Review of At Your Feet by Ana Cristina Cesar (Review by Clara B. Jones)

At Your Feet

Ana Cristina César

Katrina Dodson, Ed.

Brenda Hillman, Helen Hillman, & Sebastião Edson Macedo (translators)

2018

Parlor Press

$14.00

103 pp

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones experimenting with book review form...*

“In literature, it is only the wild that attracts us.” Henry David Thoreau

Who is the author? Ana Cristina César (1952-1983, suicide*) was active in Brazil during the 1970s. Her work has been categorized as avant garde, a term usually reserved for visual artists and writers who are active politically, usually, in leftist groups or movements. According to Brenda Hillman, César was born and raised in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, in a religious, middle-class family. Conducting research on “Ana C,” as the poet was called in her circle and among her followers, I did not discover that her formative years were marked by trauma or dysfunction. However, in an academic paper, Lúcia Villares (1997, Portuguese Studies 13, pp 108-123) reported that the 1970s in Brazil were preceded by military coups (in 1964 & 1968), leading to the isolation, exclusion, and suppression of radicals, activists, intellectuals, and the middle-class.

In response to these measures, strikes and demonstrations were carried out against the military regime which countered the actions with increased repression—especially of the middle-class, including, censorship, seizure of books, attacks on left-wing publishers, among other interventions. César and her circle of poets formed a group, “geração Marginal” (“the marginal generation”) that published and sold chapbooks and books independent of commercial publishing houses and distributors. The marginal (marginalized) poets advanced a view of a fragmented world in which the power of language was reduced. These oppositional writers expressed their sense of impotence, in part, by emphasizing their communal efforts and by asserting themselves as survivors in a hostile environment.

Through her writing, “Ana C” identified with the “poesia feminina” movement in Brazil, part of the opposition supporting women's search for identity and voice. This group held that to be a woman was to be “desdobráve”—a woman capable of transforming herself. Consistent with this background, César's poetry is in general, fragmented and written in collage style, mostly, dispensing with meter, rhythm, music, and lyric, though her pieces are infused with vivid image and color. The reader of At Your Feet may find that poems seem to increase in complexity, self-confidence, and clarity from beginning to end; though, according to Hillman, there is no evidence that César's poems were arranged chronologically. Though I am not qualified to say, the translations appear to be excellent; at least, I found them rich with artful language. After a tour of the continent, César returned to Rio, jumping out of a window in her parents' home not long after.

What is At Your Feet about? The book is a collection of intense poems, mostly about bad or failed relationships with men, as well as their associated emotions and feelings. Also, the book's title suggests subservience. Thus, for example, “I went on the attack: it's now, sweet-/heart, in a car going up in flames,...in the early dawn, because of you and furious: it's now, against this traffic....” (p 19). The author seems driven to make sense of things—with men, with herself; though, there is no mention of political unrest except in the sense that the poems, themselves, may be viewed as oppositional—against the military regime, against traditional mores, and against conventional literary practices and criteria. The primary subject-matter seems contradictory to her reputation as a feminist and her documented identification with women and feminism. For example, she relies upon many female stereotypes (e.g., lovestruck, hysterical, silly) and expresses negative emotions toward other females (e.g., they arouse jealousy or are viewed as intruders: “that total bitch/of a woman”, p 77).

Nevertheless, one of César's stated goals was to become assertive, authentic, and outspoken, rather than, a passive and suppressed woman. Thus, her bold expressions of emotional vulnerability may be viewed as attempts to be radically, unabashedly honest (“Let's have afternoon tea and I'll tell you my big passionate story, which I've kept under lock and key, and my heart beats out of sync while we eat gaufrettes...I'm touched by fire.” (p 11); “Call again tomorrow/no matter what.” (p 17); “Without you, I'm really a lake, a mountain./I think of a man named Herberto./...And without bravado, sweetheart, I raise the price.” (p 33). On the other hand, a few of the poems demonstrate moments of assertion and agency (see, for instance, “Final Fire,” p 89), but the intention seems never to be sustained. Ultimately, this collection is about a young woman searching for her own voice, her own agency, and her own will, as well as, the ability to resist socialization and circumstance.

