Scott Bryson reviews MLA Chernoff's SCRIED FUNDAMENTS (2022) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of MLA Chernoff's SCRIED FUNDAMENTS (2022) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Chapbook, MLA Chernoff, 20 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $5

The poems in this collection defy conclusive interpretation, but they appear to record a reality that’s now very familiar to most of us: life in lockdown, trapped at home, adrift in thought.

As the “SCRIED” of the title suggests (future-telling via reflective surface), we get a distorted view of this narrative. It’s bent by the crystal ball we’re peering into as much as by the off-kilter discourse of the person who’s speaking. There are enough instances of “our,” “we” and allusions to sex in these poems to suggest that someone is there with Chernoff (assuming Chernoff is the speaking “I”), though we don’t hear from or about this other — only of their shared role in these circumstances.

Chernoff’s mood is somehow both manic and dour, sometimes feverish: “six long months of constant clickery… Every day rides the mucus of a snail… every night is Friday night and Monday / morning put together, burnt out and without end.” Compound words are regularly invented (“hornyscared,” “givingspread”) and a complex vocabulary is employed — you’ll find plenty of obscure terms to look up. A lone snippet of text is repeated here, in the first poem and the last: “I gotta make a decision / leave tonight or live and die this way.” It’s the plainest bit of speech Chernoff uses — a recurring moment of lucidity that never resolves.

SCRIED FUNDAMENTS is attention-grabbing, clever and regularly baffling. It’s sometimes recognizable and sometimes foreign, and though it often seems impossible to decipher, there’s never a dull moment.

Scott Bryson reviews James Hawes' The Hotdog Variations (2021) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of James Hawes' The Hotdog Variations (2021) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

The Hotdog Variations : Chapbook, James Hawes, 14 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $4

Never has “a hotdog with mustard & relish” been so elevated. This humble phrase constitutes the entirety of James Hawes’ chapbook. Poem after poem is built by rearranging — and using all of — the 24 characters of that dog description. Each line and stanza is a jumble of the letters in “a hotdog with mustard & relish.”

For some reason, the word “with” is never altered, always appearing as is. The remaining text shifts into a mix of non-sense — such as “do thog & rast / umd with is a rhel” — as well as strange but sensible verse: “a slide with & through stardom.” Some of these poems, viewed individually, evoke tangible feelings regardless of one’s ability to understand the content. When the reassembled words in a poem are all curt, for example (that done on purpose by Hawes, one would assume), they speak with anger or disgust.

Nearly more interesting than these poems is imagining Hawes’ process. Why a hotdog? Did he use some sort of anagram generator or painstakingly rearrange these letters from scratch? Do the seemingly nonsensical lines make sense to him, in some way? Why no ketchup?

Scott Bryson reviews Derek Beaulieu's CABARET (2020) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Derek Beaulieu's CABARET (2020) over at Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Chapbook, Derek Beaulieu, 14 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $4

It doesn’t take long to grasp the technicality of what this is — in Derek Beaulieu’s words, “symmetrical visual poetry, all using the same typeface.” The stumper is why it’s so hard to turn away from it. Perhaps bewilderment breeds amusement.

Beaulieu’s latest collection of concrete poems begin from central, seemingly random letters or punctuation marks, with like letters radiating out in two directions. It creates something that’s not quite a mirrored image or an inkblot, but the opposite sort of reflection, if there’s a name for that.

After a short time communing with these images, you’ll likely give up trying to decipher what, if anything, the selection or arrangement of letters means. Your focus will turn instead to the method behind the symmetry, as you maddeningly turning the page around and around to see what it looks like from every direction. Satisfied that a symmetry of sorts does exist, you’ll move on to the shape and the typeface, Does it suggest anything? The text is certainly carnivalesque and whimsical, a marquee font if there is one — deserving of the title Cabaret. The smaller designs could be headlines from a performance poster.

In the end, this appears to be more a feast for the eyes than a puzzle to decode. It demands your engagement, which on its own is a desirable achievement.

Scott Bryson reviews rob mclennan’s Poems for Lunch Poems at SFU (2020) in Broken Pencil #88

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of rob mclennan’s Poems for Lunch Poems at SFU (2020) over at Broken Pencil (although he seems not to have actually enjoyed the experience). Thanks so much!

A recent TVO documentary, Tripping the Rideau Canal, is a four-hour, real-time voyage down 27 kilometres of the titular waterway, with historical factoids sprinkled throughout. The vicarious ride is not dissimilar to enjoying a batch of rob mclennan’s poetry – but not because reading his chapbooks feel like four hours.

