Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(Meritage Press, 2006, www.meritagepress.com) by Joey Madia In the past six months I have reviewed several works by Eileen Tabios and authors associated with Meritage Press that employ the Tabios-invented poetic technique of hay(na)ku. Simply put, the form is tercets consisting of one-, two-, and three-word lines. One can also reverse the order. I say “simply put” because authors are taking this form and working with it in myriad ways to make it their own. Ernest Priego’s Not Even Dogs was, at the time of its printing, the first single-author book of hay(na)ku (or, in Spanish, jáinakú). The Foreword by Mark Young (co-editor of the first hay(na)ku anthology) and the Afterword by Eileen Tabios elucidate the history and methodology behind the hay(na)ku form, so I will refrain from saying any more about it here. Not Even Dogs is divided into three subject-matter sections: Mornings, Territories, and Cities. It is neatly laid out, with design and typesetting by Michelle M. Bautista and compe...

(Beneath the Underground, 2005, $45.00) Improvisations is a scary big book. At 700 pages it is far afield from your typically slim volume of poetry. Frazer uses the length and breadth of this master-work to cover an immense amount of typographical and etymological ground, and he has the freedom to repeat a variety of themes for emphasis and effect. At times the passages are so slightly, subtly revised as to be almost unnoticed. But the structure here is akin to Pollock’s drip paintings or the works of East Coast wordsmith Marc Sonnenfeld—Frazer “denies the accident” and one gets the sense that moving one word, one symbol, one line would collapse the entire structure. It took me nine and a half months to read Improvisations, taking it in as I did in manageable, well-considered doses, like the potent intoxicant that it is. Not since I read Bob Dylan’s Tarantula many years ago have I felt so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of words. I hold the distinction of being the first person to buy ...

Review of Highest Hurdle Press’s Letterhead Vol. 2 (Edited by Bradley Lastname, Christopher Robin, Brian McMahon, Robert Pomerhn, and Eric Johnt, Highest Hurdle Press, 2008) {Disclaimer: Two of my poems appear in this collection. They are not mentioned in this review.} In 2008 I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing Letterhead Volume #1. At the time I thought it quite the impressive undertaking, bringing together so many different types of poets from so many areas of the United States. Readers of that review (and that volume) will be pleased to know that Vol. 2 builds upon both the scope and quality of its predecessor, retaining all of its best qualities while striking new ground in content and form and offering what co-editor Bradley Lastname recently explained to me is a “…darker selection of work, because the times we live in are darker.” Amen. Embroiled as we are in a time of ongoing wars and global economic and environmental crises (the key subjects explored), the role of the poe...

(Published for the Paul Brunton Philosophic Society by Larson Publications, 1995, www.larsonpublications.com) In the promotional material for this poetic and compelling book, Mary Lee Wile’s biography says that she “wrote this book as a way to fathom her own feelings of grief and rage at the loss of children.” The book’s dedication is to “The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,” whose children, according to Wikipedia “‘disappeared’ during the [Argentinian] Dirty War, the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.” It has been said that outliving one’s child is life’s most profound injustice, and the depth of emotion and meaning in the 144 pages of Ancient Rage are a testament to the deep river of sorrow that the parent of a dead child has to plumb the depths of. Creating a successful narrative about New Testament matters is no easy task, as evidenced by the poor outcome of Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt, and Wile overcomes potential obstacles by letting the story tell itself vir...

(2008, Fisher King Press, www.fisherkingpress.com) By Joey Madia Timekeeper is a modern parable, a journey of “re-imagined events” processed through the author’s memory onto the page. Part Kerouac’s On the Road, part Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist, and all soul and spirit, John Atkinson shares with us the story of an Everyman hero who searches for the one thing most precious to a man— His name. Johnnyboy, who is unable to read, is 14 when the book opens. After another beating at the hands of the abusive father he calls Bugdaddy (who has already popped his eardrum with a slap and beaten him with a fanbelt), he takes to the road, heading physically and metaphorically westward from Virginia, in search of enlightenment. Being “of the earth” in both his illiteracy and his part–Native American blood, Johnnyboy is full of metaphorical expressions. Speaking about Bugdaddy, he says to God (through Moses): “That man needs to be shot with sheep sh*t and sent to hell for stinking.” It should be noted...