Sunday, June 30, 2019

New Book! Steel Cut Moon by Peter Jastermsky



moonlit night
brave enough
to go it alone

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The poems in Steel Cut Moon have been published in the following journals: Failed Haiku, Hedgerow, Prune Juice, The Aurorean, Haiku Journal, Wild Plum, The Heron’s Nest, Haikuniverse, Under the Basho, Sonic Boom, Butterfly Dreams, Incense Dreams, The Zen Space, The Haiku Foundation



We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Friday, June 28, 2019

Brian Beatty On Sam Shepard

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Sam Shepard (1943-2017)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

Sam Shepard


My father somehow survived

three wives, a few car accidents,
an emotionally scarred horse,

a handful of dogs
that belonged on chains,

cigarettes, booze
bottles to the head and

the what-were-people-thinking?
cowboy boot scare of the 1970s

with no regrets or complaints.

– Brian Beatty


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Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Tobi Alfier - Take Good Care!


Next Monday is July first. “Oh no”, you think, Tobi’s gonna bug us to get our submissions ready for all the windows opening. She’ll remind us to turn the calendar, read the guidelines, reassure us that even if we don’t submit, we are still poets, and remind us to eavesdrop. She’ll remind us of her favorite quote from “Ron Carlson Writes a Story”…”get your butt in the chair”, and on, and on, and on. And that darned Oxford comma!!!

Au Contraire, my friends. You know me well but you don’t know everything. How can you be a good literary citizen if you don’t take care of yourself? How can you stop to watch the sky and write the most gorgeous line of description if you’re worrying about someone else who needs you?

Yes, many windows will be opening. They will not be closing on the second, there’s time. I don’t know what it is about writers, but it seems like either we all have something, or know someone who does. It’s not a competition, it just seems like a fact. If someone needs you, or you need to take care of yourself, the poetry will wait. The flash fiction will wait. The short stories will wait. And your submissions will be all the more sweet because you waited, and graciously helped someone who needed you. And that includes yourself.

I’ve talked before about Kaleidoscope, the Journal of UnitedDisability Services in Akron.  When you can, if you want, send your pieces there. You know I rarely write about my health, but that’s my choice. You may wish to, and beautiful work can come from that. Another place to submit is Pilgrimage. “The magazine is dedicated to exploring story, spirit, witness, and place in and beyond the American Southwest”. They are open for submission year round, so July first doesn’t even matter. 

click here to visit
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned “Mosquito”, the brilliant book by Alex Lemon. His poems lead up to and include his brain surgery.  I met Alex at the Tin House Writer’s Workshop one year. He was a participant; Tin House published him after that. He’s a great guy and a great writer. Bad things happen to all of us. You may not think I know that, but I do.

It’s pretty obvious that I do think about poetry 24/7, but I also think about when I can take my next pain pills, and whether I can go to physical therapy in my pajamas. And I do think about, and worry about, my friends and family too. I just don’t prefer to talk about it, or write about it. But I do know that words that don’t get written today will still hang around. You should know that too.

So yes, I am going to do submissions next Monday. I’m going to see what new vintage car is on our calendar, read all the guidelines, hope the journals that use Submittable remember to turn it on. I just saw on Facebook that Hobo Camp Review is going to open early. I’m going to read their guidelines and submit as soon as I can. 


The Train to Foligno               (deca-syllabic poem)

Tender green and peeling terra cotta
behind the ancient building sits our train
where cargo cars strewn like old pennies
visit with our shiny new Eurostar.
Battered and acrid, they wear their color
like tired-out ponies doing hard time.

Rail workers slip like ghosts through morning.
One ancient man blows the shrill start whistle
before heading home to a bottle of
Chianti in a flat decorated
with his mother's cat pictures and old chairs.
His hours are ended for one more day.

Gentle jostling rocks two old nuns to sleep,
a woman at the back drones to her friend
of love and adventure in the old days
on a dance floor in some oddly-named town.
The wheels squeak, the woman talks, the nuns snore.

