That That

by Ken Mikolowski

Poet Ken Mikolowski ran a letterpress printing house for over thirty years, setting poems by hand, one letter at a time―an experience that influenced his love of short verse. In That That, Mikolowski presents his trademark quirky, humorous, and insightful poems, none longer than three brief lines and some made up of only two or three carefully chosen words. Together, these poems create a narrative of life and love broken down to the most minimal of forms.

Mikolowski's deceptively simple collection takes readers on a whirlwind tour through weighty topics and humorous vignettes. He reflects on the nature of art, identity, and legacy in poems that muse in their entirety, "I've never met a deadline / I've ever met yet" and "Why I am not a New York poet / Detroit." Mikolowski also gives unparalleled assessments of serious subjects like love, aging, and death, declaring, "Sometimes / I don't think of you / for hours" and "Getting old / gets old / real quick." Some poems are more lighthearted and delight only in the wordplay of rhyme or unexpected imagery, adding an unmistakably playful element to this spare but polished volume.

Mikolowski's collection demonstrates the singular power of language in the hands of a master craftsman. That That will be read and re-read by anyone interested in short poetry.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2015

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

POEM
you can’t write anything
and call it a poem

Ken Mikolowksi looks the reader in the eye and asks them what is art, what is poetry? What truly makes a poem a poem. I had a friend in college who once said that art was anything we intentionally put emotion into, which led to many laughs as we considered late nights scattering cigarette-butts and friends upon the dormitory stoop an elaborate installation piece. Were we wrong? Another friend recently said the best thing an artist can do is make the viewer/reader/listener/etc/et al feel like being a human being is the coolest thing you can be. I like the idea that art is like a window, something that frames something larger we can only see by looking through it. Mikolowski is like a peep-hole into a wider world of thought. His poems in That That are simple, two or three lines at most, and usually produce a laugh. I could see how Mikolowski’s poetry could infuriate many, especially those who consider themselves the gatekeepers of art. It is jokey, simple, practically not enough words to take seriously, but there is a real flesh-and-blood beating heart within them. For all their simplicity, each poem is like a prompt for a lengthy thought investigation that manages to resonate deeply despite their short and often humorous exterior.

FAT MAN BLUES
I’ve grown so lonesome
since my belly’s grown some

In the July 2015 issue of Poetry Magazine¹ they ran an essay by Ai Weiwei about poetry in which he states:

I used to say that Twitter is the perfect form for poetry. It is the poetry of society in the modern age. In engaging social media and the forms of communication it makes possible, again and again we find ourselves deeply moved with emotion. By anger, joy, even feelings that are new and indescribable. This is poetic. It makes today a unique time.

You can take this as you will, but Mikolowski (and to an even greater extent, Steve Roggenbuck [see review for further commentary]) seems to fit this form of modern poetry perfectly. These are poems that are easily tweeted, easily posted on facebook. They are short, get-in-get-out poems that we can quickly devour then spend the rest of the day mulling over. Poet Charles Simic once said that the best poems are like a bank-robbery: get in, get their attention, get the money and get out. Mikolowski very much embodies this ideal. In a world of over-saturation of news and media, a world of meme politics and social media, these poems are like biscuits. They are the flip-side to the optimistic and overly-sentimental memes that flood our facebook feed every day. You know, the kind that makes you go ‘ugh’ and then just click ‘like’ so you aren’t an asshole and then move on. Mikolowski grabs emotion without being sentimental, but still captures the very human emotive element, typically through snarky humor.

The comparison is—ultimately—wrong and too much an easy grab, but Mikolowski is almost like a poet version of Lydia Davis, offering something so small that holds a universe within it. For example:

CORN FIELD
each row opens
as you pass by

A simple image, really, yet one many of us can understand. Especially if you are from the mid-west. The few words invoke memories of car rides, gazing out the window watching each row of corn open into a seemingly endless procession of seemingly endless hallways with each turn of the tires. Endless rows to get lost within. The image comes readymade with all sorts of emotive memories unique to each reader. Simple, yet so unbearably human. There is something almost Eastern about his poetry, like a modern Detroit zen that reminds us to laugh and to love and to stop and enjoy the sweet simplicities of life. Mikolowski was born and bred in Detroit, Michigan and currently teaches at the University of Michigan, all of which obviously pulls my heart strings having lived in both Detroit and Ann Arbor for a time, and his poetry feels very much a product of the area.

WHY I AM NOT A NEW YORK POET
Detroit

There is that no-nonsense feeling where everybody is too busy to have time to stop for a lengthy moment of art, keeping a scrap of lines dear to heart like a savior while you labor in a soul-crushing factory. There is something charmingly blue-collar about his poetry, feeling like poetry for the Everyman/woman, feeling like something outside the ivory towers while still respecting the utmost importance of art (much like how Bolano pokes fun at the ivory towers of literature and institutional art while still making art and literature feel like the most important things in the world). There are moments that remind you what is so special about the mid-west like:

OUTSIDE
the three month summer dies

Like Mikolowski’s poetry, the warm, happy times in life are short and sweet. We must let them in, let them go, but hold them in our hearts. Art, poetry and the good things in life are what helps us fight back the darkness and keep our heads held high. They are what reminds us why being alive in our present is the coolest thing we can do.

NOTHING
can replace poetry in my life
and one day surely it will

⅘

ECONOMIC CRISES
buy low
stay high

¹ The full essay can be found here.

[Miranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Playful and fun, but I felt like it would've been more effective as a single poem and not a whole collection. But I like the backstory to the short poems. Makes sense.