Guest Blog: Annette Sugden reviews Rick Lupert's "The Gettysburg Undress"

When I was tasked with writing a review of Rick Lupert's latest book of poetry, The Gettysburg Undress, I was excited. Why? I thought it would be easy since Rick is one of my favorite poets, and a wonderful person who has done so much for the poetry community not just of Greater Los Angeles, but also worldwide with his Poetry Super Highway site, and phone in poetry open reading pod casts. Not to mention that he was the generous host of the long standing, but now sadly defunct open reading at the Cobalt Cafe, who made gorgeous broadsides for every featured reader.

Instead it's the opposite experience because how do I do justice to a writer I admire so much? Do I take off my clothes, but here in Phoenix, as I can't afford the plane ticket to Gettysburg? It is in the 90's here already. It could be refreshing. However, my thighs will stick to the chair, so I go hyper literal instead, and opt to write in pants, and a shirt.

It's a good thing I opted for clothes, since The Gettysburg Undress is an anthology of poetry about a family vacation that Rick Lupert took with his wife, Addie, and four year old son to Washington D.C., and other nearby historical sites in the Mid Atlantic states. Nudity just doesn't seem appropriate, even if there is a lot of potty type humor, and a few descriptions of actual bathrooms. In my defense there are a lot of body references, and one wish for nudity in Lupert's delightfully droll observational poetic voice.

Age Test with Rick Lupert

Do you feel your age?

asks one man. So I

take my hands and touch

different parts of my body,

pause to consider, then answer.

No, about ten years younger

which gives me an idea for a

new kind of Guess Your Age booth.

With section headings like "we arrive in Washington D.C. and do things which are documented on the following pages," brilliantly concise, laugh out loud pieces such as:

Children, Don’t Read This

I misread a sign that says Gusty Winds Area

as Guilty Winds Area and think

My God, who did they blow now?

        Lupert captures the associative absurdity of life as an adult, while flawlessly capturing the whimsical honesty of the inner smart ass child that never really dies in those of us who can keep from willingly jamming sticks up back door orifices.

Although most of the poems are short, and a few are only one line, there are longer pieces such as the fourteen stanza, At the Air and Space Museum, itself a microcosm of the experience of the reading of the rest of the book, with each verse a complete short poem in itself.

If you can't already tell, I love the book. Rick Lupert has such a distinct voice, and since I've seen and heard him read his work live, I could hear his voice in my head as I read. As a work of poetry, The Gettysburg Undress is highly successful, and as a piece of humorously honest travel writing, it far surpasses the popular prose author, Bill Bryson.

Somehow I turned very serious. I guess that can happen when one wears pants. Perhaps I should have at least gone braless. But now that this review is done, I can go disrobe. Although I do need to go to the library. Perhaps I should wait until later, so I don't get arrested.

The Gettysburg Undress, poems by Rick Lupert, copyright 2014, Rothco Press (http://www.rothcopress.com), ISBN-10: 1941519091, ISBN-13: 941519-09-7, 212 pages, $ 19.95

article content © 2015 annette sugden

poetic content © 2015 rick lupert

Walter Ruhlmann's "Crossing Puddles"

I’ve yet (and probably never will), write a book about my hometown; not the place of my birth, but where I spent my formative years, or those places which have had the greatest influence on me. Very few poets can do without opening the floodgates to melancholia, anger, and disappointment. These feelings are as much a part of ourselves as the earth we occupy, and we, as human beings, prefer to stay in control. Walter Ruhlmann’s newest collection Crossing Puddles (© 2015 Robocup Press), is a wonderful and highly pleasurable example of a poet who’s not afraid to explore this complicated transformation through a poetic medium.

Ruhlmann, an English teacher and publisher of mgv2, gives the reader an intense, parabolic travelogue with Crossing Puddles that begins in Normandy, then moves to Bresse (a region of eastern France that butts up against the Alps), and then into the asymmetrically precise and vast landscape of Ruhlmann’s consciousness. There’s loving (and not so loving), reminiscences in the first section titled “Normandy”, where Ruhlmann adroitly leads the reader through the labyrinth of his childhood and family memories. Nature darkly and deliciously haunts the early years of Ruhlmann’s incarnation on this earth, as in the poem “Another Bleak House”:

The orchard behind the house was even gloomier. Apple trees, pear trees,

quince trees, plum trees, thick grass and rhubarb, dahlias, daffodils,

gladiola, irises, and lilies. Peonies and chrysanthemums.

