Review of The Antisocial Network by Timothy Gager

Timothy Gager’s recent poetry release called The Antisocial Network takes on numerous facets of the human condition such as addiction, the loss of innocence, father issues, and even suicide. Many of his poems reflect one’s struggle to get sober, stay sober, and find meaning in sobriety amidst life’s everyday stressors like breakups and loneliness, even the changing seasons.

As a writer, Gager relies on intense content to shape a narrator’s voice in a matter of a few lines. Some passages contain bizzaro analogies such as those found in his poem about a serial grape eater. Others were angst-ridden and unforgiving, like those in his poem titled poem for the ex-ex-girlfriend of the OD victim

you are
nothing that the world of vastness cannot smell
like bad karma caught in a pretty little package,
a trash bag, all tied up into this: yo hon
he’s dead now but recently
told people you were
a fucking bitch.

Gager’s unique perspective often emerges in his unhinged analogies. For example, in April Ends, he writes:

These are the truths to be told –
not the ones to cover up, like
schizophrenia runs in my family

(I try to hide that from my therapist)
what good would that do, she’d pick
daffodils from my head, plant them in her vase,

say to me they didn’t exist.

Gager ends his collection with a brutally honest poem called About Alison. It’s last line gives The Antisocial Network a final shank to the kidney to end on a memorable note:  

months go by
before you
call yourself an asshole,
for being out of touch,
then say, you think
of me often.

 

The Antisocial Network is available over at Redneck Press.

Review of Emergency Room Wrestling by The Dirty Poet

The Dirty Poet depicts the horrors of emergency room atrocities through desensitized eyes and powerful narratives in Emergency Room Wrestling, a poetry collection released in April 2011 by Words Like Kudzu Press.

The poems blatantly de-glamorize hospitals, emergency rooms to be exact, not that there was ever so much glamorization (maybe just a little with shows like ER and House). Everybody knows our bodies are disgusting, they seethe random juices, crust, disease, even terminal illness, but no one has highlighted all those ailments quite like The Dirty Poet. Take this excerpt from his opening piece titled You Think You Need A Beer

he’s got necrotizing fasciitis — flesh-eating bacteria —

of the crotch

and i’m helping three nurses reinsert his rectal trumpet

Yet amidst the twists and turns of the disease, emergencies, and sick humor, there remains a fragment of hope in The Dirty Poet’s overall conclusions:

dead end

i’m going to tell you the saddest story i know

because it happened

he was big and handsome, just 22

an unrestrained passenger in a car crash

he suffered a traumatic brain injury

leaving him wide-eyed and gone in an ICU

yesterday the nurses shoveled him into a chair

mom and dad resumed their vigil

mom shaky and crying, dad boisterous

all their family superhighways

leading to this disastrous dead end

dad took his son’s large, limp hand

and said come on buddy, thumb wrestle

i bet i can beat you

come on buddy, let’s do it

let’s thumb wrestle, let’s go

his thumb hopeful in a hopeless world

Emergency Room Wrestling is a gritty and grotesque read. It is a poetry collection which has emerged from the depths of the dankest hospital bowels, unbridled and unapologetic. Kudos to The Dirty Poet on a phenomenal debut. I definitely owe you a beer, if not a tall glass of scotch.

Charles Portis

Julie Cline writes a dandy piece about Charles Portis for the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

In 2003, Ed Park wrote an excellent essay on Portis that is well worth checking out as well.

Best known for penning True Grit, Portis’s cult-like status was built on his novels Norwood, Dog of the South, Masters of Atlantis and Gringos.

Sandy Longhorn Talks Fairy Tales with Cynthia Reeser

Fairy tales. The genre shows up all the time, everywhere–in film, art, and literature. Consider films like M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water, and the very aesthetic of Shyamalan himself, across the body of his work. (Lady in the Water  is itself a treatise on the interpretation of modern myth in light of its historical distillation.) With regards to literature, I recently had the opportunity to discuss the use of the fairy tale genre in contemporary writing with Sandy Longhorn, someone who is thinking and writing about this very subject. Sandy is the author of Blood Almanac (Anhinga Press), which won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry.  Her newer poetry is forthcoming or has appeared recently in Cincinnati Review, New South, The Rumpus, South Dakota Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and elsewhere.  Longhorn lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, is an Arkansas Arts Council fellow, and blogs at Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty.

