New And Selected Poems
published by Lummox Press
book review by David McLean
New and Selected Poems information, HERE
John Yamrus is one of the more reputable underground poets. I had heard of him, of course, but not really read, before this book, since I don't read a lot of modern poetry that is not in the same places I myself get most work published. However, I am very happy to have reviewed this, and learned that since Bukowski is dead it's nice to have somebody like Yamrus living. He has been accused of being a slavish unworthy imitator of Bukowski, most notably by himself in a poem in this collection -
nothing
i do
or think
or write
is mine.
it’s all filtered down
through you
Mr. Bukowski…
and i wish
you’d
come here
and
take it
back.
(from Bukowski's Property)
But in general, though a debt is evident, the effect is not one of slavishness, he has an acerbic humor of his own, and his own standards, in fact the following poem is as good as anything you will see by Bukowski in the huge anthologies currently being produced by his publishers in a laudable attempt to squeeze some lucre from a decaying corpse.
In Your Life
if you
get to be
your absolute
most crystal perfect best,
even once,
you
have
won.
Instead of buying a book of poems that are not the best work of a dead man, maybe you'd be better off buying the good stuff by one who's still active. One who can even do love in poems, which is more difficult than one might imagine.
The surface attitude in general is one of slightly angry stoicism, in the face of age, the face of finitude. There is also awareness of the war between underground and academic poets. This is one of the staples of most underground poets I have read, the distance from life lack of feeling of the academic poet in general, though I, as noted, don't read a lot of modern poetry, and thus am not so disturbed by their productions, unless I accidentally read some of them online. In general, the academic here represents the conformist, the believer, the afterlifer, the underground side represents spontaneity and life, vitality, not worshiping the dead. There is a larger picture involved than “just” poetry. Yamrus carries on the anti-academic war well, though an awful lot of younger poets on the beat side of the underground line are the most awful conformists, actually total believers, like little monks undergoing a novitiate to prepare themselves for a lifetime cloistered with ghosts.
But this book is not just an entry in the modern poetic polemos. Yamrus also does genuinely succeed in expressing a lot of feeling, he is not afraid to show it
i’ve even got
tacked up
on the wall
right in front of me now
a veterinary appointment card
from a dog
that died
two years ago.
god, i loved that dog.
(from silly me)
Now that shows me love much more effectively than a sonnet about some woman, as does his poem about when he and his wife more or less wordlessly work on their property (“they don't get it, do they?”). And, again, he writes of the small things like domesticity that actually do make our lives tolerable sometimes
..when i DO get that toilet fixed,
and when i shave,
i’ll write no poems,
i’ll sing no songs…
i’ll only lay back,
happy
in the simple knowledge
that all i am
and all i’ll ever be
is somehow
intertwined
with the sound of
her feet
and the smell of
our bed.
(from cold)
As he himself says of somebody else
you’ve got to admire that
in a man…
the ability to
relax
and ignore
approaching doom.
(from i really don't drink much)
Generally, this book is essential reading, for poets and readers of poetry, since it shows that you get much better results by following the recipe of a recently dead poet who took risks and add a few ingredients of your own, instead of living in a moribund tradition that worships at the temple of tradition, all temples are instruments of control, and the aesthetic feeling we nevertheless have is so integral to the human that it should never be controlled in case we become something not fully human – not beasts, it's good to be beasts, but something more boring than human.
This book is a product of a man who has wry humor and the courage to discuss his aging and its every hemorrhoid in poems that just as easily speak in simple words, perfectly assembled though, of love and beauty and the meanings we can pluck form them, though we are all going to die and be nowhere, be non-being.
the thing
about it
is
they’re all dead
and i’m
still here,
fighting with this poem
that won’t go away.
the good thing
about it
is
there’s beer
in the refrigerator,
books
on the shelf
and
a movie on tv.
that’s good enough
for me.
(from Henry Miller,)
These poems are going to win immortality by not caring about it, by concentrating on a little mortal happiness, a little being human. They would make a perfect present for ... well, say, a human being. Order this book at Amazon, HERE, or at Lummox Press, HERE.
