [“scried”/screed; “Caspar”/”Cezary”/Caesar/Kaiser; “y”/yes; “x”/unknown entity (sic); “n”/unknown number], numerous neologisms occur throughout the text [Chrysalidocarpus; snowwphhpiles; yato], perhaps, signifying the unknown or unknowable or the inadequacies and limitations of language. I read these various conventions as reminders not to try too hard to decode Faylor's intentions or meaning[s]—not to treat the novel as a puzzle to the exclusion of other purposes or non-purposes, a major contradiction embedded in the text.

The novel is a puzzle, however, though I think to view it solely in that manner would be to miss a profound conceptual framework. The unknown and unknowable are about our future which the rapid pace of the “story” indicates is a fate we are racing toward. Seemingly random placements of references to time and to money suggest that Capitalism and materialism have doomed us to a meaningless, unknown, dark end [erasure]—to be or to become, like Caspar, voided as individuals. But, here lies another contradiction: the word, “execution,” can be defined as “to die” and, also, “to act.” Thus, the book's vaguely-defined “entity,” Caspar, may not be without agency [or, hope?], assuming that the seemingly inevitable “execution” or erasure is unknowable and not determined. However, I may be over-thinking the novel, particularly, since its paragraphs and chapters can stand alone—apart from any interpretation that might be advanced for the whole text. Ultimately, whatever Faylor's world-view may be, Registration Caspar should be received as an example of carefully crafted associative writing deserving to be read by all consumers of exceptional, exciting, and serious innovative art.

*Originally appearing in Yellow Chair Review, 2016

Review of The Best American Poetry, 2015 (by Clara B. Jones)

The Best American Poetry, 2015*

Sherman Alexie, Guest Editor

David Lehman, Series Editor

Scribner Poetry

New York

Reviewed by: Clara B. Jones

If you have not heard about the controversy surrounding The Best American Poetry 2015, you have probably been on holiday in a remote part of the Amazon. Sherman Alexie, the volume's Guest Editor, was duped by a prize-winning, but relatively unknown, poet, Michael Derrick Hudson, using the pen-name, Yi-Fen Chou. According to the Poetry Foundation, Sherman Alexie, the volume's Guest Editor, is “a prominent Native American poet, novelist, performer, and filmmaker.”, and some have speculated that choice of the poem was influenced by “nepotism” extended to an ostensible minority. After the ruse was revealed, Alexie decided to retain the poem, publishing his unconvincing, internally inconsistent justification as a blogpost at [http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2015/09/like-most-every-poet-i-have-viewed-the-publication-of-each-years-best-american-poetry-with-happiness-i-love-that-poem-je-1.html]. In my opinion, exploitation and deception, like plagiarism, have no place in literature and the arts and should not be rewarded with publication. Nonetheless, despite what I consider a poor judgment call by Alexie, this embarrassment is not likely to detract attention from The Best American Poetry 2015 which showcases emerging, experienced, and high-profile poets who have contributed compelling work.

The volume celebrates diversity in the broadest sense of the term, presenting a range of poetic styles, including, “neo-formalism” and experimental, as well as, American poets characterized by a variety of individual markers, including, sexual orientation, geography, and country of origin. It is interesting to note that, though Alexie is a member of the Spokane/Couer d'Alene tribe, there are few poems in The Best American Poetry 2015 that classicists could categorize as “sociology”, “politics”, or journalism. Most poems are strong in both language and form, music as well as theme, and the reader will find few poems that are provocative or counter-normative. Alexie seems to favor poets who are amused by and not too invested in their material, while, at the same time, offering work that is pleasurable, accessible, and intelligent. The Guest Editor has an “eye” for what the reading public will want to consume, and his selections will be appreciated by non-academics, teachers, scholars, and students. In this sense, The Best American Poetry 2015 takes its social role seriously, presenting poems that respect their readers. As a measure of the quality of work in the volume, three contributors, Amy Gerstler, Terrance Hayes, and Jane Hirshfield, have been longlisted for the 2015 National Book Award for Poetry. These poets set a high bar for other poems in The Best American Poetry 2015, a standard achieved in many contributions. The volume is recommended as an authentically inclusive and rewarding experience that is certain to attract a wide audience.

