Dear Reader, have you ever wondered what it is like to read poems of a life Out West, in Really Small Towns of today? West, as in seriously West: the Sawtooth Rocky Mountain towns dotting the canyon of the wickedly twisting Salmon River all across Idaho, or the goings-on amongst the strange mix of folk who claim the Willamette Valley of rural northwestern Oregon as home? Or the social ways of the chilly Wyoming hinterland? Or that classic moneyless American roadtrip, all the way East to that great Western state of Tennessee, no longer Davy Crockett's? At least not in Memphis...
Renay's first book delivers poetry that speaks to all this, a singe of the senses, deliberately placed grazing bullets, no-nonsense poems, watch your mouth poems, not a word to spare poems. What more auspicious book to continue the ASGP chapbook series into 1996.
The cover and the rest of the book design are deferentially open: May Renay ring her words true as bells, unencumbered by ornament. Heck, we even unhinged the titles from their usual drawn and pointed at you stance, and put them away in side holsters as it were. Guess you just have to see it to believe it.
The 40-page chapbook contains 25 poems, some flashed onto Usenet's rec.arts.poems, some never seen, all survivors of competition with their excellent brethren left on the cutting room floor. None were published elsewhere, and we look to Renay breaking through big, soon. As the saying goes in our Midwestern/Western parts, you show 'em, girl!
trailer trash
at the least I miss a garbage disposal whiz swishing
last night's scrap into greymuck then draining away
organic slush. at most I miss rock the house sex
that doesn't rock the house so 30 narrow feet away
children want to know if the jacks have broken
I live in mobile luxury. paid off. but not deductible
because we sold our permanent to live instead
as well-off hobos. home is where full hookups are
but Uncle S don't care if we is turtles with homes on our back
heaven is a 20 minute shower. but we don't take those
anymore. turn on, turn off, soap up, turn on, rinse off,
turn off, shampoo, turn off, and on and on and on
because we don't give a damn
how long your hair is, you gots only 10 gallons
outside, the Bitterroots poke prickly holes in blue bluer
sky that stretches somewhere where we're going
and mother wants to know if this won't be hard
on my children. children need roots. crazy screaming
guilty jewishmother roots. yeah. them kind.
my children are rooted to one more mile, one more
hillcurvehighway, one more mom is really trying
to learn to cook meal eaten on the new Corelle
I bought to match our eight by twelve coordinated
space saving kitchen. my children are rooted to adventure.
I pick up odd accounts along the way. the latest
a logo for the Lantern Bar. I paint landscape
backdrops for the iguana cage. I feed the hedgehog.
I walk the dog. I wash dishes four times a day.
mostly I keep moving. permanent makes me jumpy
Copyright © March 26 1996 Renay
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Copyright © 1996 A Small Garlic Press. All rights reserved.
Created 1996/3/23. Updated last on 2008/5/2.
