Let’s Call It Paradise by Mike Maggio

maggio

By Charles Rammelkamp

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The very title of Mike Maggio’s new collection raises questions. Let’s Call It Paradise: you can almost hear Maggio continue with, “even though we know it’s not true.” Why not call it a circus? What is this “it,” anyway? In these remarkably unique poems, Maggio examines the modern world as if he were a visitor from another planet. Indeed, the penultimate poem in the collection, “Into the Wilderness We Came,” is like a QR code which we scan into our smartphones to view a restaurant menu, “and off to Grandma’s house we went” follows like a punchline. The sardonic humor slaps you in the face like a waiter’s damp towel.
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Paradise is arranged in sections titled “Selling Eden,” highlighting the commercialism of the “sacred” in society, “The Serpent,” “Babel,” “The Epistles,” titles that also allude to religious themes, and the book begins and ends with “The Road to…” and “And Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” likewise suggesting religious experience. So yeah, let’s call it paradise – instead of its opposite. It’s all a sales pitch, after all, right?
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A social activist/critic whose first love was found poetry, cut-ups, collages and erasures, Maggio composes his poems as if he were assembling them out of parts (or removing parts). As he notes in the Author’s Statement that prefaces the collection, Let’s Call It Paradise (subtitled on the cover page “A Poetry of Concoction”)  “attempts to examine societal forces…to look at who we are, what we’ve become and where we may be headed,” while keeping a skeptical eye on the “technical revolution” that continues to transform our lives at an alarming rate. The book is “dedicated to everyone who cares about our future.”
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The collection opens with a “Siren Song,” beckoning the reader, like J. Alfred Prufrock. “Come, let us go now to a place beyond dreams,” he croons, seductive as the supernatural maidens that lure Odysseus, “…to the merry, manic marmalade / malls, to the towering halls of dithering / tongues, to the glittering temples that / mesmerize all.”  This here’s America! The capitalist paradise where versions of reality are bought and sold.
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Right out of the gate he gives us “True Religion” (including the top five hundred songs in history), “When Jesus praised a widow,” and “Epiphany” (“Every day, she prayed to the TV”). Poems called “fall: roman empire” and “Fall: American Empire” suggest the fragility – the illusion – of this paradise. “Oanly in am-” spells it out (or misspells it):
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oanly in am-
                     erica.
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life
as
nvr
b4
scene.
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         dth
                              in
                              lvng
                              klr
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As is plainly obvious by now, Maggio has an acerbic, mocking sense of humor. “A Guide to the Signposts in the Garden of Eden” includes such markers as I. “You are now entering the Garden of Eden. / Fig leaves required past this point,” and VII. “Adam and Eve slept here,” and VIII. “Create your own original sin. / For more information call 1-800-666-EDEN.” And in the same “Selling Eden” section he gives us poems called “ChatRoom,” “That Is: The Question” (“Are you searching to look pretty?”), “Hair” and “Hey there, stud!” in which we may be wandering around that mall looking for the quick-fix to irresistible attractiveness. “Condoms” and “Sex Therapy” are here, too. “Sales Event” makes it explicit:
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Everything is a sales event
he said.
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Every
thing
for sale.
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Take my life for example:
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My money
My house.
My health.
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All up for grabs.
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Sex.
Drugs.
Even death.
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“Instant Party Gal,” an inflatable doll offered in “The Serpent” section, and “Flat Belly Science” provide further siren lures as we stroll around the mall.
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Which brings us to “Babel” where any sense of cohesion completely breaks down. “Spam” (“this is not spam” repeated over and over and over again), “Subject Making Sounds,” which is made up of alternate alphabet symbols whose “sound” is anybody’s guess, “Glottal Stop Poem,” “Bomb Threat Checklist,” the kind of bureaucratic how-to you see posted in office buildings, a “found poem,” indeed, “Ingredients (for Life),” also a found poem, listing “artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial preservatives”: all of these nullify language, rendering it all barnyard babble. “Limerick” reads:
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            I once read your post on Facebook.
            It led all the way to your bankbook.
            I took all the cash
            I was unabashed
            Now you have nothing but blankbook.
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We receive warnings about identity theft and personal identifying information (PII) all the time, right? There are checklists….
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All of this, after “Epistles” from Maryrose Komo of Kuwait and the inane “Have a Nice Day” greeting, culminates in the zeroing of language in the final section, “And Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” whose poems take the digital world of binary 1s and 0’s to the max. It begins with “Into the Wilderness” and reaches full binary code in Pastorale,” a word that refers to a musical composition. In between, Maggio gives us “Mac Low’s Menu,” which is a page of barcodes, “And Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” a list of five-digit numbers that look like zip codes, “Record Out of Range,” which looks like computer programming code, “Into the Wilderness (Reprise)” in which, after the initial I, all the vowels are absent from the words. “No Normal” ends:
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            no smarttags
            no symbols
            no social
            texting no
            twitter no
            Maggio
            no Maggi
            o no Mag
            gio no
            status-quo
            no Maggi
            o
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The final poem of the collection, “My Paltry Piece of Paradise,” which sounds almost apologetic, reads, like other poems, like a catalogue of ingredients or parts (“dyspepsia / dyslexia / disassociation / motilium 10 mg / prozac 20mg”), concludes: “Lift here to experience.”
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Indeed, Mike Maggio’s one-of-a-kind Let’s Call It Paradise isn’t read so much as it is experienced.
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Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for Brick House Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. His most recent releases are Sparring Partners from Mooonstone Press, Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books and Catastroika from Apprentice House.
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