'A SIBLING TO ALL' .. SUCH IS THIS TRUE MODERN POET .. READ HIM
Me, I love reading the short stuff because it's the sprint event of the literary olympics, it thrills. You can forget your million word novels. Give me a 100 words of terse verse. Many are like sawn off novels anyway, a whole story in 30 lines. That is what I love, the distillation. I don't care if they are in-form metaphysical abstractions or dabs of free-form in-y'face life. I love the lot. Sometimes I just crave a shot of the short stuff.
Stevie Robison's ECSTATIC BEAT hit the spot for me.
I'd just read - and enjoyed - a longish novel by an indie author. So I came to EB in need and hope. I read it on a Kindle. Now this is clearly not the best way to read verse as it just does not look great. You can't fool around with the visual presentation. Even KING OZYMANDIAS wld look a bit down in the mouth on a Kindle. You can't flip back and forth without getting RSI of the clicking joints. I mean you just don't plod through poetry from page 1 > 2 > 3 > right? Part of the joy is starting at page 34, going to page 9 then to page 57. Then maybe you read 23 > 27. You move around, easy like. You can't do that on oh-so-prosaic K-K-Kindle.
But hey! I'm just a modern kinda guy!
EB is a collection of 80 contemporary American verses arranged in 10 chapters, grouping some 5-12 verses in each. I reckon there is enough material for two good reading sessions. I read many of the poems twice and some three or four times.
Stevie Robison ranges from violent, dark, almost Baudelairian themes to some absolutely exquisite metaphysical meditations and porcelain-delicate observations on his surroundings. The contrast between these two approaches is total, with the one underscoring the other. The range in the collection says, 'this poet feels across the spectrum of human experience.' Some of the gentler verses made me think of William Blake because of their sheer spirituality.
I read somewhere once that we read to be entertained or to learn in some way. EB meets both these ends, with little dabs of wisdom and wit showing up all over the place and with some 'situation' type poems
One of my fave's in the entire collection is the wonderfully titled DATING A WOMAN ON PROBABTION. I love every line of this verse because of its sensitivity, hope and thwarted beauty. The fallen woman was in servitude to substances, and is still in servitude to her past, while the poet who makes soup for her is now in servitude to her. Everything about it is beautiful, loving and tender.
Contrast this with a later poem, called 2.50, where the poet is crusing around checking out streetwalkers with lust in mind. And contrast the contrast with AN ODE TO TRUE LOVE where he chomps on a tin of sweetcorn.
The wit in all this is arch, arch, arch. All the players in 2.50 are stuck in the lust part of life's spectrum. Thee is no judgement, it just is how it is. Another poem which captures how we are is HABITUALLY, which deftly mocks how we all depend on our little online hits, how we constantly check and recheck our msgs like inane idiots who will die if we can't get a little digital love coming our way from some other keyboard.
The one thing I cld not quiet work out is why the first section of EB - entitled Chaos - groups the 5 most gristly poems in the collection. The first five are like a big dark wave crashing over the reader. Some readers might freak. But I'd started reading from the middle and i don't get freaked anyway. None of the first five were among my faves though.
The second chapter - Hyperbole - has some winners. MORE nails how we are with our cravings and the lean and lithe POETRY is the first top, top write in the collection, at least for me. I love this line: 'the poet weaves//the reader wears'.
The first poem I read was in fact in the third section A TYPICAL DAY. I found it compelling surreal. I read it again and again. The newspaper with no words just wins me. Read it see for yourself. It is as long as POETRY is short. It takes its time.
Another fave of mine is QUIETLY as it is a meditative observation of great gentleness.
The rascally poet follows up with a poem of despair. It can't be avoided, the world is not all quiet all the time. Is that the msg? There follows an observation on a lonely woman pushing a shopping trolly and heading for a dark alley which takes the mind back to the first five poems in the collection.
This brings us to SERENITY'S SONG which revertes to the vibe in QUIETLY. But SERENITY'S SONG is shorter verse more in keeping with POETRY. These three poems are among the best in the collection for me.
I'll just mention two more as I don't want to give the whole thing away for you. ONCE A POET really caught my eye because it seems to imply what a pain in the butt it is to be a poet, stuffed full of wildness and doom. I cld write a 1000 word about this poem. it is a great one for a poet to read. i was also taken with a line in AFFIRMATION: 'I am sibling to all.' Maybe this is what poets are, siblings to all.
The most American poem in the colletcion, at least to this Brit reader, was POP'S GENERAL STORE. It seems to capture a little bit of the soul of America, with this being the key line; 'a good place to go.'
I reckon ECSTATIC BEAT wld be definitely be at home in said store. No branding or fancy corporate marketing, just honest poetry. I think I understand the first five poems now -- and the final one: A REAL ******. They are sort of how we are, the prosaic reality. But if we look deeper, go deeper, we will find poetic peace int he likes of QUIETLY, SERENITY'S SONG, POETRY and POP'S GENERAL STORE.
