Firehouse Neckbrace by Josh Spilker

                Josh Spilker distributes chapbooks and critiques music. These are two of my favorite things. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who feels music and poetry are compatible forms. While he appears to focus more heavily on literature now (also reviewing books at Impose Magazine) I can’t help but to feel a certain sense of a kindred spirit with him. Music reviewing is extremely difficult work as there are literally thousands of references to make, with roughly 8 of those being something most people would understand. I figure that’s why he focuses more on literature than anything else. Besides merely distributing work he creates his own. “Firehouse Neckbrace” is release 2.5 from Deckfight Press. 

                “Firehouse Neckbrace” reminds me of the quiet, disturbed nature of the suburbs. Growing up in the suburbs you don’t realize how strange it is. You see cars pass by on an infrequent basis most of the time. People on the sidewalks don’t have the same warm feeling they do in cities. Instead of thinking “How nice all these people on the sidewalks. Glad they are enjoying the nice day.” you grow paranoid about why they aren’t in cars. No rhythm exists in the suburbs. Cities have a natural rhythm to them. Suburbs feel artificial because they are. Suburbs were created for the sole purpose of escape making a false reality with a fake history about a rich developer who tore apart virgin land to make cookie-cutter homes with enough variation to make people feel like individuals. 

                I feel that needs to be said before getting into Josh’s work. For all of “Firehouse Neckbrace” gives me the impression of a creepy place where nobody bothers learning about each other. Rather you have a cast of characters who don’t seem to sync up or interact with each other properly. Every few pages you return to that desolate picture of a burned-out house. Occasionally larger fonts barge through almost shouting at you. The larger fonts appear to be flarf or flarf-like and break up the story with random interjections.  Dialogue is extremely, almost painfully realistic. Really I’m not certain exactly how to classify this as but I lean towards a short story or a particularly long-form poem. 

                A few character are introduced in refreshing slow way. Josh paces the story properly. I’m a sloth so pacing is pretty important to me. Sometimes I read stories where too many characters are shown to me at once. This can lead to confusion.  Having this pace makes it possible for me to care about these characters. Eventually the chapbook becomes more and more surreal (or real). Lines become blurred between what is occurring and what they are thinking. It’s an interesting mix and since the characters are made for us to understand them makes the experiment feel worth it. 

                Suburbs prove to be the main character in it at least for me. I enjoyed Josh’s description of the community right down to its shopping habits and various zones of control. Despite growing up in suburbs and reading probably an unhealthy amount of fiction and non-fiction about them, I haven’t seen them portrayed this way before. This is the way I talk about them, the way I feel about them and the way I felt living in them. I’m glad Josh Spilker literally captured suburban life for me so accurately and vividly, adorned only with the starkest of facts.

Pop Serial and NewWaveVomit: Together at last

                Stephen Tully Dierks and Ana Carrete are aware of most, if not all, online poetry happenings. By law they must be. Pop Serial is S T to the D’s baby. NewWaveVomit, Ana C’s testament to ‘anything you need to let out’ used to be a member of the Talking Heads. Growing tired of all the partying, drugs, and literal vomit, NewWaveVomit settled down to focus on poetry over the past year. Eventually NewWaveVomit managed to transform itself into a website and gave control over to Ana after she found a gold ticket in her bar of chocolate. It helps that Ana is an accomplished poet. Go here to learn more about her.

                I eagerly awaited this meeting of the internet poetry powerhouses. Unlike countless other forms of media, I feel there hasn’t been a ‘poetry beef’ before between different parts of the country. By having this reading together Stephen and Ana prevented any ‘drive-by flarfings’ from occurring. They knew how much was not on the line here. Good thing they took the entire reading with seriousness more often associated with playgrounds or high-end bars than actual poetry readings. 

                We got thrown into the middle of things. Several people were walking. The chat watched as Stephen, Steve Roggenbuck, Ana Carrete, and Mike Kitchell along with other people walked around America’s heartland, Chicago, IL. I think other people might have been around. Really I couldn’t tell. Quickly everyone began making plans for pulling out ID cards to show they were ‘of age’ to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages. Steve referred to it as ‘carding hard’. Unfortunately we saw things only from a sideways angle. All I saw from a straightforward angle was a picture of a young Roggenbuck. Finally I can honestly say I’ve seen a picture of an artist as a young man. 

