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After Aurora
Howie Good a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Dark Specks in a Blue Sky from Another New Calligraphy (#ANC030 Summer/Fall 2015).
He is also the author of numerous chapbooks, including Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing, The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers from Flutter Press and Personal Myths from Writing Knights Press. He has two other chapbooks available: Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press and The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press.
"How to be happy" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the Origami Poems Project, December 2013
He is also the author of numerous chapbooks, including Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing, The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers from Flutter Press and Personal Myths from Writing Knights Press. He has two other chapbooks available: Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press and The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press.
"How to be happy" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the Origami Poems Project, December 2013
6 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 27, 2022
“In the movie version, I would…”
I found my way to this promising collection of Origami chapbooks through greatly enjoying two other collections Good had released as free eBooks through Red Ceilings Press, "Inspired Remnants" and "Pink Fire”, both of which I relished immensely, hence was thrilled to discover this poet had some microchaps available through this consistently excellent poetry project.
If you are unfamiliar with Origami, they release six-piece one page collections of micro poems which can be folded into a distinctive shape in the beloved Western tradition. Ayaz Daryl Nielsen, Martin Burke and many other talented voices have ambitiously explored this deceptively challenging medium, found great success in the brevity and focus it affords poets, leaving no room for superfluity and requiring selections and the grouping as a whole be boiled down to the barest minimalist essentials.
‘After Aurora’ is Good’s second of five Origami micro chapbooks he would eventually release, beginning after he’d delivered the second Red Ceilings collection Pink Fire and extending over the next five years. A piece in the third one “Obscure Signs of Progress” appropriately received a Pushcart Prize nomination in 2013 excitingly, so if you enjoy Howie’s writing here you will want to be sure to snag that too!
Good is a journalism prof at SUNY university, and like many other of the best writers of very short, economical poetry with a formal reporting background (Ernest Hemingway, Charlotte Digregorio) his intuitive grasp of eliminating all excess and superfluidity to craft the most punchy, hard-boiled prose is as striking and appreciable here as in earlier collections.
Organized around one of Origami's trademark classical yet abstracted, almost collagist cover artworks by Janice Keough, strikingly depicting a lightning bolt crashing down the middle of a scene of worshipping robed figures (man in red, women in blue?), hands raised in terror or exaltation, while at stage right an enormous golden figure, perhaps a gryphon towers over them, possible idol just as likely animate demigod. The title is 'Splitting the World' and it certainly makes for a jumping off point, a visual light show not unlike the titular Northern one to catapult readers into the first of five pieces, the rest shorter micropoems but this initial offering subdivided into five separate numbered paragraphs of prose poetry.
After Aurora is a wonderfully meta, reflexive examination of life's ripples across the arts and vice versa; as a onetime usher it makes me further wonder if Good did not himself have a bit of firsthand experience with those black plastic letters once upon a time. There are some pleasant echoes of Burroughs throughout I quite enjoyed which I hadn't before noticed in Howie's writings. The final line and portion certainly ties in well to the cover visuals.
Some of Good's most enjoyable writing comes when he leans into his inner James Cain or Jim Thompson, embraces the pulp pathos and creates the most riveting, singular narration, unusual perspectives.
After the previous microchap 'Nervous Disorder', it's a delight to see the poet is as well acquainted with symptoms and nuances of mania; as someone with a streak of bipolarity running in the family I can say he really pegs and captures the broad and subtle strokes masterfully, with impressive finesse.
The final poem REMNANTS showcases the hazy surrealist dreamscapes Good so excels at portraying, closes the short collection in great form sticking the landing like an Olympic gymnast.
Th poem preceding it, Game Time, almost feels rooted in the literal and substantive, which makes its conclusion all the more akin to that shocking scene in horror films when the protagonist realizes they are asleep gradually or in jarring revelation. Whatever that trope or conceit is, Howie has finagled it more than once, the trick appears to be one of his specialties, and it does not get old. The image of a column of black smoke brings the narrative full circle to the opening thunderclap, really ties the collection together. There is much more cohesion going on here than one might initially guess, or meets the eye!