I commend Stevie Robison's ECSTATIC BEAT to you and hope you will enjoy the read as much as I did.
Written on New Year's Day, 2013, in an office in London's Canary Wharf. Well, it was the quietest of days at work.
ECSTATIC BEAT
Stevie Robison's ECSTATIC BEAT hit the spot for me.
I'd just read - and enjoyed - a longish novel by an indie author. So I came to EB in need and hope. I read it on a Kindle. Now this is clearly not the best way to read verse as it just does not look great. You can't fool around with the visual presentation. Even KING OZYMANDIAS wld look a bit down in the mouth on a Kindle. You can't flip back and forth without getting RSI of the clicking joints. I mean you just don't plod through poetry from page 1 > 2 > 3 > right? Part of the joy is starting at page 34, going to page 9 then to page 57. Then maybe you read 23 > 27. You move around, easy like. You can't do that on oh-so-prosaic K-K-Kindle.
But hey! I'm just a modern kinda guy!
EB is a collection of 80 contemporary American verses arranged in 10 chapters, grouping some 5-12 verses in each. I reckon there is enough material for two good reading sessions. I read many of the poems twice and some three or four times.
Stevie Robison ranges from violent, dark, almost Baudelairian themes to some absolutely exquisite metaphysical meditations and porcelain-delicate observations on his surroundings. The contrast between these two approaches is total, with the one underscoring the other. The range in the collection says, 'this poet feels across the spectrum of human experience.' Some of the gentler verses made me think of William Blake because of their sheer spirituality.
I read somewhere once that we read to be entertained or to learn in some way. EB meets both these ends, with little dabs of wisdom and wit showing up all over the place and with some 'situation' type poems
One of my fave's in the entire collection is the wonderfully titled DATING A WOMAN ON PROBABTION. I love every line of this verse because of its sensitivity, hope and thwarted beauty. The fallen woman was in servitude to substances, and is still in servitude to her past, while the poet who makes soup for her is now in servitude to her. Everything about it is beautiful, loving and tender.
Contrast this with a later poem, called 2.50, where the poet is crusing around checking out streetwalkers with lust in mind. And contrast the contrast with AN ODE TO TRUE LOVE where he chomps on a tin of sweetcorn.
The wit in all this is arch, arch, arch. All the players in 2.50 are stuck in the lust part of life's spectrum. Thee is no judgement, it just is how it is. Another poem which captures how we are is HABITUALLY, which deftly mocks how we all depend on our little online hits, how we constantly check and recheck our msgs like inane idiots who will die if we can't get a little digital love coming our way from some other keyboard.
The one thing I cld not quiet work out is why the first section of EB - entitled Chaos - groups the 5 most gristly poems in the collection. The first five are like a big dark wave crashing over the reader. Some readers might freak. But I'd started reading from the middle and i don't get freaked anyway. None of the first five were among my faves though.
The second chapter - Hyperbole - has some winners. MORE nails how we are with our cravings and the lean and lithe POETRY is the first top, top write in the collection, at least for me. I love this line: 'the poet weaves//the reader wears'.
The first poem I read was in fact in the third section A TYPICAL DAY. I found it compelling surreal. I read it again and again. The newspaper with no words just wins me. Read it see for yourself. It is as long as POETRY is short. It takes its time.
Another fave of mine is QUIETLY as it is a meditative observation of great gentleness.
The rascally poet follows up with a poem of despair. It can't be avoided, the world is not all quiet all the time. Is that the msg? There follows an observation on a lonely woman pushing a shopping trolly and heading for a dark alley which takes the mind back to the first five poems in the collection.
This brings us to SERENITY'S SONG which revertes to the vibe in QUIETLY. But SERENITY'S SONG is shorter verse more in keeping with POETRY. These three poems are among the best in the collection for me.
I'll just mention two more as I don't want to give the whole thing away for you. ONCE A POET really caught my eye because it seems to imply what a pain in the butt it is to be a poet, stuffed full of wildness and doom. I cld write a 1000 word about this poem. it is a great one for a poet to read. i was also taken with a line in AFFIRMATION: 'I am sibling to all.' Maybe this is what poets are, siblings to all.
The most American poem in the colletcion, at least to this Brit reader, was POP'S GENERAL STORE. It seems to capture a little bit of the soul of America, with this being the key line; 'a good place to go.'
I reckon ECSTATIC BEAT wld be definitely be at home in said store. No branding or fancy corporate marketing, just honest poetry. I think I understand the first five poems now -- and the final one: A REAL ******. They are sort of how we are, the prosaic reality. But if we look deeper, go deeper, we will find poetic peace int he likes of QUIETLY, SERENITY'S SONG, POETRY and POP'S GENERAL STORE.
I commend Stevie Robison's ECSTATIC BEAT to you and hope you will enjoy the read as much as I did.
Written on New Year's Day, 2013, in an office in London's Canary Wharf. Well, it was the quietest of days at work.
ECSTATIC BEAT
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