Mist hangs between the hills in flat gray light.
Baby sheep stand still like pearl buttons
on the ragged sweater-like landscape of
miles of quiet between dark, dense cities
we arrive in Foligno, impatient...

The train doors open slowly, we are like
beggars, our hands opening to the rain.

Previously published in Hobo Camp Review


I won’t lie. I’ll remind you, and nudge you, and give you gentle kicks on the butt to write—sometimes maybe a little less gentle, but I’ll be the first person to do the Happy Dance when you get an acceptance. It’s okay for us to be good humans first, and good writers second. Believe it or not, that’s what I want to be too. Everyone has something—oh my God, Facebook was horrifying this past week, and I don’t mean politics, so do what you need to do first. Remember beauty and you can never go wrong, even if you need to wait a minute. xoxo

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.


Friday, June 21, 2019

Tobi Alfier - In the Old Days


I started in the Retirement Planning business over forty years ago, the week I turned twenty. It was my goal to give everyone in the world a good retirement, with enough savings to buy their own island, with a Starbucks and WiFi. Now that I’m not working, I still want everyone to have enough savings to buy their own island (or house in Joshua Tree), with a Starbucks and WiFi, AND bookshelves for all their books and contributor copies!!

Writing about work is a bit like writing a memoir. You either have to wait until everyone dies, disguise your writing, or, to quote Anne Lamott: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” While I agree with her a million percent, I also did NOT want to be part of the politics of work. The title of my second chapbook was “Hostage Negotiation in Negative-Land” It was not fun. It was not poetic. It wasn’t all about work. If you’re a coward like I am, disguise it (and don’t print it here. Print another poem)!!

            A Passion for Citrus

Sixty-seven years ago
Dave married into this citrus family.
Just he, his new brother,
a two-man trailer in a dirt clearing
and an old percolator from the house
still kept immaculate by his wife.

Plaid was meant for mornings like this—
hand-knit gloves pull a thermometer
close to his eyes
that blink with decision
about smudge pots—

Dave loves to pick an early-morning fruit,
the sound as it snaps off the branch
and the leaves brush around the wound.
He peels, watches the spray refract
prisms in the rising sun,
the scent of grapefruit full in his chest,
fingers ridged with oils.

How many more frosted winters
will chronicle this family’s heritage?
They are tired: 87, 85, no insurance,
all their kids through school—
the youngest manages everyone’s money,
says they’ve all done well enough.
He presses the fruit to his lips.
Maybe it’s time.

(previously published in The Galway Review)

I loved my clients. I loved my advisors, and I loved my work. The people who should have behaved better? They’re not worth writing about.

When I was working, I used to write a “Story of the Month” for a few years. It was focused on Advisors, and how they could add value to their clients. I loved writing it. I loved the visibility it gave our firm, and the help I was able to give. Kind of like being a “good literary citizen of the retirement plan world”. 

I have a writer friend who makes jewelry and markets her jewelry and collectables. She rarely posts anything on her social media pages but she hired an IT person to build her a website. Anyone know what a “mitzvah” is? According to Wikipedia, “the term mitzvah has also come to express an individual act of human kindness.” This IT person was practically paralyzed by anything involving human contact. By helping my friend with her website, he became so excited about the best ways to show her work, price her work and write about it (even though she’s a writer), he became a new person. I don’t think he even knows it. I felt the same way about my monthly stories.

from joannahennon.com
As writers, at some point you are going to have to do some marketing of yourselves. It may be accepting feature readings and bringing books with you to sell. It may be posting your book cover on social media. Whatever is comfortable for you. Maybe whatever is a little uncomfortable as well. I heard a rumor there will be a ton of local Joshua Tree happenings between now and the end of the year. You may be asked to help. You may volunteer to help. Every single thing you do brings visibility to yourself. And it will be a mitzvah to someone else (in this sense it is NOT a religious term, it is a kind, human term).

