New Depths of Deadpan, by Michael Gizzi
Burning Deck Books (cover image courtesy of Pricegrabber)
(Burning Deck Books, 2009) Michael Gizzi writes poems like no one else, and there’s no business in them, they like to waltz and clock and skedaddle before you get them and then some. “Nouns name names,” he reminds us, “Fins awaken the old fear,” he jaws, then “The funny papers open fire,” good thing we’ve got a chimney, but not before “His heart leaps in a cage.” That’s a single line from Burning Deck’s New Depths of Deadpan. Half ads for products yet to be invented, half bumperstickers for bumper cars from Mars—I could live here.
The Last Time as We Are, by Taylor Mali
Write Bloody Publishing (cover image used with permission)
(Write Bloody Publishing, 2009) Taylor Mali, word warrior, travels the globe signing up teachers one by one, and reading his classy, funny, moving, exhilarating, smart, sassy poems to ears of all shape and sizes: a New Model for the New Poetry. The Last Time as We Are has a nifty blurb from Billy Collins: “He is tagged as a performance poet, but his performances, rather than being frontal assaults, are leavened by charm and wit and could survive happily on the page.” No “could” about it—this book is much more than “survive.” Mali thrives on the page. Exemplary.
Portrait of the Poet As an Engineer, by Maged Zaher
(Pressed Wafer Press, 2009) Maged Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer Zaher should probably read Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer by Maged Zaher. But it doesn’t. So when you dedicate the book “For the Arabic language,” and title another poem “I’m interested in the blame language of wine lists,” and enlist a sunshine repair kit and conclude “I am a good slave and I am happy today”—well, you know the terrain is shifting because words are earthquakes, too. For all of us, Zaher is the abstract other. He too writes a poem for Paris Hilton. Shops for angry chihauhauas. Writes poems that change the world, for the reading.All’s War in Fear and Love, by Angela Omulepu
This tiny book, self-published (Omulepu@hotmail.com), reads like a news report from the other side, Irag/Iran/Afghanistan. The Muslim world wants to be heard, speaks softly and gently, “In Baghdad / You are a flash of light / Across CNN you are a blur / Of beige but I know you / Eating the way you do / Kissing the way you do / Running barefoot alongside / A white truck the dust swirling.” Highly recommended.Handling Destiny, by Adrian Castro
Coffee House Press (cover image courtesy of Pricegrabber)
(Coffee House Press, 2009) Adrian Castro, DR/Cubano, writes with holy stillness, becomes fish and ceremony. Now he is Handling Destiny, with no more care than food and water, and what is the difference, ese? In this book we go back further, to Ifa roots, Nigeria. But has not this Miami Poetry Priest always hearkened Africa? He answers William Carlos Williams: “So much depends / on the bank forming a river / and river forming a bank.” “We’re not in Cuba anymore / we’re not in Africa anymore / still a red feather to chorus yr response.” Ashe, Atanda, first drummer, Word.
The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess, by Andrei Codrescu
Princeton University Press (cover image courtesy of Pricegrabber)
(Princeton University Press, 2009) If you want the true Origin of Species, genus Poeticus Contemporaneous, then hie thee to the encyclopedist par excellence, his Excellency Andrei Codrescu and his don’t-believe-a–word–of-it-cause-it’s-all-true, The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess. A dictionary, a how-to, a stick of dynamite, a cartoon—Codrescu’s wisdom is invention, and dada his drunken boat that never reaches shore. Eternity, Arthur Craven, and home base Romania—no one traverses the naked corners of the 20th century like Codrescu, Tour Guide to the Apocalypse. A must read for all Posthumans!