                “Congratulations you’ve arrived” some mysterious voice announced as they arrived at the poetry reading. Then we were treated to some shoegaze as in literally looking at people’s shoes. For an indefinite period of time we heard random conversations. Someone stated “That’s a bad angle. I think some of your viewers are going to get seasick” to which Stephen eloquently replied “Meh” or another equally innocuous response. 

                Ustream did not care for the venue they choose. We knew because of its frequent crashes. Towards the end of the week I tend to feel a bit tired, forlorn, and ready to call it a week. So I can’t be entirely angry at the liberal elitist social media. Perhaps it too got on a few uncomfortable conference calls during the week. It acted a bit too human for me. Negativity began to drag it down.

                A poll came up. Without asking a question, it reaffirmed the positive. The poll didn’t even ask a question. Roggenbuck set up the poll knowing we’d answer ‘yes’ since we are his positive pals. Everyone in the chat knew how important this ustream would be. Never before had all these literary icons come together in the same place in real life. We were extremely excited about this event. So did the audience who clapped and screamed “woo” at Stephen Tully Dierk’s announcement.

                Mike Kitchell (Impossible Mike) came up on stage. Wearing his trademarked white framed glasses (part of his ‘rebranding’ strategy) he began the session forcefully. Each time I heard a slight delay in the ustream recording I thought no. Apparently the technology heard my plea and came back. For me I liked the repetition of the square. The square was my favorite part of the poem. 

                Andrew James Weatherhead continued at great pace reading poems about Astoria, Basketball, and bits from the Economist magazine. Halfway into his own reading, he decided to engage the audience. Suddenly he put down the papers and began to talk. What it did was turn the reading into a conversation. Using this approach, he ruined any chance of hecklers to try and wreak the reading. Instead people began to find poetry a bit more approachable.

                Right as everyone in the room was about to feel that magical charge, the charge you get when you finally understand art, when poets and non-poets come together into a big circle and sing around the campfire, it ended. Steve’s phone battery died. I guess a phone can only handle so much poetry ustreaming before it thinks to itself “This is intense. I better go into sleep mode and contemplate my existence.” That’s what the phone did, I’m absolutely positive. 

                Everything might have been fantastic!

Lee Patterson

               Lee Patterson is one of the first poets I’m reviewing from my neck of the woods, the tri-state metropolitan area. While he does live in Madison, NJ I won’t hold his NJ roots against him, as some of my favorite people are from New Jersey. In fact, there’s a certain weird charm I feel every time I take NJ transit on one of my many trips to that exotic land.

                What Lee does is quite clear: he delves into regular poetry on his more traditional poetry blog and engages with Flarf poetry (poetry derived partly or entirely from the internet on his larger, more updated blog). I find it interesting how he felt the need to divide the two into two separate blogs as I feel internet writing can often be just as good, if not better, than what counts as ‘officially published’ writing. Besides maintaining these two blogs, he has been published in “The Columbia Review” and “West 10^th”. Having become aware of him through Steve Roggenbuck’s #poetrybyemilydickinson project, something tailor-made for his interests, most of my focus will center on his No Name Key blog which gives me more information.

                Beginning with the “Independence Day Rain” he shows a certain flair for the readymade nature of Flarf poetry. Managing to avoid sounding forced or unnecessarily pointing attention to their origins, he creates the illusion of a relationship between the two characters in the poem. It’s sort of unusual, but I enjoy seeing the language used outside of context to create something more substantial.

                   One of my favorites has to be his only December poem called “Amazing Bundler Opiating”. In this he shows off one of the results of too much Google information. Cobbled together is information about an amazing Christian rock band, dissatisfaction on Obama’s healthcare plan, Opium, and the Taliban. None of that should make sense together, but a reader’s external information about any of those events or ideas is virtually unavoidable. A reader can manage to make sense out of it; much in the same way our brains are wired to understand words without vowels or with slight misspellings. 

                “I can smell your Heirlooms from here” is great for other reasons. He takes all these internet phenomena and creates a situation, a story. Originally starting with a de-friended friend on Facebook, the narrator tells us about how this awful Facebook friend once slipped acid in his beer. As he begins freaking out he thinks of ‘you’, a person never defined. Smelling heirlooms and the description of synesthesia gives it a surreal quality. 

                For his less-internet based poetry, I’d say the title poem of “Anonimo Key” is the best of the bunch. I’ve never been to the Florida Keys but I enjoyed the feel of the words and confusion chosen. Now that I haven’t been on a road trip for such a long time I kind of miss the bizarre nature of getting lost in new places, rather than getting lost in vaguely familiar places, which is far more common with me. 

