.
Review by g emil reutter
.
The evolution of the poet John Dorsey continues in this, his 50th book of poetry. Dorsey writes of the heartland of America and the forgotten characters. In this collection there are no small ponds/just forgotten rivers of intention/just stolen kisses/captured in the night. He writes of The Prettiest Girl in Moscow, Kansas, pumps gas with a farmer’s bicep/and sells off-brand energy drinks 2 for $4/ tallying the state tax/to determine her own worth. In the poem, Don’t Flip the Boat he writes of a Hell’s Angel looking for an insurance claim. the fire of youth/an old tire/left hanging from a tree/that has been burning/ since he was a boy. he says there’s wisdom/ in these hills. he just can’t remember where he buried it.
.
A poet who writes for the disenfranchised, Dorsey gives us, The Years We Remained Anonymous
.
waiting for history to moan our names
to carve our initials into a tree
that we can no longer find
.
the moonlight is no longer happy
just touching the skin of generations
& the road back home
is muddy with blood
.
there is very little peace
.
in any of it.
.
Dorsey remains at the heart of the modern Meat Poetry scene also known as the Outlaw Poetry Movement. He writes of smoking joints outside a convenience store, of a town with no roosters, of an addict and his needle, of old men wrestling with their youth, of learning to shoot, of rabid dogs and of family. And of Sadie – she has never danced backward/in the mouth of oceans/while piecing together the remains/ of her tattered heart. her stars still shine through cheap beer/and well whisky/the highway feels limitless/and the music in her heart seems free. He writes of his grandmother in Home Cooking and a problem with food poisoning- and my grandfather would ask without fail/”what’s the matter, don’t you like your grandmother’s cooking?”/i guess it was a fair question/after all, she left a lot of sweat/ on that counter.
.
In this collection he put his mark on Meat Poetry, an evolved style of raw and imagery such as this from Poem for My Parents- i remind her/that we are running out of time/that every moment of silence/is another wrinkle on our face/another memory/to hang our bones on. There is a rawness such as this from The Rainbow Family Would Never Have You – just before sundown/we wandered through the side streets/of your heart/ in search of adam’s rib/ our lips smacking/ as we wiped our sticky fingers/on the marrow of dusk.
County Route 705
.
is full of ghost stories
.
faded yearbook photos
of dreams that died
on loose gravel
.
the sun shining
on our failures
.
just hanging there
like a rusty hubcap
nailed to the cross
.
Dorsey has given us a collection of poems, of characters of the heartland who live the hard life, who dream, who take the hits and keep getting up. The bonus in this collection are the beautiful images provided by the artist by Greg Edmondson. In his very Dorsey way, Shoot the Messenger, opens the window for others to understand and feel the struggle in the heartland.
.
You can find the book here: Shoot the Messenger – John Dorsey
.
g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. You can find him here:About g emil reutter
North of Oxford 