So glad I stumbled onto this poet, found these microchaps after enjoying his longer Red Ceilings collections tremendously. Howie Good is one of the most captivating storytellers in recent memory, greatly looking forward to reading more of his work!
“Whichever street I took, the same high school kid was there…”
I found my way to this promising collection of Origami chapbooks through greatly enjoying two other collections Good had released as free eBooks through Red Ceilings Press, "Inspired Remnants" and "Pink Fire”, both of which I relished immensely, hence was thrilled to discover this poet had some microchaps available through this consistently excellent poetry project.
If you are unfamiliar with Origami, they release six-piece one page collections of micro poems which can be folded into a distinctive shape in the beloved Western tradition. Ayaz Daryl Nielsen, Martin Burke and many other talented voices have ambitiously explored this deceptively challenging medium, found great success in the brevity and focus it affords poets, leaving no room for superfluity and requiring selections and the grouping as a whole be boiled down to the barest minimalist essentials.
‘After Aurora’ is Good’s second of five Origami micro chapbooks he would eventually release, beginning after he’d delivered the second Red Ceilings collection Pink Fire and extending over the next five years. A piece in the third one “Obscure Signs of Progress” appropriately received a Pushcart Prize nomination in 2013 excitingly, so if you enjoy Howie’s writing here you will want to be sure to snag that too!
Good is a journalism prof at SUNY university, and like many other of the best writers of very short, economical poetry with a formal reporting background (Ernest Hemingway, Charlotte Digregorio) his intuitive grasp of eliminating all excess and superfluidity to craft the most punchy, hard-boiled prose is as striking and appreciable here as in earlier collections.
Organized around one of Origami's trademark classical yet abstracted, almost collagist cover artworks by Janice Keough, strikingly depicting a lightning bolt crashing down the middle of a scene of worshipping robed figures (man in red, women in blue?), hands raised in terror or exaltation, while at stage right an enormous golden figure, perhaps a gryphon towers over them, possible idol just as likely animate demigod. The title is 'Splitting the World' and it certainly makes for a jumping off point, a visual light show not unlike the titular Northern one to catapult readers into the first of five pieces, the rest shorter micropoems but this initial offering subdivided into five separate numbered paragraphs of prose poetry.
After Aurora is a wonderfully meta, reflexive examination of life's ripples across the arts and vice versa; as a onetime usher it makes me further wonder if Good did not himself have a bit of firsthand experience with those black plastic letters once upon a time. There are some pleasant echoes of Burroughs throughout I quite enjoyed which I hadn't before noticed in Howie's writings. The final line and portion certainly ties in well to the cover visuals.
Some of Good's most enjoyable writing comes when he leans into his inner James Cain or Jim Thompson, embraces the pulp pathos and creates the most riveting, singular narration, unusual perspectives.
After the previous microchap 'Nervous Disorder', it's a delight to see the poet is as well acquainted with symptoms and nuances of mania; as someone with a streak of bipolarity running in the family I can say he really pegs and captures the broad and subtle strokes masterfully, with impressive finesse.
The final poem REMNANTS showcases the hazy surrealist dreamscapes Good so excels at portraying, closes the short collection in great form sticking the landing like an Olympic gymnast.
Th poem preceding it, Game Time, almost feels rooted in the literal and substantive, which makes its conclusion all the more akin to that shocking scene in horror films when the protagonist realizes they are asleep gradually or in jarring revelation. Whatever that trope or conceit is, Howie has finagled it more than once, the trick appears to be one of his specialties, and it does not get old. The image of a column of black smoke brings the narrative full circle to the opening thunderclap, really ties the collection together. There is much more cohesion going on here than one might initially guess, or meets the eye!
So glad I stumbled onto this poet, found these microchaps after enjoying his longer Red Ceilings collections tremendously. Howie Good is one of the most captivating storytellers in recent memory, greatly looking forward to reading more of his work!
“Whichever street I took, the same high school kid was there…”
Displaying 1 of 1 review