Poetry Spots:
A Roundup of Brief Reviews

Dateline: 3/9/99

Trochemoche
by Luis J. Rodriguez
(Curbstone Press: 1998) In which the cholo meets the rabbi, the Bald Cricket (to try to keep the lice from propagating, bro) gives up booze, and Spanish -- and English -- are spoken with an East LA accent. Trochemoche (trot-ch'e-mot-ch'e), “helter-skelter” in Spanish, is indeed, all over the place. But luckily our guide is the renowned founder of Tia Chucha Press, a poet who digs his sweet Chicano Chicago so deep that it feels like home all over the place, where we are all born poets and should be respected as such. Why isn't Luis Rodriguez the poetry editor of the progressive (in all ways but poetry) magazine, The Nation? For that matter, if Ventura can do it via wrestling in Minnesota, I hereby cast my Presidential for Rodriguez, via poetry.   paperback

The Truth in Rented Rooms
Koon Woon
(Kaya Press: 1998) When Koon Woon writes of looking out his “11th floor highrise window / Below the hit of hills / and above the grumbling / of warehouses in the demise / And you always lose money / Trying to keep the truth within bounds / and as the two-sectioned bus makes / A wide turn forty cars follow” you realize you have just heard a critique of the US economic system as written by one who lives in a flop house, has no money, and who understands that 40 passengers in a two-sectioned bus can save the world from the rapacious private ownershippers who follow the bus's wake. Koon's single room becomes the world; his vision shared with Whitman's American epic, Li Po's physical metaphysics, the dark victory of Anne Sexton (“Now you know what poetry / Essentially is:” he writes, “it is the communication / of pain.”). I've never read anything quite like this poetry: harrowingly perfect, revolutionary, and still. The Truth in Rented Rooms is a bold break for poetry. Born in a small village near Canton, 1949, Koon Woon immigrated to the US in 1960, lives in Seattle & is a vocal advocate for Seattle poetry. This is his first book.   paperback

Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler
by Thylias Moss
(Persea Books: 1998) Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler is Thylias Moss's sixth book, her first after grabbing one of the MacArthur genius grants. Her work has changed -- moved further out, encyclopedia-ized. She has memories of playing jacks sans hands, Thalidomide-esque, but all it is is nose-sucking, all it is is the end of the world. The Brothers Grimm, Zora Neale Hurston, Amy Clampitt, Stanley Crouch: this is a thin volume, but spectacularly dense, provocative (is her cheating poem about Lazurus “cheating” death? or her and her husband's affairs?). To read her Susan Smith / baptizing poem is to be horrified -- yet, as Moss posits, 'tis poetry's job. The long, more formal open-field works, particulately “Advice,” “Sour Milk,” and the title poem, all break new ground. I want the book! I want the movie!   paperback

Kissing God Goodbye
by June Jordan
(Anchor: 1997) I saw June last fall. She was recuperating from another bout with cancer, on crutches, reading at a Youth Poetry Slam in San Franciso, so powerfully that the room shook. She sounded like she always does -- strong and pushy, light and loving, dancing and jack hammering as the case demanded. June Jordan is, of course, the creator of “Poetry for the People,” the student revolutionary poetry posse, an outgrowth of her teaching at Berkeley. In her most recent book she dedicates many of her poems to the young poets, poems on the Gulf War, Clearance Thomas, Lebanon, Bosnia -- direct, razor-sharp analysis, with hooks and choruses, yes. And twining amidst this politico dynamo are other poems, about love and longing, the human face of politics, the face we all share. This is inspired, inspiring, work.   paperback

And to round out this spring round-up, a couple of spoken word CD's. Dead set on forming a nuclear distribution unit for spoke-the-word materials, we'll put you in touch with the scene you put us in touch with.

Six Stories Tall
by David Vanadia
Moody, evocative, mall dark fairy tales with superb bass by the poet and drums by Ross Kantor. A tad syrupy, brilliantly produced, ready to go.   compact disk

Whispers and Screams
by Tim Koberstein
Somewhere in Indiana dwells an ambitious young poet of Swing. 30 cuts is probably 20 too many, but what cuts is the ambitions (big, juicy) and the chops (voice is monotone, production varied, clever). He's got a shot.   compact disk

--Bob Holman

Visit our Poetry Bookstore & our Independent Shopping page to browse through other recommended books & CDs. Then come on over to our Poetry Forum to let us know what you are reading & listening to these days.

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