William Allegrezza. To Hush All the Dead (Buffalo, NY: BlazeVOX [Books], 2022).

 

Despite the title, this is a very expressive and lively collection. Word constructions appear, happen, and grow, even if they might refer to post-life situations. Throughout one is anxious to know who or what these "dead" might be: deceased loved ones? unfortunate victims? impertinent others? inner voices seeking expression? These nicely organized poems comprise an up/down dialectic of trouble/solutions. There is a phrase thirty pages in concerning "hush my dead" but the various implications of dying/death occur passim, in each of the six sections of the book.  If you like the lyrico-cartographic approach, the first section is the most attractive: Maps and Map Making. The mood is moved by down notions of malaise, resignation, ennui, angst... but poetic discovery overcomes all. The second section involves "The Waiting" and senses of bereft continue in a "wicked world". The lexicon of loss and insufficiency provokes further pondering.  Section three "Exploring the Story" invites writerly contemplation. Telling can help with any feeling of the situation not being right. The division of "Decisions, Flags, and the Return" is desperate for imagination to guide one through failure, destruction, losing, decay... and up moments of hope and illumination. Section "Shorts" is light in spite of darkness and draws all strings together. The final section "Haibuns" is a high. Death is there, wind is blowing, and maps recur in their evident significance.  This journey has been mapped and concluded with so much: waiting, deciding, clarifying, traveling, perceiving, linking, inter-relating.  Did the lyric voice achieve his goal of hushing the dead? All of them? You read. You wonder. You decide.

 Colleagues around North America and worldwide:  as the holiday gift-giving season is upon us and this year's library ordering is in full swing, here's another reminder of this opportunity.  For individual enjoyment, class adoptions, and institutional acquisitions.  (Vendor =  Amazon ).

 

All Poetry by Paulo Leminski. Charles A. Perrone and Ivan Justen Santana, translators. Hanover, CT: New London Librarium, 2022.

 

"The release of this translation of Paulo Leminski’s collected poems is a major event. ... If life is a jingle-jangle pile of shards of broken poetry, Leminski is a crack treasure hunter."  Piers Armstrong, Cal Arts. Chásqui 51.2 (2022). On line.

 

"Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of his translators, Leminski now lives in English as

well... The tone, always shifting, is pitch perfect, and the formal fireworks are delightfully replicated... a major achievement ... it reminds us all that the world of poetry is truly global in nature." Earl E. Fitz, Vanderbilt Univ. Chásqui 51.2 (2022). On line.

 

"English readers should celebrate having access to his work ... this collection brings a great new poet to light ... the translators have crafted accessible but aware translations that allow us to hear Leminski distinctly in English. This is a collection that should be on any shelf."  William Allegrezza (MoriaBooks, Moss Trill, Indiana University Northwest). Compulsive Reader(10-02-220).

 

" ... a full banquet ... the translators ... successfully navigate all the challenging currents of Leminski’s inventions... a major, perhaps magical accomplishment, carried out with versatility and creativity, a prime example of what Haroldo de Campos called “transcreation,” or innovative re-writing of an original text... All Poetryshould attract a readership in world literature."  K. David Jackson, Yale University. Review: Latin American Literature and Arts(Spring 2023).

My Fall Equinox post is this image of a manuscript from a few years back:

Marc Zegans, Lyon Street, Bamboo Dart Press (2022), 56 pp. 

One is tempted to invoke some apt epithet from pre-1980 days to characterize this new collection by a veteran multi-tasking artist. His own introduction (preface-foreword-presentation) makes it clear that his 21-poem sequence is an adventure in memory and reminiscence about coming up and belonging in a special place: San Francisco, California, or as we called it as kids, and many (most in the area) still do, The City. In these largely experiential lyrical instances, one is taken to some 30 different locations (hang-outs, parks, clubs, eateries, shorelines; and there is a smartly conceived map with index of it all!) each with its own significance but none more endearing to literarily-inclined readers than the City Lights book store (complete with Ferlinghetti; Williams and Whitman show up later). This passage may evoke municipal illumination and/or suggest The City of Light(s), Paris, where the flâneur of Baudelaire made observant urban wandering a thing.  To be sure, "light" is among the keywords in the overall scheme here. And oh yes, the French connection, which is, by coincidence, in the very title of the book. As for "flowers of evil," a more contemporary version could be "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," present in Lyon Street in different manifestations. First love?, yes; hook-up?, yes; variations?, yes.  The soundscape (musical soundtrack) tends more toward jazz (the subject's stomping grounds included after all North Beach) but there are blues, punk in one title, and flamenco somewhere else (rock is of the literal petrous variety). Listeners should also attend to voices and the crashing of waves, for the ocean and the bay are somehow as important as landmarks. SF is also a city of hills (like Teheran, Athens, Rome, Lisbon) and one must consider topography: the first poem is on a "plunging hill," the last contains "scrubby hills," and the title spot is a tumble of stairs replete with echoes. The visual side of things plays its part; the keen opening poem has fractured lines, open spacing at the end, and falling. Ascent and descent obtain passim. The penultimate poem is where mise-en-page, layout of words and verses, best reflects the ups and downs of this urb. Funny, one of the liveliest pieces takes us to Dead Man's Point, where heights are again, well, the point. Oh, and you will want to notice that all the poem titles (in Fog City Gothic font no less!) are enclosed in oblong outlining (ovals, ellipses, rounded boxes), which nicely suggests both street signage and city blocks. Perfect combo of graphic form and titular content. The final stop is at the seashore (in the sea) not any concrete spot. It is named "Starting" and that, my friends, is a reminder regarding origins and commencement, as well as a hint to go back to the top and re-read the sequence, just as the waves roll in and back out, night becomes day, and day night.    Charles A. Perrone 9/23/22.

