LETTER OF MARQUE: ARTICLE THE THIRTY-SEVENTH

It is Winter | Jeff Fleming

Poetry
34 pages
5 ½” x 8 ½” photocopied chapbook
Nibble Press
nibblepoems[at]gmail[dot]com

This poetry chapbook is a short read, more of a novelty of one story arc than a full-on chapbook collection. The story is uncertain, intentionally vague, as if we are getting the same glimpses of the pieces as the characters, themselves. It's set up to read as a continuous piece, with each poem labeled in order as prologue, chapter one, chapter two, and so on down to epilogue. To read a poem out of order here would not do justice to the full body of work.

The story is written in third person with a “she,” whose viewpoint is most followed, and a “he,” whose viewpoint is more vague. The prologue and epilogue, however, are written in the first person, seemingly from the male perspective, and seem to tie in as endnotes in the here and now, like a voyeur harking back on a bygone tale or watching it unfold in a film that he is lost within. He might be the man on the pages sandwiched between the bookends, or he might just be a spectator; we'll never fully know, but he seems to know far more of the story than he's letting on. What we do know is that there is constant tension from the onset,

[ ... ]
you said later

you forgot throwing me out
couldn't hear the pounding

my fists on the door
but i know

when the fury comes
you hear everything  (from “merry goddamn christmas”)

everything is wintry,

[ ... ]
the moon was cracked ice

[ ... ]  (from “merry goddamn christmas”)

[ ... ] winter
clouds make
their way
across his vision

[ ... ]  (from “calling out”)

[ ... ]
through a fog
of falling snow
flakes like bullets

[ ... ]  (from “small drifts”)

and the woman has clearly pulled the trigger on the man. He is believed to be dead, although we never actually see him die on the pages. But through the pages, we watch her fade with the torment, the guilt, and the freedom. She is mysterious. The gunshot is mysterious. We don't know what happened, what triggered it, if you will. But like a succulent piece of flash fiction that gives a reader only a snippet of the full story, we take the journey and accept the torment.

I'll leave you with my favorite piece in its entirety, “her mouth a line”:

she thinks
of him
every year
when the first
heavy snow
covers the fields
and strong
impulses drive
birds south

she believes
they are both
better off

•This book was sent to me from the author because I have corresponded with him.•
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LETTER OF MARQUE: ARTICLE THE FIFTEENTH

Falling Up | Jeff Fleming

Poetry
20 pages
5 ½“ x 8 ½“ chapbook
Nibble Press
Oakland CA USA
nibblepoems [at] gmail [dot] com
$3

This short chapbook reads as one continuous poem divided into chapters, wherein one poem and title represents one full chapter, one move forward in the story of a strange almost-love, the pull of emotions in many directions, disjointed and sparse, leaving you to fill in the blanks with a romantic or tragic weaving of your choosing.

The book is very blue, right away it looks a sorrowful journey, featuring a girl with her hand on a window, looking at and almost touching spots of stars or lightning bugs or raindrops or a sci-fi stream of alien static. The characters inside are just as melancholy and spotted, as this could have easily been a set of poems inspired by the cover picture or one close to it; two wayward characters, equally as lost together or apart, finding each other and losing each other, as cryptic in their interactions as the poems are to us. You don't know much about the characters, yet you feel you know them well or have seen them in the mirrors of lobbies and purse compacts or in the sordid affairs of neighbors and estranged lovers.

On the technical side, Fleming's poems are very narrative, telling more than showing, lots of good similes, not too experimental, just very crisp and point-driven. And he knows how to give you an ending line. Here are a couple of my favorites:

From “Chapter Three: Here to Ride Me Home”:

[ ... ]

Petra nods and begins
walking. Paolo follows
like a slow wake.

From “Chapter Six: Hiding Her Flesh”:

[ ... ] rises
from the crippled
chair and tips
the cap
he isn't wearing.