Formal Structure: As mentioned, the poems in At Your Feet, are fragmented, like the political landscape within which César found herself and like her own psychological makeup. Thus, her classification with the avant garde is warranted by the innovative nature of her forms, matching her content. As well, many of her poems appear without titles (a type of erasure?; a silent, “Untitled”?), a convention sometimes used by the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet, Susan Howe.

César's work seems to align with the movement, Surrealism, since many of her poems exhibit “automatism,” sometimes, by way of, impulsiveness (but, “My boy. It's not automatism. I swear. It's jazz from the heart.”, p 41) and the mining of unconscious processes (“Poetry doesn't—telegraphic—occasional—/leave me solo—loose—/at the mercy of the impossible—/—of the real.”, p 47). The collection includes prose poems and an interesting list poem (“Onomastic Index,” p 93) that includes the names of at least two famous females who died tragically. Structurally, many of the poems might be classified as “fragments”—a single or a few lines. In keeping with a fragmented identity, voice, and form (Post-modernism?), most of these poems are cynical, self-absorbed, emotional, or detached, or are about “boredom” (p 85) or “illness” (81) or victimization (p 83) or hysteria (p 19). Thus, as a whole, the poems' forms are consistent with their meanings and themes—as defined and expressed by the author.

Conclusion: In the final analysis, César's collection shows the work of a young poet without the ability to see herself through an objective lens. As Marjorie Perloff has stated, a mature poet has the ability to see the humor in themselves [sic], something lacking from At Your Feet. It is a cliché to point out that one would like to see how this writer might have developed over a long, productive career. Without this option, one must view the collection's value primarily in relation to the socio-political atmosphere in which it was written. In addition, the poet's work is interesting as an example of a “young adult” sub-genre, and critics could mine the volume for what it tells us about the challenges of early adulthood, particularly, about the development and maturation of females who succumb to suicide when relatively young. Hopefully, César's complete body of work will become available in translation at a future date. Combined with At Your Feet, the poet's writings could become a valuable resource for those interested in avant garde beyond the United States and Europe. I recommend this book because it is a very interesting and enjoyable read. Indeed, despite its limitations, I was unable to put the book down once I began to read it because César took me, and will take you, on an intense “joy- ride”—on an emotional roller-coaster that you will enjoy (see Epigram).

*Note: César's fate brings to mind two other young female artists who jumped out of windows to end their lives: photographer, Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) and poet, Elise Cowen (1933-1962), both Americans. One of my motivations for writing this review is the hope that a reader who is an academic or critic will conduct research on these cases—or, pass the possible project on to someone. Based upon my own limited knowledge, there appear to be some similarities among the women's trajectories. For instance, both César and Cowen jumped out of windows at the homes of their parents, and César and Woodman both traveled in Europe before they took their own lives. Further, all three of these women may have experienced an increased measure of popularity—as well as, disillusionment?—before they killed themselves. I think, though I am not certain, that this apparently contradictory pattern is common among suicides. (My contact: foucault03@gmail.com)

*Published January 2019 in i am not a silent poet

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

Review of yr yr by Matt Margo (Review by Clara B. Jones)

yr yr¹

Matt Margo

2017

Ghost City Press

29 pp

Free to download with or without donation

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

It is difficult to characterize “experimental” or “avant-garde” poetry definitively. However, it is widely accepted that these forms break with conventional practices. Matt Margo is a recognized promoter of experimental poetry as a writer and Editor of two poetry journals and as Publicity Director for Gold Wake Press. They describe themselves simply as “a person who writes,” though their identity is, also, defined by use of non-binary pronouns and non-gendered creative work. Margo's 2015 poetry collection Blueberry Lemonade, established them as a prominent young poet of “angst,” addressing trauma and neurotic impulses. Rather than being a collection about the interior self, however, yr yr's poems position the writer in relation to language. Their poem, “sea,” exhibits the form of pieces throughout the chapbook, words or phrases separated by various graphemes unique to each composition. Titles are short, single words—“animal,” “craft,” “killer,” “whale,” “mind[less],” “arts.” Each word or phrase might be considered an element to itself, and, in a post-modern sense, meaning or interpretation is, for the most part, surrendered to the reader.