 FIRST CHICO BUARQUE is out.

ALL POETRY is out.

DESIGNS (my book of poetry) is OUT,.

See  my page at Amazon books.

 The Fate of Chosen Garb  (per the theme SANTA CRUZ WEIRD)

 

The array of human figures in the environs surrounding 

the municipal wharf is verging on the astounding

Fully bald emboldened gurus bounding forth

Nearly deaf musicians sounding tunes out

Square accountants rounding numbers loudly up

Padres in fresh robes founding new missions

Gardeners grounding wheat on planks of stone

Parents hounding their poorly entertained children

Resounding stellar shapes confounding dumbfounding

Frustrated astrologers left holding bags and pounding

on the lone fisherman's sweater

 The Poet Makes it to Seventy

 

Adriano Espínola

 

translation by Charles A. Perrone

 

For Paulo Henriques Britto, Geraldo Carneiro and Antonio Carlos Secchin

 

 

 

Somewhat nonchalantly

do I turn the corner,

a bit more inclined,

of 70.

 

(Feast of wild wolves, 

of crazy years gone by 

spent quietly on the sly).

 

Someone soon draws closer

and presses on my chest;

an other from me 

comes loose to stay silent.

 

Who are they, I inquire,

my body right next

to the blank wall and spire,

who divide me 

thusly in two,

between dreams of what I was and

the unforeseeable awakened state 

of what comes later?

 

And now I know: 

old friends' shades, hello!

do come light up 

my ancient

temples

and the gestures and signals

that I emit in passage!

 

I exclaim, expectant,

without nostalgia or grief,

upon safe arrival

from the pandemic

and this voyage through time,

castaway from love 

and failures,

by the dock and reef

of my own step-filled mime.

 

 

 

 

Who, I go on to ask them,

invents me

every second

each and every day

upon turning the corner

of 70?

 

A sudden shade obstinately

comes forward to illuminate me.

And it is Nobody.

And it's Odysseus with his sword.

Portuguese explorer and native shaman

in combat on a beach

in the past, beyond reach.

 

Steel, stories, and struggles

in the preterite

(that belong to me as well)

now traversing me,

there by that wall

with the present's flat scrawl,

memory of the future.

 

And now I'm already myself,

I who am naught,

sad creature so content,

weaver of the art of deceit

(that is poetry, 

that strangest of arts

of prodigal amazements),

like a blind man

on a sidewalk,

touching aside apart,

where I am passing by

and where I shall always go.

 

And I arrive 

by dint of some

arcane mischief

at the corner of 

these unexpected years,

being what I am:

a common man,

spinning flesh and earth 

of fateful chance,

70 times in one.

 

 

 

 Two more book news items:  Bloomsbury (NY/London) has already listed my modest monograph FIRST CHICO BUARQUE, which is about his historic 1978 LP. Visuals and blurbs also at Amazon at my author page. The whole album can be heard on Youtube. //  New London Librarium will launch  ALL POETRY PAULO LEMINSKI, which I co-translated with Ivan Justen Santana. 630 poems and some front/back matter too. A real treat for any one who likes daring and varied poetry, and ace English versions. :).

 

 While I am here, let me remind the world that I am an occasional DJ on KSQD FM 90.7 in the Monterey Bay Area and ksqd.org streaming; the web site also has a two-week archive of past broadcasts. I sub for shows like Sounds of Brazil (Monday ten PM-midnite), Calamar en Salsa (Tuesday ten PM-midnite), Puro Pulpo (Thursday ten PM-midnite), Jazz Tracks (Thursday seven-ten PM), Border Free Radio (Sundays 3-5 PM), and ad hoc as needed.  The Squid is a great addition to the radio-wave-scape of our area and www.

 Hey y'all. To celebrate Poetry Month, April, I have published a book I assembled 20+ years ago. It is at Amazon, follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/BLUEPRINTS-FLOORPLANS-PROVISIONAL-RESIDENCE.  You can "Look Inside" at that page. Here is what the covers look like: