What do you think?
Rate this book
The Noise That Is Not You
- GenresPoetry
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
16 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 31, 2017
I start all my reviews with the caveat that not everyone is going to enjoy everything out there, and book reviews are subjective. With that, I want to talk about nationally acclaimed poet, slam poet, performer, and apparently writer, Jesse Parent, and his book, The Noise That Is Not You.
I’m not a huge fan of slam poetry—there are a lot of good performers out there, but live and in person, I’ve watched too many slam poetry competitions, and the poets I hear seem to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about childhood trauma or some other socially-hip issue-cum-hardship with which they personally struggle; issues that pander to the crowd. I dislike pandering, both as a writer, and a reader. It’s extremely off-putting.
I also find that “slam” often doesn’t translate well to the page, and must be performed to be enjoyed.
There are notable exceptions, such as Andrea Gibson, and other poets’ works found at Write Bloody Publications but Parent eclipses most, if not all of them with his striking use of imagery that is both accessible and intelligent.
He has something that I admire in some of my favorite writers and poets—something to which I aspire myself—and that is the ability to yank your “humanity-strings,” rather than the more manipulative heartstrings: as a comparison, think chick-flicks like Jerry McGuire and Terms of Endearment v. The Wrestler and End of the Tour, the latter two being a couple of my favorite movies w/r/t their ability to show the humanity in ordinary people and things, without the melodrama and obvious afore mentioned heart-string-yanks.
Jesse articulates one of the reasons for my dislike of slam poets in his poem, “Waiting for Your Turn,” but unlike me, using my words as a balled fist in an upper-cut, Parent calls out other poets in the way of a gentle, guiding, father figure, showing his rambunctious and impatient child how to show gratitude; how to be gracious despite the eager, solipsistic child’s desire to take over the spotlight. He shows respect by showing, respectfully, that by truly listening to the words poured onto a page, then out on stage can teach volumes more than what your own mind conceives and puts to paper. He carefully crafts his words to chide, ever so slightly, poets/performers who want to stage their exploits, while simultaneously exploiting the stage, and shows them how to be respectful and have regard for other performers.
The first read through of The Noise… I knew I was in trouble when the first three poems had me in tears. I expected some tears with “Mother,” but then I thought I was safe with the poem about comic books, “Heirlooms.” Nope. He managed to tell us all about his childhood without telling us anything other than his grand yet humble hopes for his son. The reenactment of his own childhood hurts—reconceived by him, as a father with his son—to make them into triumphs. Masterfully written, and god dammit if I wasn’t bawling at the end.
It takes a lot to make me tear up—if I even get a whiff of emotional manipulation, I turn cold. Parent employs the “Tears of a Clown” device I love in other writers, and I often employ in my own writing: one minute, the reader is laughing, the next, BAM! a gut-punch that leaves them breathless and red-eyed. And sometimes, Parent brings you back to laughter again, all in the same poem, like in “Pez.”
There’s no way I can do, “To the Boys Who Will One Day Date My Daughter,” justice. On stage, on the page, doesn’t matter, Parent whacks us, and in the process, has us laughing through the familiar trope of the “over-protective father” routine, but in a fresh way that sets it apart from every attempt before and since.
He shows us this, and more, not just the love fathers have for their daughters, but specifically, Parent’s love for all his kids, and his obvious passion for being a good father. He makes me wish I had a dad just like him, growing up. The line “…you can’t make Fire afraid” will probably go down as one of the greatest poetic lines spoken by a slam poet. In fact, someone had that line tattooed on his body, and that, right there, shows you the power of Parent’s words and voice: that a person wants them imbued into his very skin, for all Time.
In another poem, “The Mythology of Fatherhood,” he sums it up with these powerful, simple words, “…realizing, over time, that you have something/someone/worth dying for./ Dawning on you/that if you don’t die before they do/it’ll kill you.”
I will say here that I have the pleasure of knowing Jesse personally, but we’ve not spent huge amounts of time together—we’re casual friends, nothing more— but the man is a stand-up guy, and yeah, pun intended.
But you don’t need to meet him to know that Jesse is a remarkable human being. From his writing, whether it’s about his family, or how he writes about himself personally, he has a way that is both self-deprecating and yet uplifting to everyone around him, thus redeeming himself in the process. We are never left feeling the yucky, emotionally manipulative “poor me” readers (like me) oftentimes feel when poets spiral into that “victim consciousness” with their work. So Jesse deprecates, uplifts, and redeems, all in the same breath, line, stanza, poem.
Parent writes so honestly about himself, it aches. Like opening a floodgate of your own humanity as you read. Women think they’ve cornered the market on “cultural beauty standards of perfection,” but Parent reveals his own struggles in the poem “Dysmorphia.” Parent shows us that even men suffer from not only the shallow depictions and facsimiles of human perfection in the media, but within their own ideas of masculinity, virility, attractiveness, and youth, as it slips away from us all, eventually.
I’ve neglected the humor in this review, and I can’t—God these poems are hilarious. “Miss You” and “Meat-Eating Vegan” had me howling. The misdirection of lost love to lost hairline is fresh, funny, and clever.
The arc of the entire collection is smooth, taking us from mothers’ arms to children and parenting, family and grandparents, through madness—just a hint, not overdone, not victim-y, which is, as I’ve said, the ultimate turn-off for me with slam poetry—through the testosterone-filled thoughts of a brawler.
Parent delves into topics that, what the world calls—the ultimate marginalization, IMO but hey, why not? Tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye—the “straightwhitecismale,” is NOT allowed to delve into: the non-minority male ego and withering self-image that these human beings aren’t supposed to experience because of the afore mentioned status.
He would get “crucified” in today’s cultural climate for the poem “Catholic School Girls,” and yet, the word-play and satire, as well as the tongue-in-cheek rebelliousness against the ultra-feminist rhetoric had me cheering for how ballsy he is/was to grab it by the skirt and say, “I am MALE, hear me roar!” We don’t get to hear that anymore, and it saddens me that in order for certain voices to feel as though they are finally being heard, they must quash other voices who traditionally had the majority of attention and time on stage. There are enough stages for all of us. Every voice, experience, and person matters--and does not take away from anyone else's unless you allow it.
Parent touches on his roots, and the socially repudiated sense of “uniqueness” within a group of people bent on conforming to their own brand of tribal “non-individuality” as individuals! Reminding me of the movie, The Incredibles, when the evil little villain, Syndrome, says, “If everyone is super, no one will be.” Parent tackles racism in his poem “Loud”—an eggshell walkway for anyone who is not a PoC in today’s climate—and does it deftly and with the humanity of a man filled with what every good writer must have: empathy and compassion.
In his final, self-deprecatory piece, “Why I Hate List Poems,” his denouement roundly applauds the art of poetry, writing, humanity, and humor, wrapped, numbered, as perfectly as the list can be, in an actual list.
I do not “polish with soft cloths of kind words” when it comes to book reviews. I do not polish Jesse Parent’s ego when I say this collection has more heart than anything I’ve read in a long time…well, I RE-read.
Jesse, "you had me at" page 1 (haha). The first read thru, I didn’t review. Wasn’t as tech-review-savvy as I should have been back then. Shame on me. But I got to re-read this gem of a collection, and I promise you, it is absolutely worth every word, because he speaks truth through laughter and tears, just like the crux of anything worthwhile in art.
"And that…
That is the magic."
—"The Mythology of Fatherhood,” The Noise That Is Not You, by Jesse Parent
I’m not a huge fan of slam poetry—there are a lot of good performers out there, but live and in person, I’ve watched too many slam poetry competitions, and the poets I hear seem to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about childhood trauma or some other socially-hip issue-cum-hardship with which they personally struggle; issues that pander to the crowd. I dislike pandering, both as a writer, and a reader. It’s extremely off-putting.
I also find that “slam” often doesn’t translate well to the page, and must be performed to be enjoyed.
There are notable exceptions, such as Andrea Gibson, and other poets’ works found at Write Bloody Publications but Parent eclipses most, if not all of them with his striking use of imagery that is both accessible and intelligent.
He has something that I admire in some of my favorite writers and poets—something to which I aspire myself—and that is the ability to yank your “humanity-strings,” rather than the more manipulative heartstrings: as a comparison, think chick-flicks like Jerry McGuire and Terms of Endearment v. The Wrestler and End of the Tour, the latter two being a couple of my favorite movies w/r/t their ability to show the humanity in ordinary people and things, without the melodrama and obvious afore mentioned heart-string-yanks.
Jesse articulates one of the reasons for my dislike of slam poets in his poem, “Waiting for Your Turn,” but unlike me, using my words as a balled fist in an upper-cut, Parent calls out other poets in the way of a gentle, guiding, father figure, showing his rambunctious and impatient child how to show gratitude; how to be gracious despite the eager, solipsistic child’s desire to take over the spotlight. He shows respect by showing, respectfully, that by truly listening to the words poured onto a page, then out on stage can teach volumes more than what your own mind conceives and puts to paper. He carefully crafts his words to chide, ever so slightly, poets/performers who want to stage their exploits, while simultaneously exploiting the stage, and shows them how to be respectful and have regard for other performers.
The first read through of The Noise… I knew I was in trouble when the first three poems had me in tears. I expected some tears with “Mother,” but then I thought I was safe with the poem about comic books, “Heirlooms.” Nope. He managed to tell us all about his childhood without telling us anything other than his grand yet humble hopes for his son. The reenactment of his own childhood hurts—reconceived by him, as a father with his son—to make them into triumphs. Masterfully written, and god dammit if I wasn’t bawling at the end.
It takes a lot to make me tear up—if I even get a whiff of emotional manipulation, I turn cold. Parent employs the “Tears of a Clown” device I love in other writers, and I often employ in my own writing: one minute, the reader is laughing, the next, BAM! a gut-punch that leaves them breathless and red-eyed. And sometimes, Parent brings you back to laughter again, all in the same poem, like in “Pez.”