sea

sample of mint leaf ÷ matrix equation ÷ the end of the season

÷ relatively peaceful ÷ a raised stone basement ÷ beyond the

clouds ÷ performance and precision ÷ the science of human

history ÷ seen to be sympathetic ÷ this pathway is

suppressed ÷ boob tube inanities ÷ wrecked off the coast ÷

completely in lowercase ÷ eternal dream ÷ group stage ÷

coach of the dragonflies ÷ superparticular ÷ all animals be

stunned ÷ the variegated pink ÷ determiner of shoe sizes

“sea,” and the other compositions in yr yr, can be understood as true examples of minimalist “collage poetry,” and, if we are not to consider these poems as random collections of words and phrases, we must assume that they are intentionally positioned, perhaps, via the writer's process of free-association. Whatever the derivation of these pieces, they are Rorschach-like, and, if not intended for diagnosis, are intended to provide pleasure and non-representational fantasy. Sometimes, poems contain references to titles, such as the phrases, “in the hydrostatic equilibrium” and “a sudden change in the atmosphere,” in the piece titled, “fog.”

the poems, “futures” and “transient” contain the phrases, “opus of chaos” and “state of chaos,” respectively, possibly hinting at Margo's view of themself in an uncertain world. On the other hand, they may find comfort in “a universal human language,” an element of the poem, “logic,” and reminiscent of Noam Chomsky's formulations about “deep grammar.” In the poem, “gazelle,” one phrase highlights “pure poetic fantasy,” that may be a coded message about how the writer perceives their collection. Similarly, in the poem, “winter,” they embed the phrase, “derivation is uncertain,” within a poem whose elements are otherwise [seemingly] unrelated. However, in at least one poem, “red”, Margo includes the phrase, “form follows function,” an element linking the compositions, and the writer's view of them, to serious critical scholarship, in this case, about the writings as a whole.

However yr yr may, or may not, be connected to the mainstream literary scene, all poetry is fiction and cannot be completely realistic—though we may want to believe otherwise. With this collection, Margo has transitioned from a type of literal interiorization to poems that increase the distance between writing and reader. yr yr reveals Margo's aesthetic authority. They have seemingly moved beyond personal conflicts to address the contradictions, ambiguities, and complexities of adult life. I highly recommend this collection to any reader interested in ambitious and mostly successful examples of contemporary Experimental Poetry by a young writer, and I eagerly anticipate their future work.

¹Originally published in the curly mind, 2017

Review of Blueberry Lemonade by Matt Margo (Review by Clara B. Jones)

Blueberry Lemonade*

Matt Margo

Bottlecap Press

2015

45 pp

$10.00

Reviewed by Clara B. Jones

The New York School poet, Alice Notley, one said, “I am alone, and that seems to make my personhood more urgent.” Poet and Editor (Zoomoozophone Review), Matt Margo, might say something similar. I feel that I know Matt well...though I don't. We follow each other on Facebook, I have published a few poems in his journal, and we have occasionally interacted electronically. I like Margo's poetry, even though some of it is so raw that it kicks me out of my safety bubble, and the poet's bravery, clarity, and insight never cease to amaze me. Matt (hereafter, the “poet,” the “author,” or “they”) describes themselves as “trans-feminine” and “non-binary,” regarding their gender as “feminine.” Most of the poems in this collection address the author's complex emotional life, including, their psychic struggles. A recent, professional grade, image of themselves posted to Facebook was superimposed with the text, “Saint Margo of Perpetual Anxiety,” and, indeed, their poems' substance locates the author squarely in the tradition of Sylvia Plath and Poetry of Angst.

Bottlecap Press' statement describing the book says that it is about “reading poetry, listening to Gucci Mane, missing everyone, longing for love, regretting the past, fearing the future, wanting to die, wanting to live, being sad, and trying to overcome being sad.” I would, also, say that the book is about loss and reinvention of self. Some poets, Thomas Lux, for example, might view the present collection as an example of the “coming of age” sub-genre because of Margo's detailed, sometimes, tortuously self-scrutinizing, documentation of their struggles with identity and place as well as their conflicts. Blueberry Lemonade, of course, is a mixture of sour and sweet, colored blue [sic], and the volume's cover reinforces these ideas by displaying a tower of yellow building blocks, representing, perhaps, the poet's upward climb to wholeness or, even, the skyscraper the author refers to in one haiku...

“i dream of being

a skyscraper in the midst

of a hurricane”

It would trivialize the emotional currency of Margo's feelings to interpret “skyscraper” as a Phallic Symbol, and the author makes few direct references to physical expressions of affection.