            The poems in this book were produced for various outlets over the years, compiled here, presumably, for the Lunch Poems reading series at SFU in Vancouver. But they don’t drift too far apart from each other, all tethered to landscape. Location is the paramount concern and there are few people present. “This human activity” is mentioned only distantly, as if it were a foreign concept.

            The phrases in the poems are typically brief and enigmatic. In the collection’s opening poem, mclennan lays out an apt warning (and perhaps a challenge) prefacing the surprising work of inspecting one’s environment: “To break this open, / is to understand the weather.”

Scott Bryson reviews Derek Beaulieu’s tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018) in Broken Pencil #81

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Derek Beaulieu’s tattered sails (after un coup de des) (2018) in Broken Pencil #81. Thanks so much! It reads:

1969: Belgian poet Marcel Broodthaers reimagines French poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un Coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard (1897), replacing all of its text with solid black bars. The homage is an attempt to amplify Mallarmé’s inventive utilization of space.

            2018: Derek Beaulieu takes Broodthaers’ work and folds it, shifting the horizontal bars, he says, into “the hang and fold of sails on the mast… heaving beams and broken masts of a ship-wreck of meaning.” Beaulieu’s nautical approach is evidently inspired by Mallarmé’s original, which was heavy on upheaval, ship-wrecks, and the movement of water.

            This far removed from its original state, the altered Mallarmé material is more about associations, evolution, and performance than it is about poetry. If you’re not willing to dive into the history of tattered sails, you’re not getting much more than slanted black lines. As a stand-alone work, meaning is obscured – the value is in the voyage.

            In circling back to the initial text thematically, Beaulieu has provided us a closing chapter – that we didn’t know we needed – for a process that was launched 120 years ago.

Scott Bryson reviews Sarah Cook's SOMEWHERE THE / SHAKING (2017) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Sarah Cook's SOMEWHERE THE / SHAKING (2017) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here. As Bryson writes:

Somewhere The / Shaking
Chapbook, Sarah Cook, 26 pgs, above/ground press,abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $5

Poetry that marks the end of a relationship is rarely refreshing; a considerable amount of detachment is required to prevent a slide from introspection into lamentation.

Sarah Cook ably manages that vital objectivity while inside her head, or inside her house (or a house she built with her words). She coins a term early in Somewhere The / Shaking that describes her starting point: “the ingrained estate of being.”

Locations and items in the house act as emissaries for her moods, memories and failures. Each poem is titled with one: “Door,” “Front Porch,” “Bed Frame.” The desk is an especially ominous presence — a constant reminder of a failure to accomplish. Cook’s lack of motivation is evident and she acknowledges it: “i pretend to not have questions, to be a fan of waiting… Googled the definition of the word, ‘eager.’”

This is a claustrophobic collection; there’s a pervading feeling of emptiness in Cook’s house. She’s the only one present — though she often refers to an unnamed other — and we spend as much time in her thoughts as we do in the physical space. Much of this is cryptic, but some of Cook’s enigmatic questions come across as profound (and ultimately rhetorical): “what is a moment when it’s more than the word? … why do I confuse bodies with answers?”

Scott Bryson reviews Kyle Flemmer's ASTRAL PROJECTION (2017) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide a second review of Kyle Flemmer's ASTRAL PROJECTION (2017) in Broken Pencil, after Greg Bem's review of the same over at Yellow Rabbits. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Reading this collection tends to produce the sensation that you’re in the thick of that old Atari game, Asteroids. Stanzas — fragments, really — are spread around the page like tumbling space rocks.

While the disjointed text makes for a more entertaining read, it can also be difficult at times. It’s not always easy to tell which direction your eyes should be heading. The clunky formatting choices are obviously meant to mirror the subjects of Kyle Flemmer’s poems: 24 Themis, 87 Sylvia, 10 Hygiea and their brethren — the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

In addition to remarking on the asteroids’ location and makeup — “Note the / sublimated surface / ice” — Flemmer explores the origins of their names, in Greek mythology: “Rhea Silvia: / vestal virgin / mother of twins / (by a war god).” It brings the asteroids to life, and assigns motivation to their actions in space: “She has the brightest radar / albedo in the asteroid belt… & if anyone dared / become immortal / it would be she.”