I loved most of the old days, but I love the new days as well. Be thinking about kindnesses you can do for yourself. Don’t be the person who should have behaved better. And you don’t have to buy an island. Just take good care. I’ll miss you otherwise.

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.


New Book! Now Voyager by Cynthia Anderson & Susan Abbott

Buy Now ($10.00)

     Now Voyager takes readers on an intergalactic journey through the evocative poetry of Cynthia Anderson and the vibrant watercolors of Susan Abbott—from Planet Earth to the edge of the solar system, from the otherworldly environs of Joshua Tree to the dream world, from black holes to myths old and new. It’s a pilgrimage of exploration and reinvention, of beauty and mystery. Inspired by Walt Whitman’s exhortation—“Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find’’—this volume shows how a journey to the stars can be a journey to the center of your own heart.






We encourage our neighbors to buy Cholla Needles books at Rainbow Stew, Space Cowboy, and Raven's Books. Support our local distributors!

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Brian Beatty On Frank Stanford

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Frank Stanford (1948-1978)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

Frank Stanford

The crook of the moon
silhouettes the owl
in the tree though not
the snake curled below.

The lukewarm tea
he sips at the barn door
tastes mysteriously

like homemade whiskey.
He chokes down the night

then coughs up God.

– Brian Beatty


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Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Tobi Alfier - Let's Talk About Father's Day. . .


I am a terrible daughter. My mom and dad came over last weekend to see their grandson. We ordered pizza and I paid for it. That was my Father’s Day present to my dad. And a poem. I don’t expect that everyone has or had the relationship with their dad or kids that I have, but my dad is great! He knows my mobility sucks, so it’s not like he was expecting something from the mall or anything. This man drove me all over the San Fernando Valley a hundred years ago to look at potter’s wheels, which we found. I don’t know why we didn’t buy one. I guess I gave up on making pots at the Whole Earth Marketplace while we were driving around. Don’t even ask me about the Karmann Ghia! My parents. Bless them both.  Whatever your relationship, however you spend your day, I hope the weather is beautiful, you wear sunblock, and you pay for the pizza.

What a Daughter Knows                   

There’s a reason for memory.
Daughter and father side by side
at the bathroom sink shaving,
she with a key from a sardine can
and lots of lather, daughter
and father side by side in the yard,
trimming the hedges with
nail scissors and shears,

daughter as she kisses father
goodbye, takes the hand
of a boy not good enough for her.

Plaid shorts and playing at the shore—
he will take out her splinters,
get her ears pierced,
buy her diamond earrings,
and kiss her as he holds his new grandson.
He will cry at her sorrows,
and laugh at her pleasures.
A daughter knows.
A daughter knows.

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.


Saturday, June 8, 2019

Poetry Reading! June 9th 5-7 PM


We are partying over the release of the 30th issue of Cholla Needles!

buy for $5
On June 9, from 5-7 PM at Space Cowboy Books, George Howell and Shoichi will be our featured readers. They each have a brand new book out out worth coming to hear from. We are also celebrating the arrival of issue 30!!! Any member of the community who wishes to be part of this celebration is encouraged to bring a poem to share! We celebrate our love of poetry of all kinds as a community! See you at Space Cowboy Books. We all look forward to hearing your work!

Click to buy $6

Click to buy $5

Brian Beatty On Kenneth Koch

Borrowed Trouble: Micro Tribute to Kenneth Koch (1925-2002)

I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. – Brian Beatty

Kenneth Koch

A mail order beret?
What was I thinking?

It shipped from Paris,
sure. Paris, Illinois.

I suppose you don’t
know where that is.

Look it up in an atlas.
They used to be given

away at gas stations.

– Brian Beatty


click to buy this book


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Brian's most recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana. Don't miss Brian's columns on the great poets: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.

Book Review: California Continuum

California Continuum: Volume One: Migrations and Amalgamations by Grant Hier and John Brantingham, Pelekinesis, 2019, $20.00, 250 pages.