The fog often filled the garden, anti-Eden, anti-chamber of a past mixed

with industry, agriculture and trade. Trade mostly. Dirty money, stolen

goods, black market income, an inherited greed.

In the second section “Bresse,” Ruhlmann takes the reader through a series of defining crystallized moments, both quotidian (“Meat”), and sexual (“Jerking in the Bus”). This kind of subject matter is always in danger of becoming pedantic, and is anything but in the skillful hands of Ruhlmann’s poetry. Again, nature plays a predominant role in Ruhlmann’s work, and here, we glimpse a more robust and intriguing portrait of Ruhlmann the man, who, while reminiscing over an unforgettable and disturbing experience, finds his peace and pleasure in honest hard work, as in the poem, “The Crusty Dark”:

In the shed showing its inside

unscrupulously,

shamelessly,

I can see two saws -

a spotting that brings new thoughts:

soon these dry twigs and arms and boughs

will be cut off, dismantled, dismembered.

More wood to burn the fire next winter.

More blood will flood and whirl in my heart.

Winter has already started in Maore,

the island where I left my pride, my joy, and pieces of my mental health.

I hate to say this but bats are mad.

Other flying mammals - flying foxes - flowed high above,

wider, fluffy, somehow less disturbing than these fat dragonflies

who circle, twirl, swirl and whirl

chasing mosquitos, flies and gnats.

My late cat used to catch them from the balcony where I used to live.

I love to say this:

I love my worker’s hands

they dig soil and scratch and tear and plough.

Dark fingernails, large red scratches, abrasive palms.

The soreness cannot erase the pleasure throughout the day.

The last section, “Remote Places of the Mind,” reveals the open-ended resolution of where Ruhlmann’s traveled, along with the reader, into this present moment. Questions that were never answered regarding family (“Late Epiphanies”), love (“The Blue Tit’), and the identity (“Genesis Revisited,”), come to the fore in a disturbing and wonderful sequence of abstract poems. Who has Ruhlmann become? Or, more accurately, who is he becoming, as in the poem “I Wish It Would Snow for Christmas (Another Acrostic Poem from a Deranged Soul)”:

Sometimes life is so bitching you wonder why existence matters so much.

No trees, no garlands, no stupid baubles hung anywhere.

Other lands, dreamed and fancied, could give shelter to that deranged soul

of mine.

Why haven’t they sent me tickets to take that ghost train to hell?

Fallacy, false images, fake and fancy dressing for the forlorn.

Omens crash on that wrecked brain of mine,

restless, neurosis and neurasthenia, neuralgia won’t leave me in peace, just

bits and pieces that

clatter and eventually shatter.

Hummus will remain after the fall.

rotten skin,

inane limbs,

stained soil,

torn flesh,

meaningless,

awkward,

sick and sulfuric ashes blown away by the wind from the snowy eastern

border.

As an artist of any stripe, it remains a constant duty to one’s vocation to keep questioning, researching, and refining one’s identity. Ruhlmann’s Crossing Puddles pays homage to this courageous and ongoing process.

Crossing Puddles, Walter Ruhlmann, © 2015 Robocup Press, 73 pages, ISBN 978-1-32-098137-8, $11.99

poetry content © 2015 Walter Ruhlmann

article content © 2015 marie lecrivain

Zabrisky and Rogghe's GREEN LIONS

1. Is love an alchemical process?
2. Is it successful, and is it art?
3. Is poetic collaboration a good idea?

The answer to the first question is “yes.”

The answer to the second question are a bit more complicated. Love changes us, irrevocably, and most often times, not for the better, or that’s what the modern world would have us believe. The answers to the second question, at least, poetically speaking, are revealed in Green Lions (© 2014 Numina Press), a collaboration of love poems by Zarina Zabrisky and Simon Rogghe.

Green Lions employs the alchemical elements; water, fire, air, earth, and ether (or spirit), and the Major Arcana from the Tarot, to tell the story of two people who fall in love, where the process takes, and how it changes them. The voices of Zabrisky and Rogghe start off, predictably, as diverse as two people can be, with Zabrisky as the dominant voice, and Rogghe gentlemanly following in her wake. But as these two talented poets work their way into intimacy, and as the process of poetic courtship progresses, they enter into each other’s hearts and minds, and,the writing becomes much more unified in tone and language, as in the poem ‘Equestrian Seduction Duet” (This is Not a Poem About Horses)”:

I would like to know

how does it feel

on your fingertips

when you touch them

on the neck.

warm? soft?

scratchy?

do your fingertips tingle

with warmth afterwards?

would mine?

if you touch a brown horse

would your fingertips glow

with soft brown light?

