Grief for Heart

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“Postmodern Vampirism”

Vampires have gotten increasingly complex.

Sure, there was that blip with the Twilight series, where everything went a little backwards with the complexity and ferocity of the un-dead blood-sucker, but overall they have certainly changed with the times. The metaphors that drive human fascination with this particular breed of monster have morphed and expanded as technology and human relations have grown into their present state in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

In my previous reviews of this elegantly penned series, I have touched on much of this—the addiction metaphors, the lab-created blood sources and tropes of the dangers of scientific advancement, the origins in Western European fears of blood pollution by Eastern Europeans, the sexual metaphors springing from the suppression of the Victorian and Edwardian eras—and I don’t want to take up space repeating it.

What I want to touch on here—what really drives Grief for Heart—are the sexual politics and socio-political hierarchies that Ambroziak’s universe has expanded to in this series, for they are as unsettling a commentary on modern “humanity” as I have ever read in a vampire novel. Continue reading →

Impossible Songs

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A review by Joey Madia

Several months ago I reviewed Rupert M. Loydell’s twentieth collection of poetry, Dear Mary, which is a series of (far-ranging) meditations on the Virgin Mary and the circumstances of her miraculous conception. This follow-up, co-authored with Sarah Cave, is a series of “21 Annunciations,” using the same source-event, but presented in wholly different ways.

There is no indication of which poems are penned by which poet, or if they are all collaborations. This is interesting to me, because I recently reviewed another book of poetry, Blue, by Wesley St. Jo and Remé Grefalda that did not indicate which poet contributed where.

The annunciations in Impossible Songs are refracted through a wide array of prisms. “A Polar Bear Annunciation of Self” is a first-person poem from the polar bear’s point of view, interdicted with narrative from Barry Lopez, the environmental/humanitarian writer. This poem is followed by another with an Arctic theme. In the third stanza I was struck by an echo from the poem “Bright Flags” by Jim Morrison, wherein he says “There’s a belief by the/Children of Man which states/all will be well.” In the Cave/Loydell poem “Shadow Words,” the line is “she convinces herself/all will be will be well.” This would seem reviewer-centric if it were not for a poem several pages later, “The Impossible Song,” which quotes Morrison in its epigraph and then begins:

“The voice of the serpent/slid into my ear, creaking/leather and snakeskin/black boots aslant…”

and ends:

“dead in the bath,/a drowned angel/who lost his voice” Continue reading →

Manhattan: An Archaeology

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“Forever the Innovator”

A review by Joey Madia

Innovation is not easy. Being innovative and prolific—well, that approaches the ultra rare. And that is why, year after year, I try to do at least one review of Eileen Tabios’s works. When the work spoke clearly as to how, I have attempted to be as innovative in my reviews as Tabios is in her art. A scroll through the 145 reviews currently on New Mystics Reviews (newmysticsreviews.blogspot.com) will show ten other reviews of Tabios’s work, some of which use lines from my other reviews or a poetic form to honor the range of inspirations and innovations Tabios has employed in her 40-plus collections, which have now been published in eight countries and in numerous languages.

Manhattan: An Archaeology, from the relatively new Paloma Press (they list only one other offering so far—Blue by St. Jo and Grefalda, which I reviewed last month), has a multi-page list of inspirations, ranging from Tabios’s own previously published works to those of other authors, YouTube videos, the paintings of Clyfford Still, and a trip to Provence the poet took with her husband.

The collection, which is divided into several sections, interdicted with graphic images, begins with THE ARTIFACTS, a poetic list of items that then appear in the poems that follow. Here we have the material archaeology of Things, which is only part of the picture. Because there is also the etheric archeology of Memories, to which the items tether. Why else are so many of us so compelled to collect? Continue reading →

Tizita

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“Struggles in the Void”

Review by Joey Madia

Four months ago I was introduced to Fleur Robins, with whom I fell instantly in love. Not romantically, understand, but as a father who wants to protect a curious and brilliant, although socially and emotionally challenged, young woman from the darkness in the world, while wanting her to bathe immersively and unabashedly in the light of it as well.

Perhaps it is the recent event of my only daughter’s eighteenth birthday, and her starting her senior year of high school as I write this. Perhaps it is the dancing whirl of contradictions that are her chosen isolation and digital world-traveling, her emotional and social strengths and weaknesses, her brilliance and naïveté and her own journey into the darkness and re-entrance into the light that make me invest so heavily in Fleur’s adventures.

This is to take nothing away from Sharon Heath, who writes with a power and honesty that draws me in and makes me laugh out loud and flinch in pain—often within the span of a page, or a paragraph.

In the interest of space, I encourage you to read my review of the first book, and, better yet—read the book itself. Continue reading →

Minor Confessions of an Angel Falling Upward

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Review by K.P. Ambroziak

This is one of the most interesting, intoxicating, and innovative books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a journal, a confession, a celestial manifesto for the Fallen. But it’s also a throwback to all the great writers of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, those who lived on the edge of art and admission, paving the way for deep meditation and mental masturbation. Tortured thoughts and explicit scenes steeped in a rich vat of lush vocabulary, all make up this devil / vampire / possessor’s confessions—think Marquis de Sade (who makes an appearance), if he were a vampire.

But this isn’t an easy read, nor is it a read for those who’ve spent a lifetime ignoring the core of romantic literature and its predecessors. The wealth of literary, religious, and philosophical knowledge Planner Forthright possesses is astounding. One can believe he’s a fallen angel if only for the immense head on his shoulders. His voice is emotive and stilted at once, and his honesty would have anyone too embarrassed to read his words aloud. But he’s also shared more here than one could ever hope, teaching his reader about the ways of God and the power he’s usurped, a potency that may well have been split evenly. Planner tells us he is heir apparent to the Universe herself, but has no interest in power. If he had a talent, he says, he’d pursue it to the exclusion of all else because “forsaking one’s gifts, when you are lucky enough to have them, is one of the greatest crimes.” Continue reading →