Click here to buy online
California Continuum takes readers on a non-linear journey through 13,000 years of California history. Authors Grant Hier and John Brantingham use flash fiction and short stories to distill the history of the Golden State to its essential elements.

Each story is astute, compelling, and engaging. One moment you’re with Juan, who works two jobs back-to-back to support his own family plus family members left behind in Mexico. The next, you’re with Ed, a Buffalo Soldier in the Indian Wars—“This world was never made with the idea of Ed in it. There is no place for Ed in a world where they cut down giant trees.” And the next moment, you’re with a woman by the sea honoring the sand—“How she loves her family, her clan. Like a nest floating on the sea.” 

There are Vietnamese refugees, Zoot Suit Riots, residents of Japanese internment camps, convicts leaving prison, and repo men. There are the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles and the First Baptist Church Choir trading show tunes and gospel songs. There are the survivors and victims of California wildfires. There’s a young woman with hopes for a new life who ends up working as a prostitute, and another woman who rides the train away from an abusive husband. There are family secrets, and more.

I was impressed repeatedly by the details of people’s thoughts and actions. This put me into their stories instead of being an observer. Also, the stories humanized each situation and its impact on nature or politics. California is a land of indigenous peoples, migrants, settlers, and priests. These stories are gateways to understanding cultures and generations, past and present.

In “Disheveled,” Kate and Kevin deal with the aftermath of a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. “It looks like a bomb went off,” Kate says when she first sees the damage to the library where they work. Kevin puts out a call for help, and volunteers arrive to reshelf books. Their friend Peter observes how the books represent people from every nation on earth, and how their stories are continuously taken in, one book at a time, one line at a time, becoming part of the rest of us.

Readers can draw their own conclusions about the land and their own connections with the human condition, ranging from cruelty, sorrow, and justice to vision and hope. Whatever the emotional temperature, Hier and Brantingham capture the uniqueness of this place called California.

Click here to purchase California Continuum online.


Review By Cindy Rinne
Cindy Rinne creates art and writes in San Bernardino, CA. She brings myth to life in contemporary context. She is the author and artist behind Moon Of Many Petals from Cholla Needles (2018)

Book Review: Gilded Snow: The Poems of Raissa Parnok

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Edited with commentary by David Chorlton

As a genre, feline poetry is generally both overlooked and underrated by humans. How many four-legged poets among us have suffered the indignity of being ignored? How many of their contributions to our planet’s poetic soul have been lost? We’ll never possess the answer to these grave questions—but, fortunately, some atonement is now available in this slim volume.

Gilded Snow: The Poems of Raissa Parnok purports to be this snow-white kitty’s complete oeuvre. Through the astute commentary of David Chorlton, we learn what there is to be known about her life and times, as well as her influences and interpretations of her enigmatic work.

Like sensitive souls of every species, Raissa’s turn towards poetry may have had its roots in trauma: a 13-day disappearance that remains shrouded in mystery. Over a year later, she turned to writing—Chorlton observes, “we must conclude that she channels her innermost feelings only into this small but intense output.”

With access to a computer keyboard upon which her paws could roam freely, Raissa began her poetic career with this haiku-like foray:

=- 32wwwwwwwww

Chorlton writes, “Significant here is the use of punctuation at the beginning of the line to point forward…Numerology adds to the mystery. The poet has chosen not to speak on this in public.”

She proceeds to let her imagination run wild, as in this elegant example which “shows Raissa at her best and most contemporary”:

/.
cv       .c
]

xdc

Yet the poet did not restrict herself to brief forms. She also experimented with Whitman-esque long forms before returning to word-play seemingly influenced by Robert Creeley or Gertrude Stein. In a section titled “Poetry at the Watershed of Meaning,” we find:

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\


Chorlton offers, “The speechless quality of this work is beyond dispute. We face a barrier across a border, indicating that New World Order or not, we still live with boundaries of physical and spiritual dimensions and only the international language that has no alphabet is adequate to communicate across them.”
As a bonus, there are many photos of Raissa among these pages—including a rare poster from her reading at the Cool Cats Book Shoppe in Phoenix—plus watercolors of Raissa by Chorlton. There is also a sample poem from a kitty named Cleveland, one of Raissa’s followers who carried on her legacy of C=A=T poetry.