Their skin is soft

Their neck is hard -

Running your fingers

Through a horse’s crest

Covers them with a sticky coat

You can roll in little clusters.

In the texture of reality.

The elbow grease of beauty,

The imprint of a friendship.

if you kiss a horse

between the eyes

do your lips feel salty?

To kiss a horse

Between the eyes

Is very much like

When you kiss a woman:

It may well turn its head

If it isn’t in the mood.

A horse kiss, rather,

is a gentle bite, a scratch.

But when your lips

Have grazed the surface

Of a horse’s face,

They know

A different kind of music:

I’ve kissed a horse

And tasted sweat

When riding in the desert;

One time

There was a pouring rain -

My lips seemed

To be stained with tears;

Another time

It was the dead of winter -

My mouth crackled

With the electricity

Of warm skin and dry air.

I want to know more.

tell me,

are horses

lonely creatures -

like people -

like islands -

like cities -

like lovers -

Sometimes a horse can’t eat

Because of mourning,

Just like we can’t

When we’re stressed out -

Maybe in love -

Do they

know how to be true friends?

Their conduct is impeccable:

Treat them right

And they will do the same.

Coupled with the simple, lyrical poems are Zabrisky’s lovely black and white illustrations, which nicely compliment the poetic discourse.

The answer to the third question is subjective in nature, but based on my personal experience, I’ve not read a collaborative work that came together so well as Green Lions, especially one that is so easy and profound to fall into, and is both unforgettable and entertaining.

Green Lions, © 2014 Zarina Zabrisky and Simon Rogghe, A Vox Nova Book, Published by Numina Press (www.numinapress.com), ISBN 978-0-9842600-6-5, 127 pages, $12.95

poetic content  © 2015 Zarina Zabrisky and Simon Rogghe

review content © 2015 marie lecrivain

Suzanne' Lummis' Open 24 Hours

A review by guest blogger, PeggyDobreer

     Open 24 Hours, winner of The 2013 Blue Lynx Poetry Prize is an extraordinary volume of poetry by one of LA's own; master teacher, poet, and cultural icon, Suzanne Lummis. This is a double sassy book of poetry that even so, teeters on the edge of historical fiction, and delivers a guised but sophisticated curriculum.

     A long time teacher for UCLA Extension and independent workshops, Lummis's #9 Broken Rules poems, as in Broken Rules #3, "No past tense permitted":

 "Or try this: package it,

Mark it Was. Leave it in a locker

At the Greyhound Bus station."

and pieces dedicated to various poetic devices as in “Sad Poem In Winter - With Assonance, Consonance and Other Occasional Effects,”

 "..like a dream

Of Hollywood. Meanwhile

The rain strikes swollen rags,

shopping carts, the essential smashed flat Styrofoam cup.

I want to burn like a saint,

but I can't, so I'll smoke

my last menthol down to the butt.",

are an education unto themselves and of benefit to writers. Lummis is always teaching, as in, “Broken Rules #5, How To Write the Love Poem”:

"Don't say My soul longs for you,

Say, In this life I am occasioning a body

That needs yours. And wants."

     She breaks it down to the easiest equation. Poet? Life coach? Solvable. Certainly, in print.

The poems in this book sizzle on the page like a neon sign in a neglected neighborhood after closing. Lummis' crisp, sometimes caustic voice, and quick wit put us on guard as though we are 'in danger' (the title of her earlier collection.)

     The characters reveal themselves in short visual clips, almost like the flickering of the aforementioned neon:

"His wife is this heart-shaped

metallic balloon that got loose

and bobbed up high over

the jammed intersection..."

     The poems compel us to continue, like a dark metal stairwell down which we can hear the sound of our own heels descending. They have no dreamy penthouse views, no highfalutin' family traditions.

     They are fire escape poems, rooftops that might house broods of doves, slews of unsavory situations, and characters standing on their own lean  shadows, falling prey without fanfare, not a shred of schmaltz. These poems are fearless jumpers without gear.

     If you love the seeded underbelly of the streets of L.A., spiffed up with the glamor and intrigue of Hollywood noir, you will love Lummis' sensibilities, and you will want to have her books. If you don't yet, get them for sure. Soon you will find yourself watching old Raymond Chandler movies and visiting unsung landmarks you had forgotten existed. The books will become your late night bedfellows.