The creativity in this collection lies more in the arrangement of the text than in the text itself — much of this is readily available information. The chapbook’s title doesn’t make an appearance until the very end, but the way Flemmer marries science with mythology is his way of carrying out a sort of astral projection. There’s more going on here than meets the eye.

Scott Bryson reviews Sarah Swan's Domestica (2017) in Broken Pencil

Not the most gushing of reviews (and he seems to acknowledge a nuance he also completely misses), Scott Bryson has provided the first review of Sarah Swan's Domestica (2017) in Broken Pencil. You can see the original review here.

Domestica Chapbook, Sarah Swan, 24 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $4

Domestica is a title that manages to conjure elegance and tedium at the same time, and that dichotomy is mirrored in Sarah Swan’s verse. In subsequent breaths, she compares her children’s “clear and clean” faces to icebergs in a Lawren Harris painting, then finds herself swept up by a wave of monotony as she pulls them down the sidewalk in a wagon, “grey square after grey square / after / solemn / grey / square.”

This collection is only half homebody musings; the riskiest — and most rewarding — section of Domestica is a numbered series of poems, all titled “Childhood.” Each does little more than list items, scenes or events that are presumably all from Swan’s youth. It’s a recipe for idiosyncrasy, but that line is never crossed; Swan’s choices for the lists consistently breed familiarity, at least for this reader: “The squat green / rotary telephone. // Porridge and / molasses. // Burrs / stuck / on my / sweater.”

If you’re looking for uncomplicated, mater-of-fact poetry, this one’s a safe bet. There’s nothing veiled, here — what you see is what you get — but Swan doesn’t sacrifice subtlety or nuance.

Scott Bryson reviews Neil Flowers' TAXICAB VOICE (2016) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Neil Flowers' TAXICAB VOICE (2016) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here.

Taxicab Voice Chapbook, Neil Flowers, 12 pgs, above/ground press, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com, $5 

 The 5.5 x 8.5 inch format favoured by above/ground press was waived for this collection; Taxicab Voice is a comparably enormous 8.5 by 11. It was presumably the author’s preference, and while it could be owing to the length of a couple of these poems, Neil Flowers may also have been looking to make this resemble a song book. Most of this writing involve music, in one form or another, and it’s all dedicated to Bill Hawkins, a recently-deceased Canadian folk musician and poet.

Much of Taxicab Voice speaks from the perspective of Hawkins, and it’s possible that it’s entirely about him — a narration of the about-town and on-the-road life of a Canadian bard. If the two men weren’t friends, they were at least acquaintances — both inhabited the Ottawa poetry scene of the early ’70s, and Flowers included Hawkins’ writing in an anthology in 1973.

There’s a particular term that appears repeatedly throughout this collection, loosely tying its poems together: “starfuckers” (in multiple forms). In one instance, it refers to groupies, as seen from Hawkins’ perspective: the “Women with rainbows for eyes.” Later, the label is assigned to someone who picks up Hawkins after his car breaks down: “Who comes to your rescue? / Creeley. / Star Fucker!” (referencing poet Robert Creeley). Flowers’ carefree use of such language paints an amusing image of that fulsome circle of artists.

Scott Bryson reviews Elizabeth Robinson's Simplified Holy Passage (2015) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to review Elizabeth Robinson's Simplified Holy Passage (2015) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the review here. This is actually the second review of Robinson's chapbook, after Pearl Pirie wrote about such here. As Bryson writes:

A pleasant continuity inhabits these poems — like a snowball rolling downhill, collecting and growing. Themes and explicit notions resurface frequently, often deliberately, but sometimes surreptitiously.

When you catch those veiled recurrences, it’s like Elizabeth Robinson is giving you a knowing wink — you’re in on her scheme. She even drops in round-about references to her methods: “The question is how one can pick up a process and continue it after / an interruption. If that is even possible.”

Robinson’s tone is reliably confessional and conversational. Most of this reads like a journal — poems are titled “Day 1,” “Day 2,” etc. — though it often comes across as a letter. She’s directly addressing a particular person that she’s imagining reading it.

Structurally, these poems are succinct. They consist of small stanzas that are usually no more than one to three lines. There’s little need for embellishment; Robinson’s phrases read like they have weight behind them — like she’s close to uncovering something profound.

She also possesses some inexplicable means of drawing investment out of a reader. In short order, you begin to care about her experiences. The final poem, “Unnumbered days later,” works like the epilogue of a film, when you’re shown — for your own peace of mind — that after the trials and tribulations, lessons were learned and everything worked out.

