Word Comix

by Charlie Smith

Charlie Smith's "shimmering energy" (Mary Oliver) pushes against the barriers of imagination and the American language. Taking as his starting point such wide-ranging subjects as comic books, politics, romantic love, geology, newspapers, totalitarianism, the natural world, the classics, Paris, Miami Beach, and war, Charlie Smith has written freshly realized poems in which compassion and tough mindedness touch the deep core of our humanness. From “Abuses in the Big Hotels” The old man they watched six years straight do nothing yet died between shifts. He left a bloody shirt once, in Tenerife, and never went back for it. “I loved,” the dictator says, “the way my mother’s body moved when she strolled along holding herself in her arms. I have always loved the elegant sway, the curve like infinity’s cul de sac, the seductive and unappeasable ...” and stops talking.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2009

Reviews

[Kaiju Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read all but two of Charlie Smith's novels, and all but one of his volumes of poetry, so I'm coming from a place of love here. He's one of the finest living writers I've read. Of course, some works are better than others, and critics may argue that he has the tendency to over-write, which I think may be a fair criticism from time to time. Smith has a few themes that cross through all his works, wearing different masks, but identifiable to those who may be looking or in the know. These themes are most noticeable when reading his poems back to back. For me, that's always the challenge when reading poetry. You can't read poetry like a novel. You can't just sit down and read a book of poetry from start to finish on a Saturday afternoon. (Of course, you can do this, I've done it, but it may not serve you well.) At the same time, it isn't really easy to just read one poem every couple of days and really spend the time needed in that moment to really get into it. I find myself doing a strange combo of these two methods, and try to hit each poem multiple times. That said, Word Comix would have been better enjoyed over a long period of time with large gaps between each individual poem. Having read it over the course of about two months, I found it to be very repetitive. The images themselves weren't necessarily the same, but tonally they were often identical. And the bulk of the poems collected here read like a shopping list of overly articulated attempts at deep thought. Imagine a hat with fortune cookie strips of paper, but instead of lines like 'you will find richness in friendship' they are filled with lines like 'ex-generalissimos attempting to buck up ex-officio lives' and 'a lie first spoken by a tormented unsufructionist marooned in a crazy marriage outside Kiev'. Grab a handful of these cookie-less morsels and string them together until you have about a page, and viola!

Okay, I love Charlie Smith so I'm feeling a little guilty for that harsh criticism. There are some great poems here too, but they are buried amidst the aforementioned. Perched on the other shoulder for a moment, I will point out that a lot of these poems are so pretentious that they are hilarious. And the title of the book is 'Word Comix' so I have to presume that at some level, this pretension is maybe orchestrated, and it's the reader that's been poked at a little. I mean, the state of poetry and the readers of poetry are pretty much collaborators when it comes to the art of pretension. If I hold the book up to my eye line and perch my glasses just on the edge of my nose and sip at my pumpkin spice latte in the local coffee shop, it's hard not to point to myself with the word 'idiot' on my lips. Maybe that's what he's done here. If so, bravo!

But back to reading in my dingy and poorly lit study... or in my car during a half hour break from my crappy job... these didn't really work for me. Sorry Charlie. Quick shout out to 'Monadnock', 'Evasive Action', and 'The Greeks'. These were a few of my favorites.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many wonderful images, so just-not-enough glue. Connective tissue? To make the poems sing for me. Like rooting around in a modern-antique store drawer. Beguiling, but soon tiring.

[Kate]

Looking this up on Goodreads, I saw that Ginger Payne had this on her To-Read list. I shall read it in your honor, Ginger.

[Randy Cauthen · Rating 2 out of 5]

With only a couple of exceptions, this shit is so fucking arch that St. Louis is gonna put it up over the river.