A Bag of Hands

by Mather Schneider

Genres: Poetry

31 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Country boy who left Illinois when I was 18, rode my bicycle to California with a friend, lived in Bellingham, Washington for 8 years, moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1997 and have lived here ever since. I love the desert, met my wife here, a beautiful Mexican woman, learned Spanish and many other things from her. I have had too many jobs to count, have no college degree or plans on getting one. I write about my experiences. Currently I drive a cab for a living.

Reviews

[Antonia]

Very much enjoyed Schneider's intimate poems. The chapbook was all too short (just 12 poems). I read them to my husband (who doesn't read poetry unless I insist) and he greatly enjoyed them all. We especially liked "Hot Iron," "Zoo," "Consequences," and "Driving Josie to McDonald's to Work the Breakfast Shift, 3:45 a.m." Thanks to Rattle for the complimentary copy. I'd like to read more from Mather Schneider.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Rattle journal chapbook contest runner-up. Subscribing to Rattle is well worth the money for all you get from it. Here is my favorite poem:

Driving Josie to McDonald's to Work the Breakfast Shift, 3:45 a. m.
by Mather Schneider

I pat down my graying Teutonic cowlick.
She combs her long black Mexican mane.

I yawn
which annoys her

and then she yawns a second later
which annoys me.

I yawn a little bigger.
She yawns bigger still.

I yawn the Grand Canyon.
She yawns the Canon del Cobre.

I yawn Conceptualism.
She yawns Realismo Visceral.

I yawn Chuck Wicks.
She yawns J Lo.

I yawn the balls of Morpheus.
She yawns Mictlancihuatl's wattle.

I yawn the Horse Whisperer.
She yawns 400 rabbits and the left-

handed hummingbird.

Finally we look at each other
and laugh.

She laughs a church
of chocolate bubbles.

I laugh quail flushed out of a
possum-bellied moon.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even runners up in the Rattle Chapbook Contest don't disappoint. Schneider’s book is accessible, mostly conversational in tone and gives us a look at lives not usually covered in poetry books: a cab driver and his Mexican wife struggle with the fear of her deportation. Although I usually prefer short poems, “Chasing the Green Card” had me holding my breath for three and a half pages. First he describes how unpleasant the government makes the experience of filing for a green card: the out-of-the-way location in a warehouse district, how they make you take off your belt and shoes like you’re going through airport security, then

“the big room with 60 chairs lined up
and not a single person,
not a plant
or a picture
nothing on the walls,
no windows,
not a single piece of line on the carpet,
no water allowed,
no food, they barely
allow air.”

Then you sit with your wife and wait for an official

“to mispronounce your names
(but don’t correct him, god!)…”

The title poem is particularly chilling, but I leave it to you to find out why.

[Janel D. Brubaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful chapbook.

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of Rattle's chap book winners in my opinion. Mather hits the right notes on his poems addressing border issues, economic issues, and even domestic life.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this after seeing the movie, Paterson, and you will think the poet is a reincarnation. The quiet irony of this gentle man's presence in a beautiful place existing alongside and within the disjointed values around him is a caution to the reader, a meditation on detachment with love.

[❄Elsa Frost❄ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the poems, I feel, are worthy of three-star ratings and that's about it. However (because there's always a however), I really liked "Driving Josie to McDonald's to Work the Breakfast Shift, 3:45 a.m." because of how well the repetition was and the amazing imagery in the last two stanzas:

"She laughs a church
of chocolate bubbles.

I laugh quail flushed out of a
possum-bellied moon."

Also, I liked how "Loco for Love" utilized Spanish and singing to emphasize a deeper-meaning metaphor/allegory.

For "Driving Josie to McDonald's...", I give 5 stars. For "Loco for Love", I give 4-4.5 stars. Overall, I give 3.5 stars to the entire poetry chapbook. It was good, but most of the poems seemed to lack something more. Something I was deeply craving (deeper meaning behind the words, for example, and more imagery), but never got.