On the negative side, I'm not a fan of the entire book being in a slanted font with little serifs on every letter, as it didn't look as polished as a cleaner, blockier font. It looked great for the titles, but didn't set the titles apart as much. Another question arises with the presentation of a phantom “you” in the first couple poems, who is unnamed and later disappears. There are clearly two characters in this story we are following; we understand the “he” and the “she,” but then occasionally, the person shifts, and there is a random “you” thrown in. Someone I cannot pinpoint, and someone I don't think is supposed to be there. Maybe a quick brush-up rewrite could edit this “person” out, although you might have to be an editor even to notice.

Jeff's work subtly eats you. Nothing shouts abruptly here, but in the quietest way, Fleming gets under your skin to make you want to grab someone you love and not let go, as you figure out all the intricacies of being, tumbling through it, awkward and strange.

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

Nibble #8 | Various Authors

Poetry by various authors
28 pages
5 ½” x 8 ½” chapbook
Available here

The joy of nibble comes in knowing that editor Jeff Fleming is psycho about his craft and the words he chooses. He lets very few, but only the best, poems squeak by his honed radar, and the ones that pass are usually damn squeaky (... and I'm not just saying that because I have two, count ’em TWO! poems in this issue or because I adore the editor, but also ...) because nibble never fails, which is why I have two poems in this issue and adore the editor.

nibble. just. doesn't. fail.

My only complaint is that I wish it were longer. Every single issue I think this same thing, I always just wish each one were longer. As a concept various-author chap with the idea being all poems are 20 lines or fewer, hence the chap's title, each issue can be a bit of a breeze-through, albeit a very decent and enjoyable breeze-through.

This issue kicks right off with me (!), can't complain about that, with a poem that Jeff liked the first two lines of so much that he apparently made it the first in the book. I'll go ahead and give my sore back a pat for that because that's a big honor coming from him. The poems here are fairly mysterious, often just snippets of a scene or a moment, intense descriptions of a tiny second, not always complete, not always cohesive, but always vividly poetic, leaving you wanting more, poking your imagination through the ear with a cake tester.

There are many greats and many should-be-greats in this issue, as with every one that came before; the Ed Galing poem is the best I've read from him in a long time, which should have some weight coming from a press that published about twenty of his chapbooks; the staples are here: A. D. Winans, Normal, justin.barrett; and Father Luke's poem is probably my favorite from him that he's written so far, perfectly sad, touching, honest.

Some stand out gems:

From “Consumption” by Kip Knott:

[ ... ]
It meant everything then,
and I would carry the evidence
with me the next day like burns.
[ ... ]

From “Facsimile” by Jenifer Wills:

[ ... ]
In her eyes the sun shines stubborn, casts
the shadow of a smile amidst the bronchitis cough
that persists, pulls at the hem of her skirts
as she works. Born from this sorrow,
a compression explosion, broken glass
and breakfast is served.

And my favorite of the issue, in its entirety and from an author who never fails to amaze, “Planting (for Kaya)” by Rebecca Schumejda:

As your father pushes soil over seeds,
you dig them back up.

“No,” leads to a tantrum
on top of where the summer squash will grow.

Since your father knows how much
of who we are gets planted early;

he wraps explanations
around your trembling body.

In the background, I attack weeds
suffocating roses,

the way I suspect my mother would have
under similar circumstances.

There is another gem here, as well: a poem by a high schooler with Down's Syndrome, and your first reaction is Really? But when you read it, the simple way it flows together, you just collapse into Yes, really. The poem fits perfectly, proving that when it comes to great words, nothing has to matter except great words; and kudos to Jeff for stepping beyond a stereotype and not airing differences or age like a CNN plug. Flows and works perfectly and makes the heart feel warm and fuzzy.

All in all, excellent issue, as always ... It just ends too soon.

•This book was sent to me from the editor/publisher because I have corresponded with him and because I have two poems printed in the issue.•
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