I’m aware of the new reply, differences between early and later starts to the day.  A greater sense of rousing—ducks tucked into little patterns, distant flock of urban matters.  I am here and alone, sharing.  The hawk doesn’t come around.  The hummingbird pipped as if a punctured balloon, zipping away.  Property as it belongs.  We look in on more private things than we know.  With a Palomino I am let into any field.  Each willow lisps the morning over and after noon we calibrate a point of view, to rows a farm knows.  I was gentle with hate.  I am sorry for belittling the things around me in youth.  Sun collects in canoes.  The canoe as object, the sun helps to make our move in the object the image all along.  That what we trust ourselves in while moving, the Palomino, the boat, the bog, becomes the completion of the image and after being looked at.  Still things remain.  Often the path is ordinary but disordered.  My looking turned into a hand demanding.

Ever been on a road trip with a bad driver? With somebody that has no sense of direction? How about with someone that’s got a really annoying voice? Or with somebody who rambles on and on without making any sense? It sucks. Unfortunately, and for many of the same reasons, so do a lot of poems. Lucky for us, this installment from Tyler Dorholt’s “Have the Hands Ask it Back” does not suck.

As every road warrior knows, the relationship between driver and passenger makes or breaks the trip; it frames the window through which we watch the scenery whiz by. From the poem’s start, we don’t know where we’re headed, but we do know the guy behind the wheel is someone we can trust. The first sentence proves he can handle a complicated grammatical structure. The second says grammar will not constrain him. Throughout the poem, Dorholt makes sharp turns (“ducks tucked into little patterns, distant flock of urban matters. I am here and alone, sharing”) on a road that bends on linguistic, intellectual, and emotional associations.

These turns are what keep us simultaneously on the edge of our seats and securely buckled. He moves from “flock” to “alone” to “hawk” to “hummingbird” to the sound of “a punctured balloon, zipping away” to a sharp, wise assertion that impermanence is characteristic of anything of which we claim ownership. For Dorholt, words are gateways to discovery: “With a Palomino I am let into any field.” The result is a poem capable of moving freely from a tender, vague confession about the past (“I am sorry for belittling the things of my youth”) to a sharp awareness of the present (“sun collects in canoes”).

Among other things, this piece gushes with the benefits of liberating oneself to the process of development. At the same time, though its author says “the Palomino, the boat, the bog” carry us forward, he recognizes they remain after we’ve gone. Like most of us, as the final sentence indicates, this speaker expects something from the people or things he devotes his attention to. It is worth noting, however, that the speaker’s realization of this fact is where this section hits its only roadblock. The first twelve lines teach us that if we’ve gotten from Ohio to Illinois, thank Indiana. The thirteenth causes us to question our motives. It coaxes us like an Indiana tourism advertisement—Come back, stay awhile, there’s a lot to see here.

- The Editors

Joe drives the ’62 Buick through the pleasant little town
You remark that if you had a bicycle you could explore the town
Two four-door cars pull in behind you as you leave town
They follow you to a roadblock and box you in
They test Joe for alcohol and search for contraband
The policeman complains that you have too much trash
You ask him if there is a trash can to dispose of it
He gets one you thank him for helping to clean the car

“Cleaning the Buick” is like one of Frank Stella’s Black Paintings, in which patterns of thick black lines are painted just thick enough that the white of the canvas shows through in thin, wispy lines. Underneath and between his broad minimalist strokes, Stella reveals a truth about much of painting: it relies on a canvas. On a similar note, Blazek’s language—phrases like “pleasant little town” and the ordinariness of the policeman’s complaint “that you have too much trash”—is broad enough to easily establish a narrative pattern in the poem but empty enough of meaning that the language kind of hovers here ambiguously.

Despite the poem’s clear narrative, nothing important happens in “Cleaning the Buick.” Two guys driving through a town get pulled over, and after a police officer finds nothing wrong, he helps them clean their car. The threat of conflict is there (particularly when the police “box [them] in” at a road block and “search for contraband”), but the threat never develops into any real danger. For a moment it seems Larry Blazek is just having fun giving us the ol’ switcheroo, leading us down one path only to let us know later we are on another. This kind of explanation might hold up if the police officer transformed into an alien and ate the speaker’s head. He doesn’t. Instead we are left with a subtle let-down, one that feels genuine because it is so mundane.

