“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” – Muriel Rukeyser

Poetry collection “Hunger” by Judy Jordan (Tinderbox Editions, 2018) is an honest, intimate account of a woman and her pain. The speaker in the poems faces homelessness after an accident that injured a spinal disk in the small of her back. When the hospital bills became too expensive and she fell behind on payments, the hospital seized the narrator’s bank account. Every dollar to her name is given to the hospital, leaving the woman alone, impoverished and homeless. She goes into the forest where she lives in an abandoned greenhouse, with hordes of plants and insects for Jordan to describe in detail. Our speaker is injured and unable to provide for herself, breeding a physical and spiritual hunger.

Jordan uses the protagonist’s unique situation as a playground for poetry and imagery, giving us thick, clamoring descriptions to guide us through this chaotic situation. Poverty, starvation, injury, isolation, botany, animals, nature, politics—there are no limits to the subjects that Jordan illuminates. One common theme throughout the poems is the community of nature. She never describes one animal or plant but sees nature as an intertwined society working together, reacting synchronously to the environment as a whole. Between these environmental descriptions and the unraveling background of the protagonist, one begins to better appreciate the beauty of the greenhouse and the protagonist’s relationship to her surroundings. Jordan creates a living, breathing setting for the reader to explore, through her accessible yet intricate landscape.

When Jordan writes, she catches the reader by surprise—one minute the words flow as they describe this splendor, and then you read a single, searing line that catches your eye. The work is profound while our speaker remains humble, directing the reader’s attention to lush imagery, telling us to focus on the beauty of the words rather than their author.

Jordan also plays with the classics; poems are titled “Io” and “Prometheus.” These are names from Greek mythology, and although the poems (according to my interpretation) followed one scattered story line, Jordan’s reference to Io is intentional. Io was a human admired by Zeus for her physical beauty, although Io rejected his initial attempts at seduction. Eventually, the two began an affair, and when Zeus’ wife Hera found out, Hera turned Io into a cow. This led to Io’s ultimate isolation and demise, a state that the protagonist of “Hunger” often finds herself in.

Although the pain and suffering of this character seem like the essential themes of “Hunger,” Jordan remembers to feed us the stunning words that we are hungry for. After all, they ease our pain. It seems as if Jordan wants us to relate to the injured character, to see her as a metaphor for life. Sure, we all feel pain and no matter the magnitude, it still hurts. Instead of focusing on all that has gone wrong, Jordan focuses on the beauty in the pain. This seems simple enough, but Jordan’s poetry is too complex to be so easily deciphered.

The entire collection is beautifully written, gripping and deep. The only way to discover how viscerally you will react is to pick up your copy and dive in.

Shane Hoyle, Staff Writer.

The post Beauty Eases Pain in Judy Jordan’s Poetry Collection “Hunger” appeared first on Newfound.

All nine erasure poems in “Night Vision” come from the wildly popular “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan, setting a reader expectation of wonder at the universe.

Loss an destruction are detailed instead, through Wahmanholm’s gripping yet elusive prose. Wahmanholm tells a story of an unnamed protagonist and their cohort surviving an apocalypse of some sort, featuring a violet sky and a world where animals are dying. Poem “Jellyfish” describes the creature drifting to shore and being admired for its immortality and translucent body. “Beasts” speaks of some unknown pack of monsters surrounding the protagonist’s group, the “sulfur of their fur thick on my tongue, their musk thick in the roots of my hair.” Finally, the revealing poem “The Last Animals” explains that in this world, there are not many creatures left, and humans no longer experience thunderstorms, tides, or acorns.

The story is not simply about creatures and their disappearances, but about the gruesome experiences of surviving in this apocalypse. For example, “Fuse” is about the group waking up to find out that everyone has bombs in their stomach that might explode at any second, and “The Carrion Flower” is a poem about finding a body bag in the woods and watching it rot. The prose is slightly psychedelic and strange which can make the whole narrative a little hard to follow. If you’re willing to pour through the poems to solve the puzzle, it is guaranteed to be exciting and rewarding.

I was most intrigued when I realized that four of the twenty-one prose poems have the same name: “Relaxation Tape.” The poems are based on a giant voice or projection on a tape which sounds a lot like a guided meditation. But as the poems flow, the voice is said to be coming from “the loudspeaker sky.” Either this is a fact of life for characters in this universe, or the characters are slowly becoming less attached to reality, making them unreliable narrators. The whole chapbook only gets more interesting as you read on.