*Originally published in Yellow Chair Review, 2016

Review of You're The Most Beautiful... by Arisa White (by Clara B. Jones)

You're The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened*

Arisa White

2016

Augury Books (NYC)

96 pp

Paper, $16

ISBN: 9780988735576

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

More than 20 years ago, the artist, Andrea Fraser, suggested that works by women don't have staying power because women are generally marginalized or incorporated—remaining invisible. Reviewing artistic work by women, then, may be seen as a recovery project to highlight women's practices that may, otherwise, be overlooked or ignored. In a patriarchy, females are objects, men, subjects, and men speak for women, creating a particularly challenging landscape for women expressing themselves via the spoken or written word (language). One of the pleasures attendant to reviewing books of poetry written by young, female, women of color (e.g., C.M. Burroughs, Francine J. Harris) is reading work with “interpretive power” (Helen Vendler) worthy of being taken seriously by other poets—men and women alike—and worthy of persistence over the long haul. I have been impressed with the degree to which many early-career writers of color, and, many young poets in general, are successfully expanding the strictures of Formalism by integrating form, language, and function.

I read Arisa White's, You're The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened (hereafter, YTMBTTH), after reading an essay on feminism and postmodernism by Craig Owens who quoted Fredric Jameson—“...it suddenly became clear that 'D.H. Lawrence' was not an absolute after all [a male spokesman about women], not the final achieved figuration of the truth of the world, but only one art-language among others, only one shelf of works in a whole dizzying library.” Young female writers of color, and other female writers, especially, feminists, have taken their place in the “dizzying library” of non-patriarchal forms and, like Harryette Mullen before them, have taken their place among postmodern poets disrupting the status quo by writing, as Owens put it, in opposition to “Western man's self-appointed mission of transforming the entire planet in his own image.” Contrary to most male writers, most female writers, especially feminist authors, have boldly chosen to address comfort; personal narratives and personal relationships; egalitarian associations rather than ones based on power differentials; emotions and feelings; language as authentic communication rather than abstraction and symbolism; and, a holistic and an organic view of the world.

White's book exhibits the foregoing characteristics, as well as, being an ambitious and intimate map of one woman's experiences as a female citizen of the world. Based on an e-mail interview, White stated, “I identify as a feminist poet in the same ways I identify as a black, queer/lesbian poet—these are identities I stand in and write from and out of. These are social locations that help me examine our political and cultural institutions and systems of thought. They are lenses and sites for feeling and knowledge. In many ways, all these things work together to help me nuance the world around me, give language to particular experiences. I am feminist because I care about the political parity of women/females, and I believe this sexist oppression is the root of all oppression.” In YTMBTTH, White addresses themes both subjectively and universally, including, childhood, loss, love, and chaos in lyric-like poems demonstrating a respect for form, function, and, especially, language (“There are little words,/that can fit in little places,/if you say them small enough.”; “She is pretty and perfect in sleep before language must be assigned—“; “When your friends are around, your hands language/near her to confirm she's close:...”).

White's poems are decidedly not derivative; however, their cryptic use of language and meaning remind me of Meghan Sterling's autobiographical and understated, yet strong, poems about female issues relevant to anyone concerned with a humanistic interpretation of life and living. White's poems invite the reader into her interior space without being didactic or literal (“Men, when they do, cross their legs in the way of academics./Never in the way of churchwomen who keep the secret/covered—there's nothing to be implored, explored, discovered./In the way of academics, the whole body thinks....”). White's lyricism often takes the form of homages, usually, to lovers (“Sounds the body/makes to keep quiet/while I take/your camisole down:/purple. Our sable bodies/an inappropriate math/in one stall.”). The author deftly addresses intense issues (HIV, sex, self-concept) without losing control of her emotions or language or focus or material. At the same time, her poetics and style communicate the limitations of language for exposing the full range of experience (Post-modernism), indicated, in part, by her frequent use of nonsense words, repetition (“...There's no going back from raw. New story/you, mezzo and wood bending. My love, you're the/darling dang—true-dat, true-dat, true—dat-dat-dat.”), as well as, avant garde conformations (see, especially, and, notably, the poem, “Four Square,” on page 71).