Perhaps more than most human poets, Raissa understood that “each work is a new beginning.” Her creative output and Chorlton’s wry interludes make for an enjoyable read.



About the Commentator/Editor:
David Chorlton came to Phoenix from Europe in 1978 with his wife Roberta, an Arizona native. He quickly became comfortable with the climate while adjusting to the New World took longer. Writing and reading poetry have helped in that respect, as has exposure to the American small presses. He and Roberta have shared their living space with many cats over the years, each one distinguished in his or her own way while Raissa stands out for her cultural leanings.

Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird (Hoot 'n Waddle, 2018)
Bird on a Wire (Presa Press, 2017)
A Field Guide to Fire (FutureCycle Press, 2015)
Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2014)
The Devil's Sonata (FutureCycle Press, 2012)

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About the Reviewer:

Tobi Alfier - Preheat Oven to 350…


I don’t know about you, but I am tired this week! Not tired of writing this blog, not tired of writing at all, just T-I-R-E-D!!!

A great thing happened this week though – our son Owen is home from college for about a month. And he loves to cook. Instead of thinking about the one very bad poem I’ve written, and whether it can be saved, I’ve been thinking about what he made for dinner last night and how delicious it was.

You know baking is like writing a poem in form. You have to be a chemist when measuring accurately, just as you have to stay true to a form (someday I’ll tell you about the time I used a half POUND of butter when making cookies, instead of a half CUP). Cooking however…Owen isn’t just the free verse of cooking, he’s the thesaurus! He couldn’t find lemons at the store so he got a blood orange instead. I would never think of that, and I cannot WAIT till lunch because I know we have leftovers.

Kate Braverman
Many years ago, a fiction-writing friend of mine and I took a weekend extension class taught by Kate Braverman. We had previously seen her on a panel at the LA Times Festival of Books. One of the cool things she talked about was writing poetry like a recipe. Start the title “How to” and then be as literal as you want.

You can “list” all the ingredients in the beginning lines of the poem and then explain how they all fit together in subsequent stanzas, or do anything you want. I really liked the idea, and the “permission” to do something different. Between Owen and Kate Braverman, I have a cookbook full of things to try.

How to Travel Forever

Have conversations with people you see
and those you imagine.  Position yourself
so the light bounces off the man’s glasses
and opens worlds back to you.  Wear clothes
that make everyone you pass shadow you,
hours later they’re still whispering about them.
When you appear in a dream you have tallied
the signposts, traveled far.  Eat cinnamon,
it will ooze from your skin like cookies.
Worry the Metro ticket in your palm.  In
your pocket.  Remember how you came up
the steps into the light, stood at a bar
and had coffee, the branches outside
stirring a soft orchestration upon your face.
Listen to old music, touch his hand.
The sum of you greater than each of you
unmatched, expand into the sky.

            (formerly published in Bacopa)

I only have about five “recipe poems”. I like them all. They’ve all been published. I forgot I had this arrow in my quiver until I started thinking about last night’s dinner. Thank you Owen.

It is good to have something to fall back on when you’re kind of “stuck”. I started writing my “Landlady” poems on purpose. I wanted to write a series on landladies. If that hadn’t been a conscious effort, whenever I had nothing to write, I could have written a landlady poem. If you have a copy of my book “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies”, you’ll see the entire series of landlady poems, all in the same place.

One subject I write about often is “The Man”. He’s not always the same person. Sometimes he’s a real person, sometimes not. They’re fun to write because since he’s made up, I can give him all sorts of characteristics. He can be anything. He can do anything.