The erasure poems are simply beautiful and helped break up the thick pages of text with long spaces in between. My favorite, “The Ocean Calls,” includes the line, “We are precious tendrils of light. We may be a sun to someone. Why should we be utterly lost.”

“Night Vision” is challenging and carries a lot of poetic weight in both the dense prose or in the sparse erasures. Claire Wahmanholm’s chapbook is incredibly gripping, filled with small details that add much to the style and the narrative. As I reached the end, I decided that one read was not enough, and read through twice more just to begin to create my own conclusions and fill in the gaps. “Night Vision” does something truly powerful: it begins in Wahmanholm’s imagination and ends in mine.

Shane Hoyle, Staff Writer.

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My notebooks are filled with angry stanzas that could hardly qualify as poetry, doodles of samurai where there should be algebraic equations, and the occasional short story. If you flipped through my old journals and diaries, you could probably learn a lot about me, because I used my journals as a getaway from reality. Or maybe your journal is your archive of your reality.

“Mira Corpora” (Two Dollar Radio, 2013) is a collection of surreal journal entries by Jeff Jackson, a celebrated author and playwright. The book “is a coming-of-age story for people who hate coming-of-age stories” according to Jackson’s website.

What exactly does that mean? In “Mira Corpora,” the narrator, Jeff Jackson, finds his old journal and reads through entries from distant stages of his life. Most of the stories seem to be fantastical, such as being tied to a tree and covered with dog food, finding a hidden tribe of runaway teenagers, meeting mysterious teenage oracles, living on the streets behind a Chinese restaurant and searching for a schizophrenic rock star. These could be fiction; they certainly seem made up. But what sort of journals was Jackson keeping that could be reinvented as such wild and surreal stories? Do the stories mean anything at all?

Some stories are described so vividly that it’s hard to imagine they’re fictitious. Jackson tells a story of his abusive, alcoholic mother. He was covered in burns from clothes irons, curling irons and pans, anything that could be used as punishment for a young boy. Later in the book, Jackson is guided from the streets to be kidnapped and even enslaved. The segments are equally disturbing and gripping.

Did a teenager make up these intense scenarios? They seem too real to be mere imagination. But the best part about the book is that we never really know whether or not these journals are real or not. It could be all non-fiction, all fiction, or perhaps a blend of both.

The other part of Jackson’s writing style that makes “Mira Corpora” worth the read is the style. The writing is a deliciously crafted work of prose poetry that can make you cringe and smile all at once. His vocabulary is diverse, his words are efficient and his story is enticing. The words practically drip interest onto the pages. Simply by flipping through these pages, because they are so much like a journal, we are exposed to an intimate account of a writer, and furthermore, a human. Even if these events are fictional, the aftermath is very real, and it seems as if Jackson’s emotions are poured into the text.

Although “Mira Corpora” follows several subplots rather than a solid story line, the character development is still present. Jackson transforms from a nervous young boy to a lonely survivor, submissive and defeated. At the end, when Jackson finishes his journals, we see the true impact on the author in a drunken spree of anger and remorse.

“Mira Corpora” has taught me that in both imagination and in reality, humans are easily broken. Emotions are real no matter what. To experience a dreamlike blur between reality and exaggeration, read Jeff Jackson’s “Mira Corpora”.

Shane Hoyle, Staff Writer.

The post Jeff Jackson’s “Mira Corpora” Mixes Journal Entries with Fantasy appeared first on Newfound.

Geoff Manaugh is an architect and the founder of BLDGBLOG, a blog about architecture. But Manaugh has a very interesting way of looking at buildings. Rather than studying the way that they can be used effectively, he puts himself into the shoes of a burglar, and studies the way that buildings can be abused. In his book, “A Burglar’s Guide to the City,” Manaugh serves as a blueprint to spotting the weaknesses in architecture around us.

Manaugh tells the story of different bank heists, tunnel jobs, and cat burglars throughout the years. Interestingly, he brings forth the perspective of lockpicks, cat burglars, and other criminals, as well as the perspectives of people preventing criminals. He speaks with police officers, LAPD helicopter pilots, and the architects behind panic rooms. Manaugh thoroughly digs into the ways that someone could break into your home, and what kind of architecture can prevent such a crime.

