Apocryphal By Lisa Marie Basile Noctuary Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0988805132 Reviewed by Karl Wolff I put two bare feet up on the dash and spread myself but he is a boulder, smells of salt, has a chest that could possess me, or other nightmares Lisa Marie Basile’s Apocryphal exists in that Nabokovian twilight between childhood and adulthood. Between these realms one confronts monsters and the monolithic oppression of tradition. This is Alice in Wonderland re-imagined as a harrowing nightmare journey, a poodle-skirted damsel thrown into the jaws of a slavering beast, who may be the speaker’s father. What remains are fragments, memories, and fantasies strewn about or reconfigured. When reading the book’s sticky sensual passages, the slow realization occurs that these prurient shards point to something more sinister than adolescent sex and appeasing those base cravings. I notice: the other children do not live this way but then again they [...]
Karl Wolff
OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS, ECHOIC BY CHRIS TYSH LES FIGUES PRESS, 2013 CUNT NORTON BY DODIE BELLAMY LES FIGUES PRESS, 2013 1. Pins Ups: Covering the Classics “I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike — and I don’t think there really is a distinction between the two — are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats.’ – Harold Bloom in an interview in Criticism in Society (1987), edited by Imre Salusinski The literary landscape is a sensitive thing. One has to be careful, especially if loaded words are used. Originality. Authenticity. The Western Canon. Les Figues Press throws a wrench into those hallowed notions with two new poetry collections, Our Lady of the Flowers, Echoic, by Chris Tysh, and Cunt Norton, by Dodie Bellamy. The first is a poetic re-interpretation of Jean Genet’s erotic classic, Our Lady of the Flowers. (This reviewer counts [...]
ISBN: 9780984885749 $15.00 Weapons catalog descriptions: cyberpunk, academic prose, fables, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex stopping a suicide bomber. From these disparate sources Josef Kaplan creates Democracy is not for the People, his newest volume of poetry. Divided into four parts, the book confronts the unholy terrors of globalization, globalized terror, and mass-market homogeneity. These confrontations utilize high and low culture, genre imitation, and the political broadside. It is easy to see this as agitprop or a gimmick. At first blush, Democracy would appear as more preaching to the converted for the ranks of the Occupy movement. Kaplan’s politicized confrontations, constructed with a cunning ferocity, aspire to become more, since the lifespan of literature outlives flash-in-the-pan political movements, nation-states, and entire civilizations. The cunning comes from the technique of pastiche. Democracy’s first section, entitled Tilt-Shift, is an extended pastiche culled from numerous sources. Varieties of prose styles come one after another. [...]
Naked Except for the Jewelry “And,” she said, “you must talk no more about ecstasy. It is a loneliness.” The woman wandered about picking up her shoes and silks. “You said you loved me,” the man said. “We tell lies,” she said, brushing her wonderful hair, naked except for the jewelry. “We try to believe.” “You were helpless with joy,” he said, “moaning and weeping.” “In the dream,” she said, “we pretend to ourselves that we are touching. The heart lies to itself because it must.” From Refusing Heaven Prior to a random visit to the local library, I had never heard of Jack Gilbert. Though I make it a point to browse the new releases in contemporary poetry, it is a rare occurrence when a poet hooks into my psyche and refuses to let go. Jack Gilbert is one of those poets. Others include Robert Hass, Allen Ginsberg, and [...]