Other themes that struck me as I read YTMBTTH were references to West Indian/Caribbean culture (see poem, “Auntie,” on page 17), and British (colonial?) habits (“I prefer my tea with sugar/when I talk to you. You make/each minute an island where we,/crowned and carpeted by green,/sip Dragon Well from our palms.”). And, then, there is the matter of race—usually present but rarely explicit (however, see the poems, “Who Invited The Monkey To Omen's Party,” on page 16, and “Drag Up...dedicated to the white people who were asked to raise their hands if they would choose to be black,” on page 18). Via e-mail, White shared, after reading one of my essays, “The essay has me thinking about what it would mean for me to write directly about race, how does it feel creatively within? Immediately, I thinkfeel [sic] about being in an 'interracial' marriage, which is more so an intersectional state of being (race, gender, sexuality, class) than a singular way of identifying. I think the pressure is how to write from these intersections/interstices. . . using polarities to make a third thing, to create a lens for seeing what the opposites map out. If black and white are said to be my points of reference, what is the gray communicating in relationship to the blue-black?”

The “intersectional” is postmodern, indeed. Since the 1970s, approximately, identity has become a fluid, personal narrative. My essay, referred to in the previous paragraph, argued that many early-career poets of color, male and female, LGBTQI and hetero-normative, are defining race-gender-class on their own terms rather than writing about race explicitly, directly, or literally. Many of these poets are writing, following Emily Dickinson, “slant.” By her account, some of White's major influences are Saul Williams, Carl Hancock Rux, Erykah Badu, Toni Morrison, Patricia Smith, Rebecca Seiferle, Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Hart Crane, Medbh McGuckian, Harryette Mullen, Tyehimba Jess, and Ross Gay—artists who challenge Modernism's meta-narratives, crafting individual voices and impulses derived from their personal experiences, interpretations, and perceptions. White's next project is in this tradition, “a craft talk about my queer imaginary [that will] unpack the queer imaginary that informs my work, examining the way my lesbian aunt and her friends languaged [sic] themselves in the world and how that became a model for how I create a poem.” My advice to the reader of this review is—Do not wait for her future projects in order to savor Arisa White's compelling work. Each of the poems in You're The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is necessary, deserving a wide audience, and, with this collection, the author has made a valuable contribution to the literary community.

*Originally published in The Curly Mind, 2017

Review of Thief In The Interior by Phillip B. Williams (Clara B. Jones)

Thief In The Interior*

Phillip B. Williams

2016

Alice James Books

Farmington, ME

82 pp

$15.95

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

“I love my brother who wasn't a brother of mine./Walking in an alley alone at night I bury my hands/in my pockets to appear brotherless, bordered/by the decay blowing from the stench.” Thief In The Interior, p 41

In separate articles, critics Natalia Cecire and Paul Stephens recently addressed the difficulty of defining “experimental” or “avant garde” writing. Quoting Cecire, “'Experimental,' when applied to US writing, means many things, but tends to aggregate a relatively (but only relatively!) stable set of critical expectations, including, formal disjuncture, a sense of political or ethical commitment, and an association, but not strict, identification, with the experimental sciences.” To the extent that there might be consensus about this statement, it seems clear that, because of its inherent qualifications, experimental writing, in our case, poetry, may exist along broad continua of formal, motivational, and (loosely) empirical deconstructions. One of a reviewer's charges, then, is to highlight the aesthetic and pragmatic landscape(s) of a given text, in particular, the extent to which the text conforms to and deviates from, Formalism's (and, Modernism's) conventional standards and guidelines.

Philip B. Williams is a young, gay, African-American poet whose star has risen rapidly. The reader is referred to his divedapper.com interview for an intimate and comprehensive account of his accomplishments and opinions—about poetry, politics, and himself as an artist. As the poet says to Kaveh Akbar, his interviewer, all of the codes embedded in Thief In The Interior have not been broken yet, and, speaking as one sympathetic and admiring reviewer, I completed the book with a feeling that the writer might have been playing games with me or, perhaps, that he had taken on too much. For sure, I do not intend, with presumption, to be in Williams' head or to have figured the book out. Instead, I intend to provide a subjective view of the text, hoping that my schema is not unrelated to what I consider its common and recurring themes. Thief In The Interior made me think of Jungian Psychology's references to archetypes (sexually and physically vulnerable individuals, Mother, Father, Pain), to a “collective unconscious” of empathy over confrontation, and to the heterogeneity and complexity of the human psyche (“Because when I write 'tree' I mean fire/of autumn.”—p 7).

