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Just Beautiful by Tim Suermondt

Just Beautiful

by Tim Suermondt

NYQ Books

New York, NY

Softbound, 105 pages, $14.95

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

Bittersweet humor should be kept in a poet’s back pocket or purse and pulled out whenever necessary. In this new volume of Tim Suermondt’s poetry there is the bittersweet and the humor and sometimes a combination of both. Take for example

the following poem.

Winning the Pulitzer

Don’t laugh.

I have the chops.

I have the poems.

If I can outlast

the academic mumbo jumbo

I’ll have a legitimate shot,

a puncher’s chance.

At the awards ceremony

I’ll thank everyone

who helped me, give the Bronx cheer

to everyone who never did

and return to my study to write the next poem

like I always have and wanted to

oh those many years in the wilderness.

As you read his poems you might think, “Light, fluffy.”  But a second reading reveals a deeper context to the poems that deal with everyday life, jealousy, love, fame, and almost always, humor. 

Looking Forward Boldly

Almost all my friends

have become blackbirds.

            --Eugen Jebeleanu

A few will become hawks and eagles –

the one who owes me money will become

a buzzard if he doesn’t pay—standard

punishment. I expect my wife and I will

become kingfishers, diving I the deep waters,

we and hungry every day, pecking ourselves

clean on the most beautiful beaches.

The three parts of the book you can see Suermondt moving, that is, motion is as important as humor and beauty.  And that is what Just Beautiful is really about: the everyday beauty of life, of people, of living. But what I like most is his easy slide-it-in-there sense of humor that leaves you saying to yourself, “Oh, that’s good.”   Perhaps you have a silent chuckle, reread the poem and move on. That is what it is all about, past, present and future and the final poem, The Present and the Future, tells you what you have thinking all along.

 Suermondt has published two chapbooks and with this volume, two full length collections of poems.  He has been published in numerous magazines and journals, as well as online. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, poet Pui Ying Wong.

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Zvi A. Sesling is author of King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street, 2010), Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 2011) and the soon to be published Fire Tongue (Cervena Barva). He is Editor of Muddy River Poetry Review and Bagel Bards Anthology #7.

Coyote Bush Poems from the Lost Coast By Peter Nash

Coyote Bush

Poems from the Lost Coast

By Peter Nash

Off The Grid Press

www.offthegridpress.net

69 Pages

$15.00

Review by Dennis Daly

The beauty of the natural world skulks around the edges of these poems, making inroads here and there. The impressive color photograph of a coyote bush on the cover, almost a montage of direct light and shadow, sets the ambivalent tone as mankind’s sensitivity confronts the indifference of nature.

The poem Sitting Under a Maple Tree portrays the poet’s persona resting under a tree, observing nature and its gorgeousness, and looking up at the sky for yet more inspiration (an upstairs, downstairs effect) .  Seems almost perfect, but, alas there are a couple of problems. The poet demands food, warmth, and affection. All would be right he says if

…someone brought me

Bacon and eggs for supper,

Covered my shoulders with a blanket

From November to April

And kissed me good night

But even then he would be subject, like all living things, to the aging process—admittedly natural, but unpleasant for most of us. He says,

…I’d be

No great green tree

From whose branches white birds sing hosannas,

But an ancient horse

All hide and bone

Alone in a pasture

Feet splayed

Bowing to the earth.

In his poem Tracks, Nash lies down in the dry needle imprint left by a doe and her newborn. Is he communing with nature, becoming one with a pantheistic earth spirit? Well, sort of.  At first the poet’s soul and the doe’s soul simply merge in a moment of apparent understanding. But there is more (again upstairs, downstairs). High over grounded nature,

…Orion

stands with his great bow by the River Eridanus.

Beside him the deerhounds

Tense at his sudden whistle,

Then rush down the star trails.

The killers from on high are also driven by natural instinct, lest the poet forget.