There’s no way I can do, “To the Boys Who Will One Day Date My Daughter,” justice. On stage, on the page, doesn’t matter, Parent whacks us, and in the process, has us laughing through the familiar trope of the “over-protective father” routine, but in a fresh way that sets it apart from every attempt before and since.
He shows us this, and more, not just the love fathers have for their daughters, but specifically, Parent’s love for all his kids, and his obvious passion for being a good father. He makes me wish I had a dad just like him, growing up. The line “…you can’t make Fire afraid” will probably go down as one of the greatest poetic lines spoken by a slam poet. In fact, someone had that line tattooed on his body, and that, right there, shows you the power of Parent’s words and voice: that a person wants them imbued into his very skin, for all Time.
In another poem, “The Mythology of Fatherhood,” he sums it up with these powerful, simple words, “…realizing, over time, that you have something/someone/worth dying for./ Dawning on you/that if you don’t die before they do/it’ll kill you.”
I will say here that I have the pleasure of knowing Jesse personally, but we’ve not spent huge amounts of time together—we’re casual friends, nothing more— but the man is a stand-up guy, and yeah, pun intended.
But you don’t need to meet him to know that Jesse is a remarkable human being. From his writing, whether it’s about his family, or how he writes about himself personally, he has a way that is both self-deprecating and yet uplifting to everyone around him, thus redeeming himself in the process. We are never left feeling the yucky, emotionally manipulative “poor me” readers (like me) oftentimes feel when poets spiral into that “victim consciousness” with their work. So Jesse deprecates, uplifts, and redeems, all in the same breath, line, stanza, poem.
Parent writes so honestly about himself, it aches. Like opening a floodgate of your own humanity as you read. Women think they’ve cornered the market on “cultural beauty standards of perfection,” but Parent reveals his own struggles in the poem “Dysmorphia.” Parent shows us that even men suffer from not only the shallow depictions and facsimiles of human perfection in the media, but within their own ideas of masculinity, virility, attractiveness, and youth, as it slips away from us all, eventually.
I’ve neglected the humor in this review, and I can’t—God these poems are hilarious. “Miss You” and “Meat-Eating Vegan” had me howling. The misdirection of lost love to lost hairline is fresh, funny, and clever.
The arc of the entire collection is smooth, taking us from mothers’ arms to children and parenting, family and grandparents, through madness—just a hint, not overdone, not victim-y, which is, as I’ve said, the ultimate turn-off for me with slam poetry—through the testosterone-filled thoughts of a brawler.
Parent delves into topics that, what the world calls—the ultimate marginalization, IMO but hey, why not? Tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye—the “straightwhitecismale,” is NOT allowed to delve into: the non-minority male ego and withering self-image that these human beings aren’t supposed to experience because of the afore mentioned status.
He would get “crucified” in today’s cultural climate for the poem “Catholic School Girls,” and yet, the word-play and satire, as well as the tongue-in-cheek rebelliousness against the ultra-feminist rhetoric had me cheering for how ballsy he is/was to grab it by the skirt and say, “I am MALE, hear me roar!” We don’t get to hear that anymore, and it saddens me that in order for certain voices to feel as though they are finally being heard, they must quash other voices who traditionally had the majority of attention and time on stage. There are enough stages for all of us. Every voice, experience, and person matters--and does not take away from anyone else's unless you allow it.
Parent touches on his roots, and the socially repudiated sense of “uniqueness” within a group of people bent on conforming to their own brand of tribal “non-individuality” as individuals! Reminding me of the movie, The Incredibles, when the evil little villain, Syndrome, says, “If everyone is super, no one will be.” Parent tackles racism in his poem “Loud”—an eggshell walkway for anyone who is not a PoC in today’s climate—and does it deftly and with the humanity of a man filled with what every good writer must have: empathy and compassion.
In his final, self-deprecatory piece, “Why I Hate List Poems,” his denouement roundly applauds the art of poetry, writing, humanity, and humor, wrapped, numbered, as perfectly as the list can be, in an actual list.
I do not “polish with soft cloths of kind words” when it comes to book reviews. I do not polish Jesse Parent’s ego when I say this collection has more heart than anything I’ve read in a long time…well, I RE-read.
Jesse, "you had me at" page 1 (haha). The first read thru, I didn’t review. Wasn’t as tech-review-savvy as I should have been back then. Shame on me. But I got to re-read this gem of a collection, and I promise you, it is absolutely worth every word, because he speaks truth through laughter and tears, just like the crux of anything worthwhile in art.
"And that…
That is the magic."
—"The Mythology of Fatherhood,” The Noise That Is Not You, by Jesse Parent
February 4, 2018
You can read my wife's review for more in depth analysis. I consider Jesse a friend and I always hate reviewing my friends, in part, because my knowledge of the person impacts the review and Jesse is an amazing person on top of being an amazing performance poet.
April 14, 2020
For the most part, didn't much connect with the poetry. But those few poems that really resounded were featured in our second Poetry Hour:
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews