#patrick james dunagan

[etruscanpress]

Arcadia Road by Thorpe Moeckel

Patrick James Dunagan reviews Thorpe Moeckel’s Arcadia Road today in Rumpus Poetry.

“While never outright rejecting city life or the modern world, Moeckel stirringly questions the efficacy of allurements found within daily mainstream reality, the “crapstorm // of media, opinions, banter, ballyhoo, art, / money, politics, fast cars, the old in/out // yearning & naught – so much barking, / humdingering” yet he acknowledges them “so tasty, these bedevilments.” It’s refreshing to read new poetry which manages remain contemporary and forward-looking in terms of its spry playfulness with language while yet bucking current hipster trends found in urbane poet-villas from Oakland to Brooklyn. This is a path few others are treading. Where precursor-poets do pop to mind, say Gary Snyder or Wendell Berry, perhaps A.R. Ammons or Ted Hughes, Moeckel’s frolicsome whimsy and near lackadaisical concern for imparting any sort of “heavy message” separates his work out from theirs in unexpected ways.”

[therumpus]

While the anthology is not without its downsides as there are several obvious typos and other blemishes it is nonetheless as thorough a glimpse into a fascinating journal as any reader would hope for. When the goal is grand some loose ends often are left unveiled. As Grossinger explains “Io was forever about holism and linking things up, even if it was rough-hewn and overreaching.” The focus with Io is upon the brilliance of wonder revealed by consideration of possibilities beyond our common ken of knowledge. It’s admirable how the journal never backed away from encouraging cross-disciplinary revelation, going well beyond any point of disagreement.

Patrick James Dunagan reviews Io Anthology: Literature, Interviews, And Art From The Seminal Interdisciplinary Journal 1965-1993 edited by Richard Grossinger and Lindy Hough.

[therumpus]

Kearney covers the diverse characteristics of his peers. He acknowledges the beginnings of his interest in the opposite sex, along with their interest in him, though sex along with the rest of adult stuff remains mysterious. In between his close observations of others and his self-scrutiny of his own thoughts and emotions, life in Brooklyn during the era comes to life. Kearney’s descriptions are ever adroit. We’re afloat in the daily haze of his precocious childhood as scenes come and go. The carefree sense of time abundantly granted to children at that age evocatively coats everything except when Kearney’s reflective asides insert themselves and we become aware once again that this is the story of a poet’s awakening to himself and his place in the world.

Patrick James Dunagan reviews Fish Gotta Swim by Larry Kearney. 

[therumpus]

“[…] she detects more than me, but she may detect more than I believe | I give off, a relationship to no, internal, speaking, I know will not to hope to feel so known, projecting, as with | living, but I want you to know, not so much to be, being that, no matter what surface climbs | up to ride along, it’s a good mess, I get it that way, out on the skirts, the we who lives with me, from the off-center | wheel but deep, no new, she detects [etc.]”

The above is excerpted from Come In Alone by Anselm Berrigan, reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan.

[therumpus]

[…] Every ides is dedicated to Jupiter, every Kalenda is dedicated to Juno. As Junonius was shortened to June. As Maia is the Good Goddess. As the Good Goddess is also Hecate, Semele and Prosperina. Some say she has Juno’s power. Some think she’s Medea. It is against divine law for a myrtle branch to be kept in her temple. Carna is the goddess charged with keeping our livers, hearts and innards healthy. Carna receives an offering of bean porridge and bacon. Hathor personifies the sky. She is the goddess of all kinds of joy. Whoever wishes to visit the temple of the goddess must refrain from intercourse with his wife (or husband) that day, from intercourse with another than his wife (or husband) for the preceding two days, and must complete the required lustrations. Jupiter bestows souls, and receives them back after death. The hell-fire and brimstone vision was the result of the uninformed stumbling into glimpses of the astral plane.

excerpt from We Who Saw Everything by Whit Griffin and reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan.

[therumpus]

I always put my lover’s cunt on the crest of a wave like a flag that I can pledge my allegiance to. This is my country. Here, when we’re alone in public.

from I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems by Eileen Myles, reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan.

[therumpus]

Is this poem too heroic? I am sorry. I worry that it is. Or I know it is. We are turnt to mere vandals at moments. I’ll admit it.

“Turnt” from That Winter The Wolf Came by Juliana Spahr, reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan.

[therumpus]

The blues, so slowly chant a memorial counter-charm keyed with coffee odors yellowed during 78 whirls of revealed lacquer.

From the title poem of Edward Dorn’s Derelict Air, reviewed by Patrick James Dunagan at The Rumpus.