                Strangely, I like both forms. Obviously I have a focus on here of internet based poetry, but I appreciated the fact he tried to differentiate between the two forms. That way I get a better idea of what the process must be. Having read both, I’d be interested in how one is decided for one or the other blog, what the criteria is for an ‘internet based’ versus ‘writing based’ poem, since so much of what I read and process is mostly through the internet at this point. I guess not knowing makes it more interesting. 

DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM: A review

                 Last time I reviewed something of Steve Roggenbuck’s, it was a smaller sampling. A chapbook called “i am like october when i am dead”. Honestly, I liked and disliked parts of it. This particular one shows off his love of typography, particularly in its exacting font size (80) and type of font (Helvetica, obviously). Being so absolute to its design reminds me a bit of John Barton Wolgamot’s precise standards. Compared to Steve’s previous stuff, there appears to be a great deal more personal detail. That works to his benefit.

                It’s the personal detail which warms me to each poem. Perhaps this was the crucial detail which made me a little cold towards his chapbook. According to his notes on in the book, these are poems from MSN messenger history from High School. Remembering what I was like in High School, I kind of wish I had kept more of those conversations. Going through these, I’m sort of reminded the same kind of feeling I had as a teenager, writing sweet sayings for people I cared about. Upon finishing these, I immediately went into my ‘notes’ section of my personal email to see if I had saved anything from that period in my life. 

                Perhaps it is this exploration of his past relationship which gives it soul. Even the more silly or random elements in the book are related. Together it feels unified a complete whole. Having common themes thread themselves around, like the affectionate phrases he shows towards the recipient of these messages, opens him up a little more to the outside world.

                His work appears to be obsessed with the consumption of vast amounts of TV, irony, and care for others. The first two are considered the death knolls of creative writing. David Foster Wallace claimed Television destroyed a great many writers, many them lazy or overly ironic. Real, genuine emotion couldn’t be properly expressed anymore; it was as if our brains were rewired, unable to cope with human interaction.

                Steve deftly avoids this problem and turns it on its head. Using common phrases and transforming them into poetry shows the actual power language still and can have. A simple bold statement of 

“HA HA AMAZING WHAT SOME PEOPLE ACCOMPLISH”

in and of itself wouldn’t be anything interesting. It sounds a bit cliche in all honesty. Dispersing this with tender pieces like 

“I HOPE THAT WE GET TO STAY TOGETHER AND BE IN LOVE FOR A VERY VERY LONG TIME”

gives the reader some idea of the actual relationship these two people had with one another. It reminds me of looking through old Facebook pages, old wall to wall posts. You’d read all this leftover debris from the internet, of a relationship which might not be around anymore. Rather than focusing on the detrimental aspects of online relationships, he focuses on the positive. People tend to remember the bad after the end of a relationship. But that which is left in computers, in person to person messages, is generally positive. Looking back, you see all the good moments you had. It becomes so easy to remember the bad, what lead to the end of a relationship, that you forget the good. The internet serves as an unbiased storage bin of these odds and ends. Steve celebrates that, even the most mundane and seemingly innocuous details. 

                I’d strongly suggest reading the whole thing in one sitting. It isn’t very long so it really shouldn’t be a challenge. The language is simple and easy to understand. Why I suggest reading it in one sitting is to get the full impact. Each piece feeds and adds to the other pieces. Everything is connected, nothing is alone. What appear to be tossed-off statements is actually part of the whole, part of the conversation. The face value boring statement:

“FINAL DESTINATION 3 IS OUT ON DVD” 

gets followed by:

“I WANT TO PICK YOU DAISES AND KISS YOU WHEN I HAND THEM TO YOU”

                Alone, either statement might not have the same impact. The first could be seen as just something ironic or plain pointless. Having it coupled with the next bit allows both to have a greater feeling, a greater emotion. Personally, I felt the sparseness of his chapbook focused more on the former and less on the latter. Each piece in the chapbook felt alone, isolated. Here we have the opposite occurring, and Steve’s language is carefully chosen and placed to have a maximum impact. I consider his approach towards poetry to not be far removed from the Dadaists, who used similar techniques regarding cut-ups. By taking the items out of context, he’s able to reassemble it into something much more interesting. I guess now it is called Flarf poetry with him as one of the better Flarfists. 

                In case you’d like to read this, he offers it completely for free on his minimally designed website. Please go here for further information on how to download and distribute. His obsession with the internet and its capabilities (Google Bombing, Flarfing) now has begun to bear fruit.