Manaugh clearly considers architecture an art. He says that buildings are also structures that we create to feel safe. We create buildings to protect ourselves from burglars, yet Manaugh also helps the reader think like a burglar, and exactly what to look for as such. We are taught how to be observant, and look for that one detail that can get us from point A to point B. Readers are taught to create our own pathways through buildings. Cut open a hole in the wall, cut a hole through the ceiling, tunnel up from underneath a bank. Most importantly, we are taught how to escape and evade. Run, use the subways, traffic, and disguises to your advantage. Hide in plain sight, hide in solitude, hide in a pool cover.

Although we glorify burglars for their ability, intelligence (or lack thereof) and bravery to defy the laws of architecture, it is mentioned that burglary is one of the most emotionally disturbing crimes. It leaves the victim with a lost sense of trust, one that is hard to ever regain. Why do we praise movies like “Ocean’s Eleven”? Why are the criminals the heroes? Geoff Manaugh mentions that although burglars are a wonderful example of architectural deviants, they are primarily thieves. They should not be glorified, nor should we partake in the thievery.

What is the point of “A Burglar’s Guide to the City,” then? Is it not to train criminals on how to commit crimes?

The objective of the book is to make the reader aware of the looming threat of burglary. If someone is given enough time with your house, bank or vault, it will be broken into. In order to avoid the burglar, you have to think like the burglar. Geoff Manaugh’s book is an ode to the beautiful complexities of architecture. Believe me, I haven’t looked at a building the same way since starting the book. But at the same, it is a practical guide to understand the mind of a criminal.

Shane Hoyle, Staff Writer.

The post Geoff Manaugh Reconstructs Our Minds in “A Burglar’s Guide to the City” appeared first on Newfound.

Disaster abounds for this family, set during the construction of the Hoover Dam. When the U.S. government tries to buy out the citizens of St. Thomas, families are met with the rising waters of Lake Mead. Soon enough, the entire town was underwater. The skeletons of houses washed up off the shore of Lake Mead are the inspiration for “Lords of St. Thomas.”

Henry Lord, his father, mother and grandfather (also named Henry Lord) live together in their home in St. Thomas. Henry’s grandfather decides to ignore the government’s offers and warnings to stay in his beloved home. Amidst tragedy and joy, the family stubbornly stays until the waters reach their front door. These were the choices for the residents of St. Thomas: to wait for the inevitable or to leave home.

“Lords of St. Thomas” gives voice  to a young boy coming of age. Ellis raises contemplative questions of death and loss through the growing Henry Lord.

“I used to wonder: what is the ideal way to lose
someone you love? Is it best to be there, right up to
the end, standing by their side when they go? Or better
to learn of their passing after the fact, from afar,
where the reality of their death exists only in your
mind, abstract and impalpable? Is it preferable to see it
coming so that you can prepare for the inevitable, or
is it better to be surprised by it so you don’t waste a
single shared moment of life worrying about or fighting
against the things that you can’t control anyway?”

“Lords of St. Thomas” is gripping and page-turning. Readers take a complex walk through a winding graveyard of themes: home, mortality, adolescence, family, suffering, and promises. Jackson Ellis delicately places all of these hurdles in the way of both the Lords and the reader.

There are, of course, joyful moments in the story. Henry Lord is a boy with ambition and love for his whole family. Henry’s father spends time playing baseball with him, and his mother teaches Henry in school.

But the most touching relationship lies between Henry and his grandfather. Both are men of few words and love spending time with each other. They fish on their boat, enjoy long walks or work together on cars in the family garage. Ellis builds the grandfather to be a grand mentor and best friend.

In his first novel, Jackson Ellis delivers masterful use of language. He develops the characters wonderfully. The plot moves with ease and grabs onto the reader from the beginning. Ellis also manages to mix historic fiction with a beautifully written narrative. All in all, “Lords of St. Thomas” is an entertaining read that left me reflecting on situations in my own life.

Jackson Ellis won GWP’s 2017 Howard Frank Mosher First Novel Prize for “Lords of St. Thomas.” He also is the founding editor and publisher for VerbicideMagazine.com. Be sure to check out some of his shorter fiction, his website, and his first novel, “Lords of St. Thomas.”

Shane Hoyle, Staff Writer.

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