The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez by Iliana Rocha, 100 pages, $18.95
City Scattered by Tyler Mills, 28 pages, $15.95
April at the Ruins by Lawrence Raab, 91 pages, $18.95
Tupelo Press in North Adams, Massachusetts, specializes in new poetry and, often, new poets. The company helps create and continue the publication and publicity of poets from around the world. These three new books exemplify that work. These are unique voices writing what is often obscure and difficult poetry that, at the same time, amuses, informs and inspires more new poetical expressions from people like me, which I’ll get to later.
Only one of these artists was at all familiar to me, Lawrence Raab. I have two of his earlier collections in my library: “Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts” and “The History of Forgetting.”
This new book presents poems arranged into five groups, each consisting of eight provocative poems. Group 2 opens with “My Expedition,” which begins “And so the ashen moon and the cold stars/burned on the lake beyond/the glow of our fire/Soon I thought/We had come too far to fail…” Throughout the book, Raab’s intense imagery almost sings itself into the room. His natural sense of speech infuses his poems with a personal honesty the reader cannot escape. What I like about this new collection is the author’s integrity. He never loses or confuses his readers with anomalies. He is honest to the end, even if his work is not a picture of his actual experiences.
For instance, in group 4, the book’s title poem includes “Just look around and see/what you could have been/if only you had waited/But who speaks/to the flowers these days?” Phrases like that, in the middle of describing a place seen and felt at a particular time of day and year, would be special by themselves, but Raab makes them more so by applying them almost as intakes of breath. Read that out loud to yourself, for poetry is best when spoken aloud.
That is particularly true in Iliana Rocha’s “The Many Deaths of Incencio Rodriguez.” This lengthy volume gives us looks at eventualities in both traditional and non-traditional forms of poetry, including prose poems. Not a traditional narrative poem, it provides the reader many chances to find new beginnings and endings for the demise of its title persona. The Table of Contents gives us a first hint of what’s to come. Divided in three sections — Bad Hombre, In the Place of Guesswork, and Hoax — the author ushers us into her world; a place of Hispanic John Does whose lives are lost without consent, without celebration of any sort.
She writes of one of them: “I was laked by enlightened flies — dead mans float.” The one-line poem demands a pause, a read aloud to hear the words and not merely imagine the sound of them linked together. The book constantly demands these analytical pauses, determined stops in her narrative style. The author clearly wants her readers to put together the missing histories of her dead men. In fact, her style demands it. This book, I warn you, takes time to read because it, and the author herself, insist on engaging both your mind and your soul.
“City Scattered” is the shortest of the three new books. It is a book of contrasts, right from the beginning. Tyler Mills uses discordant imagery to draw the reader’s curiosity and hold it. The opening line of her first poem, for example, reads: “I wake, put on a silk slip, a wool shirt, and cut/past the building bombed to rubble/in the war. Rain sculpts the air…” It’s the sort of opener that causes the reader to wonder, instantly, where this will lead. Mills manages this sort of question throughout the book.
The book is written in four voices: “I/Self?Woman in Berlin,” “Chorus,” “The Study,” and “Interlocutor.” As the book progresses each has unique opportunities to express something personal and reflective. The previous quote is from the first poem, belonging to “Woman in Berlin” in 1930. Later, also in 1930, she relates “A spotlight blackens the brick wall/An aura/The lit-up bricks somewhat personal/Nipples and aureolas.”
Earlier, as “Chorus Played on a Victrola,” she writes “I try to learn magical properties/To open the gates “nice” “friendly”/Like an actress who portrays elegant/Villains.” Throughout this slim volume, the poet plays with her four voices, keeping them true to themselves and exploring the vague narrative that drives the book forward.
These three poets and their books give us all the incentive to express ourselves in word patterns that convey us and what interests us.
This month, for 30 consecutive days, I will participate in the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, writing 30 new poems and publishing one each day on Tupelo’s fund-raising page. I will be one of eight poets from around the country participating. It is my third time doing this in an effort to raise money to support the work of this publishing company. With one poem every day, it is difficult to refine and rewrite, and so the raw material is what you get to read. Follow me daily, donate in my name, and keep new poetry alive and in the hands of the fine people at Tupelo Press. And buy their books!