[Ismael · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my first chapbook from Rattle, this read was nice and simple. His expressions are direct, and you can notice the deep love he feels for Josie. What strikes me most is how he finds the light within the mundane.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG!!! This book of poetry is fabulous! Intimate, beautiful, heartbreaking...a masterpiece.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the unusual theme of the unknown in love layered over the unknown in immigration status. My favorite was the last one, Chasing the Green Card. It's a very intimate collection, and I'm grateful to the author for sharing it.

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a Runner-Up collection for the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize and so many must have appreciated the "talky' style of poetry contained herein:

It's 5 a.m.
and I get the cab warmed up.
I drive to McDonald's in the dark
where Josie is already working
the breakfast shift.
She gives me a coffee and a smile.
This is how we met
3 years ago.

Most of the poems go this way. The opening poem, "Hot Iron," and the closing one, "Chasing the Green Card," both work a little more for me. But I just cannot appreciate this sort of poetry. Billy Collins does it better. It must be me--so many editors do appreciate and publish poems of this sort. But this collection left me flat.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will review soon.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish everyone in America could receive a copy of this in the mail, not just Rattle subscribers.

[Bill DeGenaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schneider establishes his voice (conversational but never cloying) 2-3 poems in. “Bag of Hands” works so well as a cycle of poems, all focused on the narrator’s relationship with a woman from Mexico and their life in Tucson. The best kind of ‘accessible’ poetry.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the poems in this Rattle contest-winning chapbook. They’re all about Mather’s life as an American cab driver married to an illegal immigrant from Mexico. He writes about their love, her struggle to stay in the country, his passengers, flat tires, bigotry, and a bag of severed hands found in Mexico. The poems are easy to read but deceptively powerful.

[Matthew Meade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mather Schneider is the stray dog of poetry; mangy, wandering, snarling. You love to see him come around even though he scares your kids. You want to feed him even though he bites. You want to hear him howl even though he wakes you up in the middle of the night. He smells. He is ugly. He makes you nervous. He is your favorite.

[Russ Stevens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though I'm not a fan of the poems, I am intrigued by what's going on here. To start, the poetry is, to borrow a phrase from my Canadian friends, built like a bag of milk. It's flabby and sloppy, and the insights the poems carry aren't exactly profound: "And I think, Why this tree / when so many thousands of other old growth mesquites / were slaughtered a hundred years ago / so people could move in and eventually / yearn for the past?" Ah yes, the slaughtering of... trees. Don't let that quotation mislead you. The voice here is not the Lorax speaking for the environment. Instead, the voice in these poems is more like a reverse Anna Sorokin/Delvey. It seems like it's working class. It wants you to think it's working class. But how authentic is it? So while I'm not a fan of the book, I will give it this much: it's prompted a lot of questions. Is Bruce Wayne working class when he leaves his rich inheritance behind at the beginning of Batman Begins? Are you working class if you own a rental in a resort town? When does posturing turn into appropriation? Are poems that imitate poets most of us stopped reading when we were in high school examples of true dedication to an original poetic spark, or are they just a form of arrested development with bad line breaks?

[Hugh Blanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first found Schneider when his book Prickly came out. This chapbook came to me as a complimentary book with my subscription to Rattle. It doesn't suck. Like a lot of reviewers here, I liked Driving Josie. One reviewer here compared Schneider to a stray dog in the neighborhood, no, a MANGY stray dog in the neighborhood that you seem to have sympathy for. I disagree. He's more like that bum out in the alley that you can't decide whether he's insane or just lazy. But he does need a bath and a shave.

[Vin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really intrigued by the title of this chapbook, but it didn't quite live up to the intrigue. There were a few potent poetic passages, but mostly the style was very prose-y. A little too plain for me.

[Here's Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's good.

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

“best not to write certain things down

or if you do
burn them
or hide them
for some cold dark day.”

[Bruce Cline · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best collections of poems I’ve read in recent months.

[Catherine Conley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the winner of the annual Rattle chapbook poetry prize. It is not as strong as last year's winter (Taylor Mali's The Whetting Stone); however, it does have its moments. The opening poem "Hot Iron" is particularly striking. If you like a bit of narrative in your poetry, give it a try.

[Nancy]

Heart and soul are here (along with hands, dear god). Love the yawn contest, and getting to know Josie.