CR: Could you talk about your interest in fairy tales as a medium of interpretation in literature? What sparked it and what elements provide for the continuation of your interest?

SL: First, thank you for the interest in my work and for posing these intricate questions.

I started writing a series of fairy tale poems based on the Midwest after reading Mary Biddinger’s book of poetry, Prairie Fever.  Although not a book of fairy tales, I was impressed with the way Biddinger presented some of the darker undertones of living in the Midwest.

After I drafted the first poem “Midwest Nursery Tales,” I went back and read many of the iconic Western fairy tales as they are presented in the original Brothers Grimm books.  These are the non-Disneyfied versions where the ‘good guys’ are often injured or horribly transformed and the ‘bad guys’ often meet bloody ends.  There are versions that go back even farther, but I haven’t done the research yet to find those books.

The gender issues presented in both the Disney versions and the Grimm versions may be one of my primary interests, that and the social ethics the tales attempt to prescribe.  An education in literature gave me the skills to think critically about the tales, and from my first lit classes in college, I began to look beneath the surface of any media I absorbed and into the ideas of self-identity and social positioning, those powerful messages often at work without our acknowledgment.

 

CR: What are you doing in your own work in regards to the fairy tale genre?  How are you using it?

SL: My work in fairy tales is a bit different than what I’ve seen in the past when I’ve read re-interpretations of traditional tales.  Instead of building on the past, I’ve attempted to create new tales, tales that more accurately reflect my own experiences.  Those experiences are grounded in the landscape and the people of the rural Midwest.

In my reading of the Grimm tales, I was struck by the idea of transformation.  In many cases that transformation results from a spell put on a person by a witch or due to some other magical element.  However, in my reality, there was a rock-solid disbelief in anything but hard work and a pure heart.  People got what they deserved; we reaped what was sown, literally and figuratively.  Thus, each of my fairy tale poems is about a girl who is transformed not by magic but by the weather, the land, and/or the industry of agriculture around her.

CR: Going back to the original fairy tales–the gritty, unprettified versions where sometimes the characters get picked to shreds–do you think there is a need in the literary world for the censored (Disney) versions to be ousted?


SL: I don’t know about a need, but I do know that kids can take a lot more than Disney gives them credit for.  Even while I was happy as a child to watch the Disney versions of Cinderella, Snow White, and all the rest, I knew that they didn’t match my reality.

I’m not one to exclude much of anything, but I would argue for a balance.  In particular, when talking about the ‘censored versions,’ we are usually talking about books and/or movies designed for children.  I’m not a parent and I wouldn’t begin to impose my beliefs on those who are; however, we live in a perilous world.  Ask the children who survived Hurricane Katrina about terror, stress, and heartache.  Ask the children whose homes burned down in wildfires in California, Texas, and Oklahoma.  Ask the children whose parents have lost lives or limbs or mental stability to wars overseas.  Ask those who have suffered from domestic violence.  Perhaps the argument for the ‘censored versions’ is one for pure entertainment and escape.  There is a place for that, surely, yet that escape will not necessarily help heal the wounds.  Reality will be waiting when the book cover closes or the movie reaches the end of its run.  How will we prepare our children to return to reality?

 

CR: Do you think we are creating our own fairy tales in this day and age?  If so, how and to what extent, in your opinion?

SL: I do.  The first examples that come to mind are many of the Pixar movies (and the like) that appeal to both children and adults.  I think of Wall-E, Up, and Finding Nemo right off the top of my head.  There are truly scary scenes in each of these movies that expose the hard truths about danger in our world and how we navigate it.  Certainly, the Harry Potter phenomenon lends itself to the fairy tale and draws in modern issues of diversity and a global morality.  The idea of Voldemort as the embodiment of evil fits how overwhelming the bad things of the world sometimes feel.

I suppose some might claim the rise in vampire and werewolf novels for young adults is another foray into fairy tales.  I confess I haven’t read them, as I have a really low scare tolerance (I’ve always had trouble with the line between fiction and reality).  Stephen King’s novels might fall into this same category, in particular The Green Mile comes to mind, although I can’t read much of his work, either, for the nightmares his scenes induce in me.

At the root, a fairy tale goes beyond entertainment.  There is a cautionary purpose there, a moral lesson meant to build a stronger community.  Even though we no longer gather around the hearth, we still have folk tales, just in a variety of media.

 

CR: Do you think there is an aversion toward fairy tales in some literary circles, and if so, why would you say this exists?