For one, the language of this poem is particularly plain. Details about the cars being four-doored or from 1962 are so specific that they lend clinical aspect to the speaker’s already flat manner of speech. Additionally, the poem is absent any enjambment. Almost every line is its own complete thought and its own complete sentence. Only the final line, “He gets one you thank him for helping clean the car,” deviates from this formula, and even in this run-on sentence the literal action of the poem remains clear. “Cleaning the Buick” feels appropriately cleaned of any of the floridity we often expect from poetry. It is the opposite of baroque. It is, in some refreshing ways, the opposite of intellectual. Blazek has removed any possibility of an undercurrent—he has removed the rubbish and left only what’s useful in moving on down the road.

- The Editors

levelheaded: The ABC’s of Loss

The magic behind this tale of horror lies in the poetics beneath its shocking facts. First to emerge, the poetics of a haunted self. “I am,” the speaker insists: “an animal forgetting / itself in parts,” “the more lonely of [a museum’s] curators,” and “nobody because of / the silences.” Second, a myriad of descriptions come together to create the speaker’s personality: entrapment (“playing in my inner deportation center”), humiliation (“four-fifths gone, one-fifth / wanting my glasses back”), despair (“I don’t see faces as anything / real or beautiful”), and finally the surviving self (“obsessed with dictionaries, with verbs and history / with killing seeds, with archetypes, with thresholds, with strength / and purity, with accents”).

Independent glances at sections A, D, and J show each could have been a separate poem. Each presents enough of the story to stand on its own, ending somewhat abruptly in mid-thought and leaving room for diverse, often contradictory responses. Why the alphabetized stanzas and the “ABC’s” of the title? Well, the alphabet may reflect the speaker’s need to impose a structure upon his story. Yet the story isn’t linear, and the ordered alphabet doesn’t last—maybe because the poet wants to display the cracked foundation of the traumatized self, maybe because the speaker needs to get to Z faster and stay there longer (there are two Z stanzas). In Z, especially the first one, somehow we find hope and closure. But closure seems too easy a way out, and instead we end up as the second Z does—in jail.

While a great deal of poetry in the last century seems to rely on the credo of “less is more,” Schwartz’s poem reminds us that sometimes more is more. This poem shows us that the weight of a poetic metaphor can grow when the metaphor is confronted again and again, each time with a slight variation. Rather than punch-lines and sharp minimalism, “The ABC’s of Loss” displays what some readers and writers still fight for: patience and profundity, a slower and deeper search.

-The Editors

A.

I’m losing my accent, an animal forgetting

itself in parts; two-thirds arms, three-quarter legs, my body

a memory of three meals and lots of books

I sit in my hardest chair, playing in my inner deportation center

wrestling to see what I’ll have to abandon tonight, testing the

next story against the others, they say

all losses are imagined, but I’ve stepped out of my-

self so many times there’s a grudge in that doorway

a blockade of flies taking away

from the meat of

what we’ve meant

B.

at fifteen, I give up the word gravity and float around for days

I disturb nothing in our rented house, I consider us a museum

in that we always have something to come back to

I’m only the more lonely of its curators, my father bangs me

against the walls like a cheap prostitute, I blacked out after the first time

I failed science

I woke four-fifths gone, one-fifth

wanting my glasses back

C.

at sixteen, I am a piñata for almost everything, the world shakes even

as the grandparents visit us in jersey, an ant colony under a blurry microscope

but they are getting the sense dad doesn’t leave the house

most days he lays in the backyard, a weird dinosaur

on a plastic lounge chair trying to change psychiatry

and the english language, other

days he takes it out on us, he obsesses over my education

until I don’t want to know anything which is good

because another word for this is humility

D.

