LETTER OF MARQUE: ARTICLE THE THIRTY-FIFTH

ZYX #63 | Various Authors

ZYX is an old school, zine-style literary rag, photocopied and corner stapled, compiled by hand, and featuring editorials, reviews, and poetry from the small press. It comes out every couple of months and showcases some of the best (and some of the most underappreciated) poetic talent in the indie press. Many of the poets are older and not from the digital generation, so this is an outlet to find a lot of awesome, rare work that you can’t find plastered all over the Internet. This little zine is a paper-only, snail-mail publication. And that makes me smile.

The issues always start off with an editorial, journalistic-style rant, or story by editor Arnold Skemer, and they’re usually quite profound (although often laced with tension). Then we segue into reviews of other small-press books, and then into the poetic submissions by others. In this issue, we have: Normal, Alan Catlin, Nathan Whiting, David Stone, J. J. Campbell, B. Z. Niditch, Guy R. Beining, Jean Esteve, Richard Kostelanetz, Simon Perchik, The Poet Spiel, and David Chorlton, with several pieces by each. There is some of the absurd here, as this zine is not afraid to take on experimental work. Excellent outlet to see a sampling of all kinds of work, seriously. And the poem, “softly and tenderly home: a trilogy” by The Poet Spiel is so painfully good that it is worth every red cent this journal costs. (Not that the cost will bleed you, just sayin’.)

My favorite snippets from this issue:

[ ... ]
Somewhere the ghost of Johnny Appleseed is being
Sodomized by the ghost of Walt Whitman unnoticed
In the fields of Gettysburg
Somewhere a hummingbird has taught a madman how to
Forget himself
[ ... ]  (from “The Other Side of Each Hour” by Normal)

[ ... ] Wandering leads to quarry’s
edge, derelict chalk mines, earth moved to make
cement, acres of residual dust, empty huts,
communal centers, workers’ itinerant shacks
left empty when work stopped, equipment was
left to rust, the holes filled with a pasty
accumulation of rain, squalid breeding grounds
for insect larvae skimmed by oils, residues,
a legacy left by thieving landlords, robber barons,
for those unable to move on, those cursed to have
contracted a post-industrial disease of seeing;
where a match strikes water, it burns.  (from “D. H. Lawrence and The Man Who Died” by Alan Catlin)

[ ... ]
Do you collect injuries?
Gems are easier to inherit,
not that we care if our heirs wear
our injuries or our gems.  (from “Health” by Nathan Whiting)

[ ... ]

god’s away on
business and all
the good soldiers
are busy with
virgins

[ ... ]  (from “the letters to santa” by J. J. Campbell)

[ ... ]

how the troops return minus one
sometimes two or more somehow they return
each tour of duty he’s made it back home
     respiring through his tongue like a spent dog

he gets smacked with wet cheers and balloons
but he cannot recall those who greet him
and he does not trust hands that grope him
and the blare of the band spooks him
how eyes in the back of his head
     weigh each twitch in the ruckus
but he doesn’t know which way is home

[ ... ]  (from “softly and tenderly home: a trilogy; the homecoming” by The Poet Spiel)

Now, aren’t you convinced? If you want to see what the independent press is all about, this is the real deal. There’s no price listed, but if you send $2, or maybe just $1 and a #10 SASE with a Forever stamp if $2 breaks you, to the address above, I’m sure you can get a copy.



•This book was sent to me from the publisher because I have corresponded with him.•
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LETTER OF MARQUE: ARTICLE THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

Suicide Porn | J. J. Campbell

Poetry

44 pages

5 ½” x 8 ½” chapbook

Interior Noise Press

Available at interiornoisepress.com

$8.00

Even though the polished, glossy cover with trimmed page edges on laid paper makes this collection of poetry look like a pretty package, the title alone should let you know what to expect from Campbell: raw, gritty, truthful poems from the estranged underbelly of healthy and happy society. This book is not to be read by the flower girls and lovely poetesses of the soft, functioning world, nor by the sick at heart with razors resting nearby, but it should be devoured by those who crave a dark truth.

The poems are fairly dismal, dealing with a lack of direction in life,

“mission accomplished”:

[ ... ]

i remember when

i was 13 i never

wanted to grow

up

now in my mid

30's

mission

accomplished

physical pain, talk of death, questioning of faith, music therapy, being overweight, and other unpleasant dark topics, yet interspersing them with talk of finding love and maintaining quite a bit of wicked humor throughout the hard times. There are many juxtapositions that show the complexity of this often-sad man, such as his apparent sadistic pleasure in not caring about the happiness of his own family, yet caring very deeply with heavy remorse and understanding for a fellow peer who is in distress and also suicidal, as if the mirrored understood pain almost makes it more real and sympathetic to him than his own family's feelings.  

He often uses winter and nature's harshness as a metaphor for his own cold pain and constant struggle, as in

“seven kittens”:

[ ... ]

i'm refusing to

name them until

they make it

through a winter

outdoors

[ ... ]

i figure whoever

makes it to march

will be blessed

with a name they'll

never understand

anyway

[ ... ]

and

“like it nearly had a meaning”:

[ ... ]

those deep dark pools

of regret

remorse

unrequited love

winter was settling in

the winds bringing the

harsh chill of death to

your door

[ ... ]

and uses death in nature and the failing of crops due to unforeseen natural conditions as a symbolism of his own slow decay and human failings in his own surroundings, as in

“lost on the other side of the horizon”:

[ ... ]

i've watched a

potentially good

crop of corn and

soybeans turn to

dust right before

my eyes

[ ... ].

This book also touches on love, sex, women, finding the right partner, the ups

“like a fading kiss”:

[ ... ]

she had the eyes

of the ancient

dead greeks

[ ... ]

and the downs

“your wall of regret”:

[ ... ]

all the while i still

believe my love for

you exists for a reason

but anytime i try to

express that you run

off to swim with the

shallow end of the

gene pool

[ ... ]

and the spaces in between where love is concerned. But J. J.'s love and emotions run deep and inconsistent, more human than most poets who write even the greatest words of true love. While many of the topics and words of this book deal with dark, quiet, obstinate pain, you would do yourself a misdeed to mistake the darkness for utter brutality. Because out of that darkness comes a perverse and savage sense of humor that makes the wicked, uncouth mind laugh right out loud in unexpected delight. And that's where Campbell becomes a genius; he has the ability to take agonizing situations and make them realistically, yet inhumanely, funny and charming. I'll end this review with a few of my favorite humorous, if sadistic, passages:

“within fives minutes of entering the supermarket”:

standing in the beer

aisle wondering if the

imported shit is really

worth four extra dollars

when this attractive

black woman fell to

the floor

my first inclination

was to laugh

[ ... ]

i settled for domestic

[ ... ]

and

“up by the big barn”:

[ ... ]

do you wanna see it?

the yankees just got swept

i've got a stack of rejection

letters and my fantasy baseball

teams have gone to shit

of course i want to see it

[ ... ]

and

“deer makes a nice stew”:

every time i mow the

grass out here on the

farm the deer that lives

in the front woods pokes

its head out and stares

at me

the kind of stare that

comes off to me as he's

asking just who the fuck

am i to disrupt his day

[ ... ].

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. You might just save J. J.'s life and keep him alive to write another.

•This book was purchased from the author because I have corresponded with him.•
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