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Ache by Joseph Ross

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 108 pgs.
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Ache by Joseph Ross, one of the readers at the fourth DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry Reading, is a collection that will gnaw, get under the skin, and force readers to review the world around them through new eyes. Whether taking on the persona of Nelson Mandela or John Coltrane, Ross has a knack for demonstrating the persistent, dull pain alive in this country and throughout the world. It is not just the pain of racial bias, but also the pain of immigrants searching for better lives and crossing hell to get there.

from "Nelson Mandela Burns His Passbook, 1952"

You thought you might eat
its ashes for dinner. The blue

flame, tiny and cautious at first,
crawled up the paper like a 

well-dressed thief, about to steal
what is already his.

Ross demonstrates a deep empathy with his subjects and begs readers to understand the point of view of others, even if they are vastly different from their own. He pinpoints the absurdity of violence that erupts from fear and the lasting ache it leaves behind for not only mothers and siblings, but for those yet to come into being. The history of their lives informs our present, and should be remembered.

from "When Your Word Is a Match"

When your word is a match-
head, hissing into flame,

testifying aloud but blown
out as soon as you speak.

Ross leaves readers with powerful images that speak for historical figures, those lynched in Birmingham or bombed in a church or even those who merely followed their dreams to make music. Listen. Can’t you just hear the Coltrane in these lines:

from "On John Coltrane's 'Lush Life'"

A saxophone needs
supple, lush. When human

breath swims through its
golden canyons it sings

only if the player bends.

Ache by Joseph Ross is a balancing of both sides of ache — a deep-seated, persistent pain — running through the country’s past, present, and future. Unless, we’re able to absorb the beauty around us, forget the misconceptions we use as shields for poor decisions, and move forward and “believe everyone/deserves forgiveness.” (pg. 89, “For the Graffiti Artist Whose Tag Covered the Last Cool ‘Disco’ Dan Tag in Washington, D.C.”)

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Joseph Ross is the author of three books of poetry Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013), and Meeting Bone Man (2012). His poetry has appeared in a wide variety of publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Southern Quarterly, Xavier Review, Poet Lore, Tidal Basin Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Sojourners. His work appears in many anthologies including Collective Brightness, Poetic Voices without Borders 1 and 2, Full Moon on K Street, and Come Together; Imagine Peace. He recently served as the 23rd Poet-in-Residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, just outside Washington, D.C. He is a six-time Pushcart Prize nominee and his poem “If Mamie Till Was the Mother of God” won the 2012 Pratt Library/Little Patuxent Review Poetry Prize.

Killing Summer by Sarah Browning

Source: the poet
Paperback, 100 pgs.
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Killing Summer by Sarah Browning begins in the heat of summer in which a woman walks her neighborhood and does not cross the street because there is a black man there and there is a man stabbing women on the loose.  But look closer at “Pentworth, Early Evening” and you see a narrator who thinks about doing just that, who has fear deep down that she’ll be a victim of violence by a black man.  Like her, we want “to tear history” from us, free ourselves from that ingrained habit that those unlike us are something to fear.

From “Flag of No Walls” (pg. 93)

I want the flag of talking,
of sitting on the disintegrating
wall and gabbing, gossiping,
negotiating, waving that flag
of no walls. That flag.

Through Browning’s open endings, her poems seek change and there is a glimmer of hope that changes are coming and that transformation could be for the better (at least for those who come after us).  Her poems are ripped from the headlines, but they also are reflective of the past — a societal angst that was gone and has returned.  From an adolescent student seeking the courage to be seen by the boys in the courtyard to the pull between the ingrained fear and the inability to reconcile an ancestry of slave owners, there is a tension throughout the collection that simmers, wearing us down.

From “The Blueberry Seasons” (pg. 77)

I can’t stop admiring you, how you run
like that, bring your bucket now to show me.

Summer is often referenced as a time of being carefree, and there is some of that here in poems such as “The Blueberry Seasons,” but Browning is quick to remind us that life is not carefree for everyone — not the amputee, not those touched by foreclosure, and not those falsely imprisoned.  Her poems ask us to view ourselves and our actions through the eyes of others, to see how we are perceived and to begin again and become better, more compassionate, and connected.

