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Strange Theater
John Amen's STRANGE THEATER takes the reader on a multifaceted journey, each poem a puzzle piece in a mysterious drama, a view onto a stage where dialogues and narratives shuffle and rotate, where characters improvise insights that blur the boundary between horror and the absurd. Offering a unique vision of contemporary life, Amen is a Virgil of sorts, navigating the unknown, plumbing the conscious and unconscious alike. Replete with compelling imagery and frequently shocking proclamations, STRANGE THEATER imprints itself on the psyche, Amen's voice continuing to resound long after the final poem is read.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published February 3, 2015
About the author
John Amen
14 books5 followersJohn Amen's poetry has appeared in numerous journals nationally and internationally and been translated into Spanish, French, Hungarian, Korean, and Hebrew. In addition, he has released two folk/folk rock CDs: All I’ll Never Need (Cool Midget 2004) and Ridiculous Empire (2008). He is also an artist, working primarily with acrylics on canvas. Amen travels widely giving readings, doing musical performances, and conducting workshops. He founded and continues to edit The Pedestal Magazine (www.thepedestalmagazine.com).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 22, 2015
Startling images pepper this collection of poems. Theatrical trappings become potent metaphors in John Amen's very capable technique. In "bad novel" we see the machinery of writing as "pulleys and cranks grinding behind a curtain." A maverick style that eschews capitalization and punctuation blends well with traditional emotional concerns. In a work called "drunk" the author writes "you outrun light". An impossibility — except in poetry. Amen's richly textured work mixes the fabulous and the mundane... from "Adele's diary" to "hungry dragons." Amen tests the limits of anomie while plumbing the depths of human connections.
March 15, 2016
THIS REVIEW FIRST APPEARED IN THE COMPULSIVE READER
John Amen’s Strange Theater lives up to its name in that it is a strange book. Most of the poems are written to people we do not know. It appears that they are friends or acquaintances of the author but we are not sure about this. It also appears that he haphazardly throws words together to make sentences that do not make sense but somehow are able to tell a story. In this way, Amen reminds me of Federico Garcia Lorca.
The prowess of Amen’s wordplay is best seen in the title poem, Strange Theater, which comes at the middle of the book and covers nine pages. Each of its forty stanzas serves as a vignette. They focus on the interaction of a wife, husband, and a white-hair man in a room; sometimes the room is in a hotel or a private house, with the addition of a gun, knife, mirror, and other happenings like mockingbirds slamming into the window (60). While reading this scene, I was reminded of the movie Magnolia with frogs raining from the sky.
There is also a nice Shakespearean reference, specifically the Merchant of Venice, “you offer yr daily lb to yr husband…today sliced from yr right buttock, tomorrow drop a breast on the scale” (58). The shortened yr shows up too constantly throughout the book and can be a distraction at times. But to keep focus is to appreciate the schizophrenic dream-like delirium of Amen’s work, in particular as displayed in the title poem. At the end of it, we are told, “knife in yr right hand gun in yr left , you can’t cut you can’t shoot the voices.” It is at this point that you realize that you were taken for a wild ride and want to stay on board for more fun.
Fortunately, there are other poems that offer the same sense of intellectual adventurism and free play as the title poem. In Postcard, one gets the impression that a man drives home to see his aging parents until Amen lets us know, “…my father now bellowing from the upstairs bathroom, voice rising over a blast of flatulence followed by the roar-in-the-walls of the gulping toilet. “Hey, is that my goddam prodigal girl?’” (53). The gender/sexuality of the visiting child is not clear here. One gets the sense that Amen wants it that way. The father figure shows up in other poems, like in Inheritance (54), and some poems that populate the later part of the book. In Inheritance, a dead father leaves behind certain stipulations, such as that a surviving daughter “drops her vegetarian schtick” and that the surviving son be cured of his “incorrigible agnosticism,” before they inherit his war crime memorabilia (and other possessions).