The affecting dedication of this book reads, “For Judy, who figures in some of these poems and all of my life.” It occurs to me that the beautiful, yet cruel context of nature only heightens human emotions such as love with tragedy and intensity. One good example of this is the poem entitled After You. The poet details the degradation of his household, the loss of pleasant detail and tasty cuisine. The meditation then turns internal. His thought patterns would change. The light would leave the sky. And finally the essence,

I’d gradually withdraw from the future.

There’d be nothing to look forward to—

No smell of rice pilaf and garlic,

No watching videos side by side,

Nor you breathing when I wake up.

In Judy’s Garden, Nash sees clearly the detail’s of his aging wife:  her sore back, her dirty gloves, her baggy jeans, her gray hair. These are now inseparable from their shared life, their memories, and most importantly, his love for her:

“You look the same as ever,” I say.

She’s wearing her father’s felt fedora,

her gray hair in a neat bunch

covering the little hump above her shoulder blades

that doctor Dick said was osteoporosis.

“Yeah, right,” she calls out…

Maybe that’s a sarcastic “yeah, right,” or maybe it is an embarrassed “yeah, right,” but she knows for a moment anyway that he’s telling the truth. Love’s intensity cannot be hidden. It’s impossible.

Young love is expressive and sometimes explosive. Timeless love is more subtle and sometimes depends on subordinate clauses and gestures. The scene is the poet’s birthday party. He’s giving a speech and says,

At this age you can’t expect to run a mile,

I announce, looking at Judy,

and you’re damn lucky to hobble the distance

with someone who gives you a hand…

Later in bed:

she says she liked the part

about giving someone a hand,

then wiggles her toes against my feet—

our old signal…

The scene ends wonderfully with man’s unique or artificial nature resisting the pull of the natural order of things. In the poet’s words,

my bantam cock crows,

another old man yelling at the moon.  

Nash expands his vision of man’s domesticity under siege with an extraordinary poem called The Garden. It begins with a description of wildness and beauty,

Once this was the flood plain of a river.

Bunch grass and wild oats fluttered in the silty soil

and poppies followed the sun with golden faces.

Then comes the tale of how this wild was made habitable for humans by art or, to be specific, his wife’s vision of her garden.

She put the garden in by herself,

mixed peat moss with fertilizer in the wheelbarrow

then eased dozens of roses

into the chocolate earth.

She planted the potted salvia,

wrinkled pea-like seeds of nasturtiums,

onions, carrot starts, the chunky eyes of potatoes,

three kinds of summer squash,

and dug iris bulbs in deep.

Once the earth has been defined by her art, the poet marvels at his wife’s closeness to and her understanding of nature,

She loves the feel of dirt between her palms,

the shovel against her boot,

the pull of the hose against her hip,

the heft of buckets dragging her shoulders.

Sometimes he sees her head bend close to the earth

inhaling the rough viney smell of green tomatoes.

There is an end of course. It may be tragic as man’s destiny will end as it began. Or maybe it is a marvel that it took place at all. The poem ends this way

In twenty years they’ll be gone,

the garden a few stalky rose bushes

poking up through the grass.

Plenty of time, he thinks,

for the ragged coyote bush,

the milk thistle,

to come back in.

And then, just possibly, somewhere in time, someone else will plant another garden and human love, so obvious in these poems, will flower again.

The Mojave Road And Other Journeys by Bruce Williams

The Mojave Road And Other Journeys

by Bruce Williams
Tebot Bach, Huntington Beach CA
Copyright © 2010 by Bruce Williams
Softbound, 67 pgs, $15
ISBN13: 978-1-893670-50-1


Review by Zvi A. Sesling

On my recent trip to San Diego I found myself in the chapel of
a Lutheran church in Pebble Beach where they hold a poetry reading
the second Sunday of each month.

On this particular day Bruce Williams was the featured reader. Standing
in front of a mosaic window of Jesus clad in elegant robes, Williams was
dressed in boots, baggy jeans, a T-shirt that had some printed writing, the
last word of which was evil and over that a brown leather vest.