Killing Summer by Sarah Browning reminds us that even in the most turbulent political times, we should not be blind to our roles and we should not passively watch or read. We must act if we hope to make change.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Sarah Browning is co-founder and Executive Director of Split This Rock. She is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and a featured writer for Other Words. Author of Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, forthcoming 2017) and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden (The Word Works, 2007), and coeditor of D.C. Poets Against the War: An Anthology (Argonne House Press, 2004), she is the recipient of artist fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, a Creative Communities Initiative grant, and the People Before Profits Poetry Prize. Browning has been guest editor or co-edited special issues of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Delaware Poetry Review, and POETRY magazine. Since 2006, she has co-hosted the Sunday Kind of Love poetry series at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC. She previously worked supporting socially engaged women artists with WomenArts and developing creative writing workshops with low-income women and youth with Amherst Writers & Artists. She has been a community organizer in Boston public housing and a grassroots political organizer on a host of social and political issues.

2011 Indie Lit Awards Short-Listed Poetry Review: Sonics in Warholia by Megan Volpert

Indie Lit Awards 2011 short-listed poetry title, Sonics in Warholia by Megan Volpert is highly experimental with poetic form meshing together pop culture and prose with lines from songs and other elements many will recognize in a homage to the conundrum that was Andy Warhol (most famous for the Campbell’s Soup Can).  An interesting thing to note is the red “SIN” in the title, as well as the use of “Sonics,” which could be a reference to the garage band, The Sonics, from the 1960s.  The images of Volpert in the background remind readers of Warhol’s famous Marilyn Monroe paintings and the rows of knives.

The collection consists of eight long poems that play on musicality and surrealism, engaging readers in a back-and-forth, push-and-pull of ideas, much like Warhol himself, who remained cryptic about his process and his influences.  In many ways, Volpert’s work resembles that cryptic nature.

From “Portrait of a Mix Tape” (pages 7-12), “. . . Thus, Andy, please/enjoy your 58 years boiled down to fifty-seven minutes and fifty-/one seconds.//” the poem is homage to Andy through lyrics in popular music appearing from the time of his birth to beyond the time of his death to illustrate the influence he had on the narrator and the world, especially the world of pop culture.  In many of the poems, the narrator speaks directly to the ghost of Andy Warhol, but on some occasions readers will be left adrift if they are not as familiar with Warhol or the other images and pop culture events discussed.

“For the Love of Good Machines” (pages 13-19) begins with reference to Warhol’s relationship with Lou Reed as lead lyricist of The Velvet Underground, and again Volpert is combining music with her poetry as she speaks about the internal rhythms of songs vs. their external lack of speed and vice versa in the image of the stationary motorcycle, which she equates to the creativity of the mind — whether among poets, musicians, or artists.  Even though little may be produced outwardly, these creative spirits are always creating inwardly.  An ambitious collection of just eight poems oscillates between sublime and ridiculous, deftly providing a portrait of Warhol and all he gave to the world.  However, the style in which it is written could cause readers to take each poem in small chunks rather than as a whole and require some “googling.”

Sonics in Warholia by Megan Volpert has moments of sheer insanity and surrealism that many readers will either detest or love, and while the form is experimental, it does have poetic qualities of allusion, narration, and imagery that draw out themes and comparisons between all art forms and the often “hidden” quality that they all share — that which makes the affectations of that talent either succeed or fail in the eyes of the public.

Please check out other reviews from the Indie Lit Awards Panelists:

Necromancy Never Pays and her interview with Megan Volpert.

Poet Megan Volpert

About the Poet:

Megan Volpert is a poet and critic from Chicago who has settled in Atlanta with her wife, Mindy. Volpert holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University and is a high school English teacher.

Sonics in Warholia is her fourth collection of poems (Little Rock: Sibling Rivalry Press, 2011). The other three are The Desense of Nonfense and Face Blindness (Buffalo: BlazeVOX Books, 2009 & 2007), and Domestic Transmission (San Antonio: MetroMania Press, 2007). She is currently editing This assignment is so gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching (Little Rock: Singling Rivalry Press, 2013).

***Today’s National Poetry Month Blog Tour stop is at The Indextrious Reader.***

 

This is the 7th book for my 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

This is my 25th book for the 2012 New Authors Challenge.