This poet's fundamental humanity is demonstrated by his commitment to a respectful re-framing of conventional structures and forms, particularly, the sonnet (see, for example, “Sonnet With A Cut Wrist And Flies” on p 20: “a man found in the wrist who wanted out but who/put him in?”), as well as, his reverence, even, spiritual, treatment of subject matter that verges, seemingly, on awe (“Turn your face that way where light no more/transfigures you than darkness makes a need for/transfiguration. Yes, the scar above your eye.”—p 52). I first encountered Williams upon reading his outstanding poem, “Canticle To The Tune Of A Waistband's Snap,” featured in Boston Review in 2015, a complex and probing treatment of identity and culture. After this experience, I was eager to know more about the poet and his work.

Williams is not an angry poet in the tradition of writers associated with the Black Arts Movement (e.g., Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka). Indeed, some of his poems are heartbreaking (see, for example, the long-form poem, “Witness,” comprising part II of the book: “When Rashawn Brazell went missing,/the first trash bag of his body parts/hadn't seen his head, didn't know where/it could be.”). The title, Thief In The Interior, may, itself, represent a conscious or unconscious crie de coeur, telling us that outside events have torn out the author's guts or his soul and that these forces have, also, disrupted the lives of innocent or victimized black bodies and minds. Throughout the book, Williams employs innovative forms and word structure to communicate emotion indirectly, rather than, literally. The 14-line sonnet form, itself, is, apparently, repeated (many times, many ways) for it's reference to the (14) Stations of the Cross. Without overtly religious components, Thief In The Interior is a reflective homage to struggle and survival (“When he lifts his hands/lightning scythes below./From his weary blues/blues spill out but nothing around can/define how.”—“God As A Failed Figuration,” p 13).

Williams' responses to crimes and human failures are always tempered by a respect for life forces capable of almost-detached analysis and of basic respect for the capacity to confront reality head-on (“I was told I could turn my back to them,/the sickle-mouthed angels who rummage/through the church dumpsters looking/for wings or food.”—p 48). In my opinion, none of Williams' poems is sentimental, and very few phrases or lines, including, only one whole poem, fail (“A Survey Of Masculinity,” p 60, though the poem, “Apotheosis,” following it, on the same topic, is stunning: “The bats have come down, wooden/and sterile, to greet the joints, to rearrange/teeth and thoughts.”). Another sign of this poet's skill, imagination, and reverence is found in his repeated use of mandala-like (Jungian) drawings depicting a symbol of the universe or the whole. Indeed, one sign of the book's cogency and depth is it's elevation of individual cases and, often, personal themes (gay, black, mother, male, father), to universal status by presenting them as particular events, as well as, general templates (see, for example. “Of Shadows And Mirrors” on p 76).

An aspect of Post-modern experimental writing is contradiction, as well as, rejection of binary categories. These characteristics are expressed in Thief In The Mirror by way of juxtaposition of Romance and Conflict, Strength and Vulnerability, Whole and Part, Many and Few, among others (“He has/a bag that holds found edges/jagged as a stag's/horns or smooth as/a single pane smashed into/smaller panes...”—p 5). Though Williams deals with often grotesque material, one can quibble with his assertion in the above-noted interview that this collection exists in the realm of grotesque literature, if what we mean by that is literature that is comically or repulsively distorted (google.com). The book under review cannot be compared to the work of, say, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Franz Kafka, or Bobbie Ann Mason. Thief In The Mirror, also, cannot be classified as satire or (the) absurd.

Nonetheless, as the cover image by James Jean suggests, Williams' themes are both Ordinary and Extreme (e.g., “Door To A War I Never Knew”—p 47), ones that cause approach-avoid responses, as well as, some degree of depressing curiosity. Indeed, Williams told Akbar that he was depressed for quite some time after completing this text. Beyond the possible relevance of my own interpretation(s) of Thief In The Mirror, there is much more to assess and to unravel therein, such as, references to rappers and rap songs, use of iambs and soft rhyming, the significance of role models to young black men, resilience of human emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, copious use of literary devices, etc. This book deserves a large audience and conforms to at least one of Formalism's rules—“interpretive power” (Helen Vendler). The collection is at once a group of fine poems and a stimulating puzzle. One can only look forward to Williams' future work.

*Originally published in The Curly Mind, 2017