Scott Bryson reviews Robert Hogg's from Lamentations (2016) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to review Robert Hogg's from Lamentations (2016) in Broken Pencil. Thanks much! This is actually the second review of Hogg's chapbook, after Rebecca Anne Banks reviewed such over at Subterranean Blue Poetry. You can see Bryson's review here. As he writes:

You need to be a few pages deep in this collection before its title begins to make sense. It opens with a two-page freestyle that pays tribute to the late Western actor, Roy Rogers, then moves to a childhood memory of Robert Hogg sitting atop a horse himself. The mood is predominantly upbeat until Hogg drops the lines “who took this photo / probably mom dead now,” and the material begins its shift into the advertised lamentation direction.

That Rogers elegy aside, Hogg’s lines are rarely more than two to four words long, and his phrases are continually interrupted. The stilted reading that results is almost like someone trying to talk through sobs — getting out a few words with each breath. This brevity, as well as Hogg’s plainspoken approach, is reminiscent of award-winning British Columbia poet, Tom Wayman. Where Wayman tackled the toll of work, Hogg examines the weight of death and loss.

The best poems in this collection recognize loss while celebrating (sometimes flippantly) what comes before and after. The stand-out piece, “Summer of Sixty- three,” sees Hogg longing for estranged friends and the good old days, when he and his comrades — smoking joints and listening to jazz records — “expected / to die the next day get busted or live forever talking poetry.”

Scott Bryson reviews Renée Sarojini Saklikar's After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees (2016) in Broken Pencil

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of Renée Sarojini Saklikar's After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees (2016) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the review here. As he writes:

There has never been a Battle of Kingsway, in a literal sense. Kingsway, in this case, is a thoroughfare that runs through Vancouver and Burnaby, and Renée Sarojini Saklikar — Surrey, British Columbia’s first Poet Laureate — has drafted a virtual battle along its length (plus, there are bees).

These poems all appear to be connected and loosely plotted. There are recurring and curiously-named characters — (A)bigail, the INVESTIGATOR is one such example — but their function isn’t always clear; this is not transparent verse. While the events depicted are open to interpretation, it’s evident that Saklikar is draping a historical veil over modern concerns, such as community housing issues and protests.

What this collection portrays more than anything, is the streets and parklands of Vancouver. Significant time is spent dissecting plant and animal life — including several varieties of bee — but the talk on wildlife reliably gives way to urban locales: tennis courts; a lab; shops on Robson Street.

After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees is excerpted from thecanadaproject, Saklikar’s “life- long poem chronicle about place, identity, language.” It’s an effortless read — her style is studious but smooth — though comprehension of the bigger picture will require ongoing contemplation.

Scott Bryson reviews rob mclennan’s The Rose Concordance (2015) in Broken Pencil #71

Scott Bryson was good enough to provide the first review of rob mclennan’s The Rose Concordance (2015) online, forthcoming in Broken Pencil #71 (with the review itself online here). Thanks so much! Although, by the by, this is not an ode to new parenthood in the way he suggests (he does presume a bit, I think); my daughter Kate arrived twenty-three years earlier...

Children are a disruptive force, as rob mclennan recently discovered. After the birth of his daughter, Rose, he found he rarely had time to write anything more than an “occasional stand-alone line” of poetry. Undeterred, he gathered some of those fragments for this chapbook. The Rose Concordance is mclennan’s ode to his daughter, and a meditation on his first few months as a parent, which were predominantly consumed by the study of Rose’s napping patterns (“sleep: her daily nemesis”), and his own futile quest for “u((n)in)t(e)rr((u)pte)d )s(l))ee)p.” The fragments mclennan included may have disjointed origins, but he’s married them into a focused (though sometimes abstract) commentary on new-parenthood. There’s a 2009 poetry collection by Angela Carr that’s also named The Rose Concordance, but the two books appear to be unrelated. Carr’s work was influenced by the 13th century poem, “The Romance of the Rose,” by Guillaume de Lorris. If you want to draw a parallel, however, mclennan is engaging in the stated purpose of “The Romance of the Rose,” to a degree: to teach others about the Art of Love. This collection is a love affair, though it’s the love of a parent for a child, rather than the saucier 13th century sort. is brief, but memorable. It’ll elicit both giggles — “When baby spits up supplement, it makes the / formula cows cry” — and a knowing nod from anyone who’s had children.