anyone who has begged too hard for too long is of a slightly different species

I built spaceships to breath in my bedroom, borrowed oxygen from the television

trying to wait out that silver storm, I left

large parts of my heart in the furniture

I signed cards to my dark side, open-ended, to whom it may concern

because I wasn’t sure who was there

we all get caught playing nobody

but some of us stay that way, I’m nobody because of

the silences I’ve accepted

E.

random mortar took over, afternoons of cartoons floated in from the vents

a little less real every day, I lost the word sad in my piggy bank

but I could taste it, mom cooked rice to hide our sins

we ate meals tinged with a violence none of us could explain

I predicted victims like a weatherman, my mother and brother

switched chairs as I chose another bruise

in a blacker purple, this might be the difference

between you and me, I don’t see faces as anything

real or beautiful

F.

at twelve, I write lyrics for my dog, he jumps out of our chevy

and a few days later the bird dies, I stuff my shirt with newspaper

and sleep in the breezeway

years later I’ll pee in jars because I’m too scared to see anyone

my mother lines up twenty white pills because dad fucked the asian baby-

sitter back in new york, she starts melting so

I call 911 and while I wait for the ambulance

turn into a very old man with no body: nobody

I understand the concept of a corpse

J.

variations of sleep, we’ve woke as worse

my brother and I are entirely different pets, he, my father’s, stabs hamsters

and molested our cat missy, while I, my mother’s

want to be alone in an almost supernatural way

my guess is none of my teachers wanted to face the black hole

I play dead in, one birthday

J. drops acid and has a grand mal seizure

spends the next three years at the four winds mental institution

I visit twice, most of him is

missing but he doesn’t ask for anything

I can see how seriously he takes his escape

it’s in me too

M.

my father was a moderately famous psychiatrist once upon a time

he understood the principles of what could break and what could heal a man

and so he became my judge and executioner

passing out white candy for my better performances

and crushing me when I stuttered, he molded me into a camel

and no the ocean in my hump is

in no danger of bursting, there’s an erotic side to every beating

so I know my father well enough to know he understands it will take

years for us to get human again

S.

surrender took us to quiet places when dad started hitting harder

he found us there too, repeatedly, as the room became a submarine

I once put up a white flag

and hit his arm in the car hoping we’d crash and you and mom

could live some soft new life somewhere far from that suburbia

from the invisible graveyard

growing in our basement, I

wanted that life for you two

that badly

Z.

my brother, my mother, my father and me

we took vacations in each other, played our nightmare roles for academy awards

I was the star, my mother the audience, my brother

the supporting cast, my father, the director and producer, screamed action

and we all survived in place, playing dead loudly, pretending in and out of

ourselves like animals

years later I’m obsessed with dictionaries, with verbs and history

with killing seeds, with archetypes, with thresholds, with strength

and purity, with accents

Z.

my mother stood between some shots, side-stepped others

my brother had seven pairs of blue corduroys and seven blue T-shirts

because my father was in charge of school supplies

he joked it was his victim uniform, I dressed beautifully because

part of me was still a woman for dad, rumor has it last halloween

a kid was killed by the police

years later I openly shoplift for the rush of getting caught

the handcuffs, the cell, the call to my parents, I’m flirting with

being someone else’s prisoner

Refresher: “schwa (noun, phonetics), the mid-central, neutral vowel sound typically occurring in unstressed syllables in English, however spelled, as the sound of a in alone and sofa, e in system, i in easily, o in gallop, u in circus” (dictionary.com). Given that the organizing principle of “S is for Schwa” is a toneless, common sound, the poet challenges us to employ a major shift in the way we think about the words that follow.

As the building blocks of literacy, letters of the alphabet are typically associated with objects—apple, ball, cat—not the intangible. Craig Foltz’ title throws our foundation off-kilter. The speaker’s new alphabet necessitates new words and ideas, even if they appear familiar superficially. His updated world is in a state of neutral-as-schwa upheaval. In this alternate place, “[t]here’s no need to plan.” A quiet chaos reigns, that of the “girl’s eyes” which “twirl in their / sockets,” that of the absence of “proper identification papers.” Our speaker sees human attempts at control as futile.