“The Man” turns up from book to book. Because he’s not a series per se, I write him whenever I feel like it. Lately I’ve been writing poems about “The Blind Woman”. I love the idea of her reading her lover’s face with her fingertips, or remembering a color. Again, she is not a series, not like the landladies or the twenty-one page Slices of Alice. She is a person I write about sometimes. And she will follow me from book to book as well.

Think about your body of work. Does every single poem stand alone? Do you ever wish you had written it differently? Or added more to it? What about writing a “Part Two” of that poem? And then a “Part Three”? Before you know it, you will either have a series that you can publish all together, or a subject you can write about when you feel like it.

Like the idea of the “recipes”, anything you have in your arsenal, that will give you something to write about when nothing new is coming, is a good thing. Anything that “gives you permission” to touch back on work you love, to make new work you love, is also a good thing.

Give yourself permission. Now go write!!

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Tobi Alfier's most recent collection of poetry is Slices Of Alice. She is also co-editor with Jeff Alfier of the San Pedro River Review. Don't miss Tobi's columns on the craft of poetry: insert your email address in the "Follow By Email" box to the right of this article and you'll be notified every time a new article appears.


Monday, June 3, 2019

Review - Mitch Grabois - The Arrest of Mr. Kissy Face.

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Book Review:
The Arrest of Mr. Kissy Face by Mitchell Grabois

Do the poems in most contemporary literary journals give you a headache? Are you tired of not knowing what the heck they are talking about? Then The Arrest of Mr. Kissy Face might be for you. Mitchell Grabois grabs his readers by the short hairs—his poetry is described by Robin Ouzman Hislop of Poetry Life & Times as “lucidly readable…delivered in a paced, snappy, even raunchy style, a mix of compassion with often hilarious black humor.”

Think Charles Bukowski meets Charles Bukowski. All kinds of stories make their way into these pages—stories about women, family, neighbors, random encounters, women—did I say women? As in the title poem:

     I kissed the woman who slices lunch meat
     at King Sooper’s
     She shoved smoked turkey at me
     leaned away
     and called: Next!

     I kissed my doctor
     I’d been wanting to do it
     since she first told me to stick out my tongue
     and complimented me on its smoothness
     and the elegance of my taste buds
     I kissed her and she asked
     On a scale of one to ten, how have you been feeling this week?
     I kissed her again

For me, Grabois is at his best when he lets his imagination run wild—which is often. In “One Universe Too Many” he writes:

     The alternative universe
     in which you’re not a colossal disappointment,
     where is it?
     It rode the Diphtheria Nebula
     slid into the Oppenheimer Black Hole and hid there,
     rested in perfect silence
     before disappearing

He doesn’t shy away from the big questions:

     What if my grandfather had not stopped in the Bronx
     and become a presser in the garment industry?
     What if he had continued west
     to become a bronc buster in Colorado?

Grabois covers a lot of ground—from an Animal Control Specialist who picks up the corpses of birds at a wind farm, to having car trouble at Walden Pond and getting help from a nun, to hiding overnight inside the Van Gogh museum in Arles and sleeping in the artist’s bed, to becoming a Dumpster diver at the behest of a landlady who drives a pink Cadillac.

One of my favorites is “The Moment Gone,” where he recounts a childhood memory of wandering off when he was two years old and sitting beside a swimming pool:

     A huge mass of possibilities began to coalesce
     and I felt certainty begin its approach
     an unprecedented feeling
     No one had yet asked me what I was going to be
     when I grew up
     a silly question for a two-year-old
     but I had a sense of the future looming…

     I sat patiently waiting for the answer…

     Then my mother
     whose approach I had not heard
     grabbed my arm
     and pulled me to my feet
     She knelt and hugged me fiercely

     You could have drowned, she cried
     You could have drowned

Pski’s Porch Publishing prides itself on promoting passionate, weird, unfashionable poetry, and The Arrest of Mr. Kissy Face is a prime example—far, far away from the MFA poetry mill, and a breath of fresh air.

About the Poet:
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over 1,500 of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction.


About the Reviewer: www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com