I must admit that even though weird and off-putting at times, the poems that touch on the father figure are the strongest in this collection because they are still relatable (or at least seem plausible in the real world). I contrast them with another quirky piece, An Incident Worth Reporting, that I do not like. Amen reports the incident, “…an actual, bona fide Neanderthal—masturbating in the median” of a highway and who magically disappears when another driver is alerted (55). This piece is reminiscent of something from the mind of the comic Seth MacFarlane and not from that of a promising poet like Amen, who I imagine, wants to be taken seriously. Fortunately, there is less premature musing in the collection and more of that having to do with a talented poet putting good work into the world—yes, quirky at times, but good. For this, Strange Theater is worth the read.
John Amen’s Strange Theater lives up to its name in that it is a strange book. Most of the poems are written to people we do not know. It appears that they are friends or acquaintances of the author but we are not sure about this. It also appears that he haphazardly throws words together to make sentences that do not make sense but somehow are able to tell a story. In this way, Amen reminds me of Federico Garcia Lorca.
The prowess of Amen’s wordplay is best seen in the title poem, Strange Theater, which comes at the middle of the book and covers nine pages. Each of its forty stanzas serves as a vignette. They focus on the interaction of a wife, husband, and a white-hair man in a room; sometimes the room is in a hotel or a private house, with the addition of a gun, knife, mirror, and other happenings like mockingbirds slamming into the window (60). While reading this scene, I was reminded of the movie Magnolia with frogs raining from the sky.
There is also a nice Shakespearean reference, specifically the Merchant of Venice, “you offer yr daily lb to yr husband…today sliced from yr right buttock, tomorrow drop a breast on the scale” (58). The shortened yr shows up too constantly throughout the book and can be a distraction at times. But to keep focus is to appreciate the schizophrenic dream-like delirium of Amen’s work, in particular as displayed in the title poem. At the end of it, we are told, “knife in yr right hand gun in yr left , you can’t cut you can’t shoot the voices.” It is at this point that you realize that you were taken for a wild ride and want to stay on board for more fun.
Fortunately, there are other poems that offer the same sense of intellectual adventurism and free play as the title poem. In Postcard, one gets the impression that a man drives home to see his aging parents until Amen lets us know, “…my father now bellowing from the upstairs bathroom, voice rising over a blast of flatulence followed by the roar-in-the-walls of the gulping toilet. “Hey, is that my goddam prodigal girl?’” (53). The gender/sexuality of the visiting child is not clear here. One gets the sense that Amen wants it that way. The father figure shows up in other poems, like in Inheritance (54), and some poems that populate the later part of the book. In Inheritance, a dead father leaves behind certain stipulations, such as that a surviving daughter “drops her vegetarian schtick” and that the surviving son be cured of his “incorrigible agnosticism,” before they inherit his war crime memorabilia (and other possessions).
I must admit that even though weird and off-putting at times, the poems that touch on the father figure are the strongest in this collection because they are still relatable (or at least seem plausible in the real world). I contrast them with another quirky piece, An Incident Worth Reporting, that I do not like. Amen reports the incident, “…an actual, bona fide Neanderthal—masturbating in the median” of a highway and who magically disappears when another driver is alerted (55). This piece is reminiscent of something from the mind of the comic Seth MacFarlane and not from that of a promising poet like Amen, who I imagine, wants to be taken seriously. Fortunately, there is less premature musing in the collection and more of that having to do with a talented poet putting good work into the world—yes, quirky at times, but good. For this, Strange Theater is worth the read.
July 13, 2016
I adored this volume of poetry. I don't say that often. I like new poetry and read a lot of it. I'm just often disappointed in volumes of poetry as a work of art.
100 pages of poems is, after all, a work of art.
That's isn't a problem with John Amen's book though. His voice is compelling, his line structures quite curious and his cycle through images/motifs enough to keep a reader feeling. That's what I loved about the book and why it was hard to put down at the end of the night. John is evocative and it's effortlessly sublime. That emotion was hard to put down and let go.
Kudos, kudos.
100 pages of poems is, after all, a work of art.
That's isn't a problem with John Amen's book though. His voice is compelling, his line structures quite curious and his cycle through images/motifs enough to keep a reader feeling. That's what I loved about the book and why it was hard to put down at the end of the night. John is evocative and it's effortlessly sublime. That emotion was hard to put down and let go.
Kudos, kudos.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews