Pop Goes Culture across Ages and Spaces
BY W.J. MINNIS I April 6, 2010
J.E. Stanley and Joshua Gage. Intrinsic Night. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Sam's Dot Publishing, 2009.
"if not
some literati
then at least a pair of cogizanti"
This eclectic book of speculative poetry was born out of a project wherein pairs of poets sent post cards to each other. There is only a very brief mention of this in the dedication of the book. So I point out this detail lest you wonder why one would publish a chap book by two authors and because it adds a bit of romance to the creation and reading of the book. Both of the authors are members of the Deep Cleveland Poets, and this was a project undertaken by many of them.
The writing voice of Mr. Stanley, who is styled jes in the credits at the end of each poem, is a bit more intimate or emotional. I point this out not because the two writers don't harmonize — they do so nicely — but to save you from wondering if perhaps there is one male and one female author writing together instead of the correct understanding of two male authors writing by mail. At any rate, Mr. Gage, a.k.a. jg, is a touch more prosaic and distant in his tone.
Reading the two authors together is a pleasure in gentle contrasts. This is fortunate as nearly all of the poems are in the short cinquain form so you often move quickly from one to the other's work. (For those who are interested in such things, yes, they do follow the prescriptive syllable constraints of Crapsey cinquains, for the most part, but not the rhyming scheme.) It is obvious some were written in response to one another, so much the more so when you know about the postcard method of composure and collaboration.
In getting on with reviewing this 2009 chapbook collaboration then, let us first quote from one of the author's bios which helpfully explains to us that the title is "a play on the phrase 'intrinsic light' the grey light one sees in total darkness as a result of random retinal events picked up by the optic nerve." Puzzle out that sphinxine statement or wait for the decoder ring at the bottom of the cereal box.
Rather than list and describe in detail each of the six theme sections of the book, suffice it to say that the range includes the extraterrestrial, the occult, the metaphysical, and in honor of poetry's long history of romance, a bit of emotion and flesh.
The undercurrents and deeper themes can be partially addressed by taking a moment to dissect the title of theme number three since it nicely summarizes one way to view the purpose of all of these poems. That section/theme is titled "Memento Mori." I'll save those of you whose Latin is rusty the trip to Wikipedia and tell you that the phrase means something like "remember you must die." It is also a broad genre of art created with the purpose of reminding people how to live in mind of religious teachings regarding afterlife and punishment.
In these poems, however, the purpose of remembering you must die is more humanistic in that. Rather than avoiding sin and so seeking a better afterlife, we are exhorted to appreciate the present in its every detail. We should seek and relish freedom even with its costs. A yearning to fly does not exist without reason.
Not to say their tone is iconoclastic. On the contrary, their allusions to myth, legend and even religion abound. At first one might be tempted to think that at least some of those allusions (Greek gods, Beowulf, assorted world legends) came to be out of an urge for literary respectability rather than from simply from writing about what they know and enjoy. However since they also pay homage to modern pop culture from Jackson Pollock to Alanis Morissette to Ansel Adams and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not to mention the popular theme of alcohol and women's legs, we must conclude they are not pretenders but the genuine article of ascendancy in use of literary allusion. Besides, what is legend and myth if not popular culture of a more ancient and enduring type? How else would it survive so long? I do not mock but praise.
These bits of culture and images of myth collected from various times and places are particularly well suited to the minimal form they have chosen to write in. The five lines are long enough to create an image but short enough that you most also call your own imagination into play. The morsels of image serve best to remind you of the world in which you live and how it has been seen by others if you are yourself awake and aware. Like any poetry worth consideration, this collection awakens your memories and desires only if you let it.
It is certainly worth the suggested price of $6 to let the optic nerve of your imagination be tickled by these reminders of joy and mortality.
Oh, and that decoder ring? If you have not found it by now, I'm afraid it was left out of your box. Please send the box UPC and self addressed stamped envelope to the address listed.
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