     But don't be a wimp. Lummis won't hold your hand. And she won't give the plot away without an investigation. If you want to know who dunnit, you'll have to follow the clues, be careful not to trip over the casualties. 

Open 24 Hours, © 2014 Lynx House Press (http://lynxhousepress.org/books/open-24-hours), ISBN 9780899241388, 80 pgs, $16.95 (U.S)

review content and author photo © 2014 Peggy Dobreer

poetry content/book cover art © 2014 Suzanne Lummis and Lynx House Press

Review of In the Pink: Short Stories by A.D. Winans

Warning: This Review Contains MATURE Content!

Writing a review about a collection of short stories from another era is daunting, but in the case of A.D. Winans In the Pink: Short Stories by A.D. Winans ( © 2014 Pedestrian Press), it needs to be done for the simple reason that history repeats itself, and literature, especially the personal narrative, can provide us with a better perspective on how to navigate tumultuous times successfully, either the second (or third) time around.

In the Pink recalls the 60’s Sexual Revolution, specifically in North Bay area of San Francisco. This time in history, of course, has been documented ad nauseum in film, art, and books to the point of overkill.This can’t be said about In the Pink, which slowly and almost deliberately peels off the rose-colored glasses that were synonymous with “free love,” and “peace.”

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, which Winans’ deftly reminds us in his straightforward, dark prose. The dawn of the American Sexual Revolution spawned a seamier side rife with the following: fetish exploration - along with a creepy touch of magical realism - in “Night of the Living Dildo”;  the up/down sides of anonymous sex in“Notes from a Crazy”; and unrealised desires that come to the fore in a sexually charged environment, as in “The Masseuse.” Winan’s characters are three-dimensional people; they are your neighbors, they are your family, imbued with equal amounts of loneliness, compassion and depravity. Winan chronicles these vignettes in simple and graphic detail, as in the story “Hotel Entella,” a tale of two lost souls, an unemployed writer, and a lonely widow, who, out of a reluctant need for intimacy, culminate their strange partnership with the truth laid bare:

She unlocked the door to the house, and escorted me into the living room taking off her coat and hanging it in in a nearby closet. She motioned for me to take a seat on the couch. She paused at the fireplace, and pointing to a painting on the wall. She said it was a portrait of her former husband.

“He was a kind man,” she said. “But he wanted a child in the worst way.I’m barren you know. I sometimes think he died prematurely because of this. He liked oral sex, but I denied him that too.I was such a prude in those days. He looked a lot like you when he was younger.”

…

I got up from the sofa and let her lead me into the master bedroom, It was a graveyard, total darkness. My eyes strained to adjust to the pitch-blackness. Even the bed sheets were black satin. I could hear the rustling of her clothes falling to the floor, and quickly joined her naked on the bed.

Almost immediately she settled herself down between my legs, resting her face on my navel, her hot breath stirring my passion. She stopped just short of my groin.

“Beside you - on the bed - pick it up,” she said.

I reached over to the opposite side of the bed, and was startled to find a flesh-like object in my hand. It was a two-foot doll with child-like flesh.

“Please,” she said, take it in your arms and hold it.”

I felt awkward, even a little sick to my stomach, but felt I owed her this small favor. i picked up the doll and cradled it in my arms. She instantly went wild. Her teeth scraping against the head of my cock. moaning hungrily as she tried to work it deeper down her throat.

“Squeeze it,” she sobbed, “Squeeze it.”

I did as she told me. The sounds hit the wall like a Mack truck. “Ma-Ma.Ma-Ma.”

“Yes,” she said, “Yes.”

     In the Pink also contains an excellent mini-novella, “Straws of Sanity,” a cautionary tale that spells out the end of democracy and inter-personal relationships in the modern era. I would strongly encourage people to seek out and read In the Pink, if just for the last story. As I mentioned before, personal narrative, or, in this case, creative non-fiction, can serve as a valuable tool to avoid repeating history’s mistakes, like depersonalizing sexual intimacy, and treating people like commodities. It’s been 50 years since the official era of the 60’s began, a time of throwing off the barriers to embrace the possibility of a new world order - which is sort of like the times we live in now - and thankfully, we have good literature to help us guide the way.

In the Pink, Short Stories by A.D. Winans, © 2014, Pedestrian Press, http://www.thebicyclereview.net/ ) ISBN  978-1494754556, 156 pages, $10

artistic content © 2014 A.D. Winans

article content © 2014 marie lecrivain