The Rosegun

by Alex Gregorio

As sixth-acts predicaments so much endless subsequence makes consequent, the poems in The Rosegun constitute not 'place' but 'states'—transitional forms that grope, with boredom and fascination, desire and disgust, for what hope change might afford to give its subjects, fully inhabiting as they do the existential digression that extreme contemporary life can compel one (as these poems compel one) to feel it always is. Flamboyant yet sharp-eyed, disaffected and nervous, seeking and willful beyond the reaches of its precise irony and confident unappeasability, the speaker in these poems casts out his lines for an anchorage impossible to its own terms, and hits upon the possible where it is probable, dangerous and nowhere.
- Marc Escalona Gaba

Genres: Poetry

52 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is just an okay poetry book for me. No bewildering verses. Nothing here really blew me away. No poem, no images stayed with me when I finally closed this book last night.

In the same fashion that I don't dislike this book. The cover is nice (not the one here on Goodreads. I hope somebody provides the right cover soon): a gun with a rose-shaped smoke coming out of it. On the last page of the book, it says: "The Rosegun" is based on Napoleon Abueva's sculptural piece of a rifle that shoots roses. Abueva is one of the Philippines' National Artist for Sculpture. For my friend Emir, who reads my reviews, he would like me to share a poem that I liked best whenever I read a poetry book. Here's the title poem for you:

THE ROSEGUN

Now pull the trigger
and what is fired
is a flower it must feel
in its belly as strangest.

Like the museum piece
that killed a lover
its metals need oil,
are wood-candied dangers.

It's a lame and gorgeous
vision of our future.

At once owning all shapes
of water, a rising of dough,
its cumming waist now hugs
a moment of your shaking lips.

Soon what you fire are wows-
not-bullets
never the same
and always spectacles.

So shoot delights the world.
Love, it's a brutal of fun.

It's not my favorite though. I shared it because I think you'll like it, Emir. And I think I am missing the message. It looks beautiful and nicely constructed but it just did not sink on me. Most of the poems in this book are, I guess, not for me.

But it is not trashy. Again, it looks nice: the cover, the words and verses in the poem. Even the smooth and thick pages of the book. It is not hard to like it.

[Inverted · Rating 4 out of 5]

In every poem, there is always something that Alex Gregorio manages to unscrew or to leave hanging for dear sense. In a similar way, anything that barely holds is engaging because it cannot be still, and because disaster is most interesting a few seconds before it.

Gregorio's lines become and remain brilliant when they resist completion, a finish, and touch or toy with the possibility of collapsing. The collection ascends whenever he leaves a poem be, flippant and quirky and begging for some necessary attention because it can auto-destruct.