2nd Review of Pennine Hillsongs by M; Margo (by Clara B. Jones)

M; Margo

Pennine Hillsongs

(The Haunted Mask II)

2018

Ghost City Press

Unpaginated, 15 poems

PDF free or with donation

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones*

M; Margo [Margo Emm] and I are acquaintances. They are Editor of Zoomoozophone Review, an online journal of innovative poetry in which I have published several times. In my opinion, they are among the best avant garde poets of their generation—fearless and difficult to pigeon-hole. Reviewing their two previous books, I have labeled Margo a poet of “angst,” often focusing on disturbing personal themes to the exclusion of social or political ones. In Pennine Hillsongs, the poet continues to write about interior experiences; however, this collection delivers so much more. To my knowledge, it is the first published volume dedicated exclusively to “gender dysphoria”—discomfort or distress caused by incongruence between a person's sex assigned at birth and their gender identity.

The author, Managing Editor of Gold Wake Live and Publicity Director for Gold Wake Press, describes themselves as “a person who writes and resides in Cleveland, Ohio.” Pennine Hillsongs, a title in Ghost City Press' 2018 Summer Series, is heavily coded, and the puzzles begin on the cover page. The Pennine Hills are a range of mountains in England, and an online search yielded more than one musical group referring to these formations. The image on the title page, however, makes it clear that M; Margo intends to refer to The Pennines, a band comprised of four young men who, based on YouTube recordings, sing somewhat monotonal, mostly, instrumental, songs. The four individuals on the cover of Pennine Hillsongs presumably depict the band's members—their faces covered by masks, distortions of human faces. The book's parenthetical subtitle refers to a fictional children's horror book, The Haunted Mask II, whose main character is a meek little girl who purchases a Halloween mask that will not come off. M; Margo, thus, introduces the reader to their conflicted, uncomfortable, and, possibly, scary world.

The first poem, “song for xan,” refers to a character in a role-playing game who, according to information available online, has a “broken” mind, causing them to be institutionalized. Barring the poem's title, the page contains no words, only a depiction of concentric semi-circles appearing throughout the volume and unifying, even, stabilizing, the book from page to page. These semi-circles seem to represent the author's broken, or, incomplete, Self, preparing the reader for what will come. All of the poems in Pennine Hillsongs are hybrid, combining art and text, and the second poem, “the mirror,” continues our introduction to their dysphoria, depicting a distorted ghost with the sentence, “this is what my ghost will look like,” placed beneath the figure in semi-circular design. The ghost provides a stark image of what their disorder may feel like—including, disruption, sadness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and defeat. Repetition of words and phrases, a hallmark of this collection, is characteristic of other avant garde poets, most notably, Gertrude Stein.

Readers of traditional poetry may ask whether M; Margo's pieces are poetry at all. However, the works contain many conventional elements, in addition to, visual and pictorial images and appropriation of words of songs. Among the conventional characteristics are strong narrative statements. In “no dispute,” for example, they provide a brief manifesto with the words: “there can be no dispute that trans women are women//gender is a construct//that sex is also a construct//that i can wear makeup and a beard//....” Like many other poems written by LGBTQ artists, this one is utopian, envisioning a non-binary world. M; Margo continues their narrative of “gender dysphoria” in the poem, “song for selphie,” depicting distorted clowns and other disfigured images relieved, however, by their play on words (“selphie”/selfie). Additional cases of humor provided throughout the collection (e.g., “high coo,” “no more pennines”) demonstrate that they are capable of seeing beyond their present suffering, a perspective that may be comforting to others—whatever their present pain. The final poem in this collection “song for flash,” is lyrical, communicating the author's capacity for healing and their wish for intimacy, repeating, “i love you i miss you”—again and again as semi-circles. Ultimately, transgender or not, anyone can identify with M; Margo's journey from a very dark place to a hopeful one. They have created another noteworthy book of innovative poetry that readers of avant garde literature will appreciate and enjoy. I eagerly await their future works.

*Originally published in the Fall Issue (October 2018) of Bitchin' Kitsch