Williams is probably in his 60s, short, bald with some gray hair and a gray beard and moustache. When he reads he rhythmically bend forward like an Orthodox Jew and recites what is on the printed page in a strong clear voice. It is the voice that you will also find in his book: clear and strong. It is also personal, reflecting on his prostate cancer, his wife’s illness and death, and nature.

In Williams’ poetry, nature is intertwined with life and death and his beloved jeep is the vehicle for his journey through life and nature. The mountains, the desert are metaphors for the rocky road of his experiences – and for his spiritual reawakening.

After his wife is cremated Williams poem AFTER HE BRINGS HER ASHES HOME
gathers his frail emotions in seven lines:

Ellen sits
on the mantle,
seared inside
her cedar box.
There and
not there
like him


In another poem he recalls his childhood and how the simple became complicated:

PERSPECTIVE

I loved Kit Carson
when I was a boy
because he was small
and brave

before I knew
the scent
of burning fruit
heard of Canyon de Chelly-

when the Navajo were the rugs
on Grandfather’s floor,
the silver on his hand.

All in all I was fascinated by Williams’ journeys, his metaphors,
his sensitivity, his self-insight and most of all his confrontation
with the death of others and his own mortality.

Williams is close to nature as he was (and still is) to his wife, and
growing up in Colorado has given him a perspective of nature not
unlike other poets, yet with more human meaning.

Having said all this, this book is Willliams’ first full length book of
poetry, following four chapbooks.

The owner of two jeeps he tries to explore the desert at every opportunity
and readers should explore his 42 poems (and the end notes) at every chance.
They confront optimism, fear, love (and what comes after love). Highly recommended.

Mississippi Poems by Linda Larson.

Mississippi Poems by Linda Larson. (ISCS PRESS 145 Foster St. Littleton, Mass. 01460) $15.



Review by Doug Holder



Linda Larson and I go way back to the time when she was the editor-in-chief of the famed street newspaper “Spare Change News.” I was assisting the poetry editor at the time Don Di Vecchio, and I showed her an article I had written about the late Stone Soup Poetry founder Jack Powers. The article was rejected by some artsy magazine, but Linda liked it and published it-- on the front page no less. Well, I have for better or worse been writing articles ever since.



Linda Larson, like many artists and writers has struggled with mental illness, but has overcome many obstacles and has a long career as a journalist and writer, as well as getting a M.A. from the John Hopkins Writing Seminars .



The Ibbetson Street Press published her first collection “Washing the Stones,” and Larson has come out with another collection “Mississippi Poems” published by the well-respected small ISCS PRESS of Littleton, Mass. Joseph P. Kahn of The Boston Globe writes that the collection explores: “…along with more universal truths about family and relationships, the brutality and tenderness we visit upon one another, and the tools we must equip ourselves in order to survive.”



In her poem “Causalities” Larson writes about a heartbreaking drunken encounter with a damaged Vietnam War vet. Here she encapsulates his experience as a medic and the tragic notes he transcribed for the loved ones for his often terminal charges:



“If it is a girl, please name her Marie

After Mother, I know you two don’t get along…”



“When I get home to you.

We’ll get married. I promise you. A big wedding

Just like you want…”



“Please tell her I didn’t mean to hit her.

I’d rather die than ever hurt her.”



In the poem “St. Mick, First Crush," Larson captures Mick Jagger and in turn the heady atmosphere of the Sixties with a stunning flourish of imagery:



“Hashished I was into confusing your freckles with stars; so far gone I could only let you… Lucifer’s hummingbird, stunning in purple gorget, shooting up skyrockets, pulsating throughout a less than eternal night….. Yes Glorious word! You again, and I drank tea menthe, tasted the magic pipe…soon we were understanding Arabic, traveling the Venus express, winking at the eyes of smoke trees….



Larson has the ability to make a bottom dweller like a Catfish reach the high holy, as well as making the eating of Southern cuisine as evocative as any sensual pleasure. Highly Recommended. To order go to:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/mississippi-poems/14737743