SL: This is so interesting.  I’ve heard this question several times now, and I must admit, I wasn’t aware of any aversion to fairy tales.  However, since the question has been raised, I’m beginning to sense that others have felt this aversion.

My own poems are quite new and still making their way out into the world of lit mags and publishers.  I simply might not have felt any push back against the content yet.  I did have one editor email me a rejection with a note that the poems I’d submitted (four of my fairy tales) didn’t fit her journal’s aesthetic but she would welcome a submission with other poems.  I suppose that could be the aversion to which the question refers.

I’m guessing that there have been a lot of poems and stories written that are based on traditional tales that have not gone beyond the tradition and made something new.  In some ways, writing in response to fairy tales might be similar to writing ekphrastic poems.  The writer’s duty is to use the previous art and explore some new territory.  If that isn’t done well, it could lead to a negative branding of the genre, I suppose.

There could also be some gender issues at work here, although I have no scientific proof.  Fairy tales fall in the realm of the domestic.  The connotation of the words brings to mind a mother, grandmother, or nanny with her children gathered around her listening with rapt attention.  Many feminist writers have re-imagined the traditional texts as a way forward into empowerment and a new paradigm.  If anyone has a problem with fairy tales for those reasons, then I’d say it is his or her loss.  Everyone’s voice, everyone’s vision, should have a place at the table.

 

Band Notes: Ludo – Geek rock. You’re wonderful, I heart you.

I rarely, for the lack of better terminology, “fall” for a band, but recently, I’ve hit the asphalt hard for a band called Ludo: geek rock flavored with the ol’ synthesizer.

This band kicks ass because it takes on the quirky, possibly insane characters we all know: the creepy, the awkward, the desperate, and heartbroken. It’s all laid out in their brilliantly titled album You’re Awful, I Love You. Yes, at the end of the day, it’s pop rock from possibly three or so more years ago, but it tastes so good going down, and it’s fun to play in the background at a party because it’s like listening to our (possibly your) own woeful stories.

Take a track called Go-Getter Greg. There’s blatant creepiness in subject’s unrelenting attitude, and Ludo manages to maintain musicality and rhythm in the song despite the dialogue-riddled lyrics: “I haven’t seen you at the pool since the barbecue/Not that I’ve been checking/Here’s the deal/I’ve got this thing for work this weekend and I was wondering/If you don’t have anything going on that maybe/Okay, hey that’s cool you’re busy/But we should hit up Jose O’Flannegens for jello shots/Your call/It’s ok not this week/But Monday you could come over tonight/I’ll be watching cop dramas and smoking fatty fatties.” And of course, there’s the matter of the comical chorus, “I’m a go-getter guy with a gun on my hip/I’m just searching for that someone to be firing it…”

Other fabulous songs, Lake Pontchartrain and Drunken Lament, and their epic Love Me Dead. I’ve been told that every guy I’ve ever gone out with is singing this song now. Even funnier is the fact that my current boyfriend is the one who made mention of it. “Kill me romantically/Fill my soul with vomit then ask me for a piece of gum” ; “You’re an office park without any trees/Corporate and cold” ; “You suck so passionately/You’re a parasitic psycho filthy creature/Finger-banging my heart.” And then there are the awesome oxymorons “You’re hideous and sexy” ; “You’re born of a jackal, you’re beautiful” and the album title, “You’re awful, I love you.” The video is undeniably hilarious, and frontman Andrew Volpe proves himself to be one animated guy in this (seemingly…) one-shot production:

Ludo’s recent album kind of sucked balls, Prepare the Preparations (wtf, right?) but it’s possible I didn’t give it enough of a chance after a few run throughs. I was just so awe-struck by the previous album; though, the song Anything For You is a sweet take on the contemporary amorous ballad: “My ancestors planted some sequoias by a road/I’ve driven down that road since I was born/Oh, never have you ever seen so many perfect evergreens/But I would chop them all down just for you” And then “I’ve gotten drunk and shot the breeze with kings of far off lands/They showed me wealth as far as I could see/But their kingdoms seemed all shrively and they cried with jealousy/When I leaned in and told them about you.”

All in all, there is a crispness to Volpe’s voice, purposeful crackling on the high notes, a silliness engrained in the music and lyrics, lots of synthesizer and neurotic moments of self-loathing and unhealthy infatuation, though it’s all done tastefully.

Check them out, you won’t be disappointed, if anything you’ll laugh pretty hard. Happy geek rocking!