Furthering the otherworldliness are the motifs of down and gravity. At the opening of the poem, having “the texture of / down, gravity becomes an apparatus for splitting words.” Gravity can feel like soft growth of hair or feathers, and/or like a direction, possibilities that completely disrupt our perception of that reliable force. Later, the speaker asks, “What is one to do, the reader craves the surface / of the moon, not downward angles & planes of simulation.” On the moon (yet another locale, literally out of this planet), the significantly weaker pull would not split words as insidiously as they are dismembered for the speaker and those populating his world.

Acoustics surface explicitly with “There is the sound & then there is the representation / of the sound”; in the final lines, phonetics are referenced with the anxious “Will we still destroy everything to avoid / phonetic transcription? It’s the same whether it’s the same or not.” Seems that “it’s” (As in, reality is? Which reality?) bland as a schwa—the same sound no matter the written letter.

- The Editors

There’s no need to plan for another pile of cars on the

freeway. If there is blood & bone then there is karma.

Delirious moments, arrive together! Having the texture of

down, gravity becomes an apparatus for splitting words

& redistributing them as multiple choice tests. Check

dialogue box & determine whether the beard remains

awake. Like two rotating orbs, the girl’s eyes twirl in their

sockets & avoid the light of day. Once she arrives the whole

world gathers inward momentum. Inward momentum,

is the simple gesture of two lips recurring in a paired

unit. There is the sound & then there is the representation

of the sound. March violence. Without proper identification

papers how can we mimic the peculiar fulcrum of the

beehive? What is one to do, the reader craves the surface

of the moon, not downward angles & planes of simulation.

I dunno. Where it starts is where it ends. Entwined with

soft lashes & battened by howling winds. No wonder

forecasters place their faith in the songs of the thrush

family. No wonder a sherpa agrees to deliver us to this

furtive canyon. As for the girl, she pokes through the

lid of conscious perception to reveal the appellative nature

of image & desire. Mercy, here comes the mullet now. If not

for the apotheosis of nickel acetate would we still cling to the

water underneath this bridge? What happens when the spiral

shaped tube on which we view the ritual of our death is not

in the shape of a spiral? Will we still destroy everything to avoid

phonetic transcription? It’s the same whether it’s the same or not.

The “Weaned” of Jay Snodgrass’s title could refer to the speaker’s act of ditching facial hair, or his having been made accustomed to facial hair since childhood. Either way, the author’s decision to go from scruff to buff marks two notably different periods in his life. 

From the beginning, “Beard Weaned” is a dance between recollection and discovery: “Many years ago / I unsubscribed to facial hair.” The stock phrase that is the first line meets the surprising yet removed word “unsubscribed” in line two. The remainder of the stanza works similarly. We’re lulled to sleep in line three before the unexpected ugliness of the common word “protruding” shakes us back awake in line four. As a result, we never get complacent; we read on with interest.   

The speaker may surprise us, but as line four evidences, he underwhelms himself. This defeated, matter-of-fact tone allows Snodgrass to get away with what might otherwise be a cumbersome metaphor to sustain for twenty-five lines. 

Among other things, the beard of this poem is a net—a trapping for the little details that make up a person’s identity (“what my father looked like”; “my creepy uncle who covered a large mole”; “pizza grease and kisses”). He recalls who he was and in the process discovers—underwhelming himself even more—who he is. 

So who is he? Well, he’s a guy who has lost the ability to gather and measure the bits and pieces of experience that constitute a life. Sort of. As the lack of punctuation, the final line, and the whole piece’s spontaneous shape suggest, when one thing is gone, the next thing is already unfurling. 

- The Editors

Many years ago

I unsubscribed to facial hair

and found my lips

protruding from my face

the relation to my inner life was not found there

I had a thick presence

then, you could find me at mercy anonymous

or simply aroused

I felt my chin under the hair

took to yanking my beard back along the face line

trying to remember what my father looked like

or my creepy uncle who covered a large mole

with his beard

the beard is face default

not a season of crops

but ground swollen with ice

tromp, swill and sweaty summer

scratching

sometimes I’d braid my beard

or eel out my tongue from its face nest

pizza grease and kisses

now nothing

just acres of flesh mounding

upon itself

some black seeds unfurling