As they suggest, Margo has been influenced by James Joyce's modernist style of “psychological realism,” and the poems' styles are reminiscent, also, of Virginia Woolf who described their writing as “interior monologue.” Some poems in Blueberry Lemonade reminded me of Michael C. Peterson's poem, “Repeater,” for instance, Margo's line, “you pull the trigger on a plastic toy gun that you have put into your/ mouth.” Many of the author's poems are dark, bordering, in my opinion, on nihilism and, less frequently, on self-pity (see the poems, “a fun activity for a sunday afternoon;” “do-it-yourself make-a-wish foundation;” “a garbage bag stuffed with internal organs;” “they told me i could be anything i wanted to be, so i killed myself;” and, the Haiku,“i am so sorry/ please forgive me. i am a/ monster. i hate it.”). This is a collection of radical, very serious poetry whose gravity is relieved somewhat by the poet's obvious love for music, their respect for other experimental poets (e.g., Steve Roggenbuck), and their clear understanding that, though self-concept may be fractured and complex, it exists in a larger community and a broader narrative (“in the end though, i just want people to participate/ in any way possible;” “we all were formed from/ dead suns & there is something/ beautiful in that”). Indeed, in addition to being a Poet of Angst, Margo can be viewed as a Poet of Identity whose strong images communicate that he has not given up (“the comedians & magicians/come together in search of footprints”; “bliss is not fixed in passing canisters”). Surely, for this poet, The Sublime exists though it cannot be contained.

While I am sympathetic with Formalism and with academic Poetry, including, theory and criticism, I think there is a degree of elitism among some in that community who have erected standards so rigid that they function as barriers to success, in effect, making “Others” of poets who privilege language, authenticity, present experience, and meaning. For example, one can only infer from Helen Vendler's critiques of Adrienne Rich's poetry after they professed their lesbianism and became outspokenly political as well as activist, that Vendler found Rich's poetry interesting (Vendler likes Rich's “themes”) but disappointing (“failed promise”, is Vendler's term). Without ever going on the personal attack, Vendler (very politely) dismisses Rich's work after ~1973, as “politics” and “sociology.” Is Vendler saying that Rich's mid- to late-career work is not Poetry or not good Poetry? And, what about Margo's writing that does not so much directly address politics or society but, rather, his own interior landscape. Would Vendler say that Margo is writing psychology rather than Poetry? Would Thomas Lux, one of my favorite poets who believes that a natural progression is for poets to move away from writing about “self,” consider Margo's poetry immature?

Certainly, years before Emily Dickinson, mainstream poets have held that enduring Poetry (poetry for “all time”) is written “slant” rather than in a straightforward, direct, and literal manner. Yet, Poetic Realism has been a respected sub-genre of The Canon since writers rebelled against Romanticism in the late 19^th Century and was clearly understood to be political—to represent a revolt against aristocratic norms. Is it possible, or, useful, to view the relatively recent wave of mostly young, counter-normative poets as, perhaps, Neo-Realists? Are these underrepresented (e.g., feminist, lesbiaan, gay, activist, gender-non-conforming, racially/ethnically minority, marginalized) poets producing a New Poetics, even, a New Aesthetics? Are Neo-Realist poets situated with the revolutionary French and Russian writers who expressed (personal, political, and social) life as it was instead of promoting Romanticism and Idealism?

Having said that, Rich and many other oppositional poets (e.g., Caseyrenée Lopez) appear to be Utopian (romantic? Idealistic?) in their philosophy, social models, and politics, a tendency that may be inconsistent with Realism. Surely, there is much material, context, and intersectionality to be evaluated in an attempt to give the new wave of outspoken poets, and their predecessors, an honored and deserved position in the Poetry community. A good place to begin to understand what these poets are about is to meet them on their own terms in journals such as Yellow Chair Review and Zoomoozophone Review in order to understand poets such as Matt Margo who is taking significant risks to honor their Truth. Finally, many of the lines (“you say 'we could eat at taco bell again'”; “the ice cream truck drives around until it no longer exists”) and poems (“washington, lincoln, lafayette;” “blessa”) in Blueberry Lemonade are stunning, deserving to be read over and over again. Indeed, this collection places Margo among the best young poets writing experimentally today.

*Originally published in Yellow Chair Review, 2015 [text corrected & slightly revised]