Pynchon, again

Returning to Pynchon, now, I remember my first taste of his work. A bargain store copy of The Crying of Lot 49 that I bought without expectation. I found the book to be a revelation. I wandered campus in a fog, asking people what they knew about this Thomas Pynchon. I’d never heard of him. Professors were, occasionally, dismissive: “Well, he’s an important post-modernist” they would say in a way that let me know they meant “not important at all.”I thought they were crazy to be so dismissive. Very quickly thereafter I devoured V. and Gravity’s Rainbow. For a little while I considered Gravity’s Rainbow my favorite novel and Mr. Pynchon the greatest writer this country had ever produced. By far. His range, his intelligence, his … greatness seemed to tower above every other possible writer.

I was 22 or maybe 23 at that point. In some ways I was well read for my age. And in other ways I was not. Many of the writers I found impressive in my middle twenties, in particular, the post-modernists and the absurdists (and those who influenced them) were unknown to me and so Pynchon seemed a giant existing in a vacuum.

I wonder if this is why at some point Pynchon became less interesting to me–I stopped reading him entirely after a re-read of Lot 49 my first semester in grad school. In the subsequent years I’ve picked up all of his other novels, once or twice, and considered re-reading Rainbow. Harold Bloom’s high estimation of Mason & Dixon (he sees the novel as towering above all others of the last… however many years or so) has always brought me to that book and back over the years, but I’ve never wandered beyond page 40. I’m reading it again and enjoying it but not nearly at the level of when I was younger. Pynchon no longer seems so gigantic, in short. I wonder now if he’s that certain type of novelist who flares within the mind of the reader for a brief time, but whose work you cannot return to again and again, as with Kerouac, for instance.

However, I’m hoping I’ll rediscover him this time and regain some of that youthful passion. Certainly if there’s any writer my own work would hope to emulate it’s probably Pynchon. Which makes my reluctance these last 8 or 9 years all the more mystifying.

Can anyone relate? Are there writers who meant a great deal to you at a younger age but, upon returning to them, refused to grant the same pleasure?

Band Notes: PK – Do You Really Mind? I’m Reviewing You.

Cross the sounds of The Killers with a dash of Journey, and garnish it with Thursday’s Geoff Rickly (if Geoff Rickly had a British accent that came and went), and you have the independent sensation PK. Every one of their songs is amazing, but three on their full-length album in particular are ones worth checking out first.

What defines a good song? To me, it’s one that retains a bit of musicality in the vocals, lyrics I can personally relate to, and how well the moving parts (bass, drum, and riffs) fit together. PK’s song 1920 is filled with nostalgic and heavy lyrics such as “My brother’s home in the darkness/Oh I remember how she was still/It haunts me in my evenings/Where will this set me in the stars?” This particular song is a great example of a piece that’s melodic but not to the point of being generic or predictable.

My favorite song off their album Into the Roaring is called Roam, which I interpret as this guy pining over his female friend who, like many stereotypical masochistic women, chase after the same asshole time and time again and no matter how many “lessons” they say they “learn,” they still end up in the arms of the next asshole. How could I decipher all of this you ask? In bits and pieces of the lyrics, “Roam/But it’s never going to change your ways/No, it just won’t change a thing/I know I’m never going to break your heart/Roam/Till it leaves you feeling old/But he’s never going to take you home.”

London is upbeat, a story perhaps of an overseas affair, told through lyrics that are terribly romantic without being cliché or tacky: “It takes me back to my hometown/My first kiss/Down under oak trees/Does it take you back to your chateau/Or Marseilles down on the seaside/It takes me back to my hometown/When you kiss me/I feel the whole train shake.” The music is a bit on the poppy side, the chorus sounds like popcorn might if it was exploding out of a drum set, but it works, and the bass line grants the quieter parts justice without overkill, and it’s all this that makes me believe this is PK at its finest. “’Cause it ain’t never felt like this/I swear I’m not fooling/Yeah, you floored me/Why I’ve never had a kiss like yours/I’m drunk still.”

They have multiple acoustic videos online, one of Roam

and another of 1920 brilliantly shot in the middle of a moving elevator 

and their music video of London, a one-shot production of Hawley migrating through the caverns of a train

To top it off, they are giving away their full-length album Into the Roaring for free at their website: http://www.pkband.com/ Keep a look out for their EP soon to be released. It’s one that I look forward to most in 2011.