I have seen both of these poets read, usually together. Ryberg's roving performance style, coupled with the crassness that characterizes his often self-effacing writing, can be off-putting in the flesh. Absorbing his words from the page is better. And he still manages to get right in your face -- figuratively -- through cuss words, capitalization and beer-stained pronouncements of futility.
Ryberg tends to cast himself as a sort of bar-stool philosopher,
critiquing from his buzzy perch the social habits of others, the
political climate and his own lamentable luck in romance. His
free-verse rants can be hilarious: "Not To Be Confused With Your Gay
Best Friend (Or, How Many Mules Are Kickin' In Sister Sarah's Stall?)"
is three pages spent dissecting frustrations over a friendship with a
woman. In opener "A Little Too Much to Dream Last Night (Or, Musta
Thought It Was White Boy Day)," the stench of Ryberg's hangover sweat
wafts up from the page through the image of him the morning after a
booze binge, "wearing nothing but/a t-shirt and a single black sock
(with/big toe protruding through/as if to say "helllooooooo")."
For her turn, Applequist's realistic scenes can be equally sour. In
"You, You Silly Shit," she offers trash overflowing with "cigarette
butts and used tampon parts." Like Ryberg, a recurring theme for
Applequist is the difficulty of such mundane tasks as paying bills or,
in "13276.34," dealing with a W-2. Applequist also presents a portrait
of a booze-fueled writer's life. She even titles one poem "Pabst."
Thankfully, the questions she raises about personal relationships,
urban life and solitude don't get lost in the suds. Applequist's most
memorable piece is "...Are You Sure?" a profane, ambiguous dare to
"fuck the World." She instructs: "fuck the World./real hard/real hard.
nevermind foreplay/and flowers - the World/does not need you to buy
it/dinner before giving It up." The metaphor, which gets coarser from
there, is both an arms-in-the-air assertion of the inevitable
callousness of life and a call to try harder, to "fuck the World and
inspire/it to fuck back a little bit more,/for a little bit longer."
Their subject matter may leave the reader feeling heavy, but Ryberg
and Applequist are proud Kansas City poets. References to their city,
especially midtown, abound in Blunt Trauma and enhance the
reading experience for a local. Ryberg, a fixture in one of the metro's
most colorful neighborhoods, captures other poet characters, presumably
at a basement reading at Prospero's Bookstore,
in "Scenes From 39th St., Pt. 1." In "Route 39," Applequist takes a
fair jab at the Kansas City bus-riding experience: "traveling this way
in my city is only advisable on the loosest schedule," she concludes.
Familiar locations that pop up elsewhere in the collection include 37th
Street and Troost and Dave's Stagecoach Inn. Even the cover art is
local. Kansas City artist Joshua Rizer
presents a scene that spans both flaps: amid stacks of books --
Prospero's again? -- Ryberg sits reading on the front cover as
Applequist sneaks up from the back, a giant globe hoisted over her head
to smash over his. The image is poetic in its own right.
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In other words, we can not resist a bit of embellishment every now and then, especially on such a simple footwear style as the sandal. Basically they can be made more interesting by little things like beads, studs, and gems.
I came across your website by searching for information on cureing excessive perspireing and all i can say is i need a cure for excessive sweating quickly cause i hate this condition.
Improvisation on Lines by Isaac the Blind
by Peter Cole
Only by sucking, not by knowing,
can the subtle essence be conveyed�
sap of the word and the world's flowing
that raises the scent of the almond blossoming,
and yellows the bulbul in the olive's jade.
Only by sucking, not by knowing.
The grass and oxalis by the pines growing
are luminous in us�petal and blade�
as sap of the word and the world's flowing;
a flicker rising from embers glowing;
light trapped in the tree's sweet braid
of what it was sucking. Not by knowing
is the amber honey of persimmon drawn in.
An anemone piercing the clover persuades me�
sap of the word and the world is flowing
across separation, through wisdom's bestowing,
and in that persuasion choices are made:
But only by sucking, not by knowing
that sap of the word through the world is flowing
jed, i suppose no one can take issue with the fact that you have an opinion, or that other people who do have their own, also have your opinion. i think the only gentlemanly thing to do, other than not snipe anonymously at the hard work of others, is to provide a link to your work which presumably exemplifies the kind of quality you respect. stand by your work and show us how it's done.
Mary,
your addressing my friends and I as howling minnows begs me mention that I psychically noticed that your bed is a barren place where schadenfreude is the only joy available to you beyond imaging "that someone who really gets you."
Jed is a more-on
pax
Jed must have made his point. I've never seen such fury. Let the minnows howl !!!
all Jason and Iris have done is to respond with humor, intelligence, and god-given good looks to the world around them. in a book of poetry no less. that's cool.
JED SAYS
Every mid-sized,
third tier American city
is burdened by the identical posse
of jaundiced junior grade,
hardcore Bukowski-ites.
Minnows swimming
in the wake of a leviathan.
The same template is always honored:
narcissistic, oppositional and profoundly
fecundated with what passes for blue collar chic.
Sweet suffering Jesus!
Is it 1950 out there?
Is this etiolated Rimbeaudian romp
through the gelid, eyeless universe
of the interior still a message with a meaning.
Nein, no, nyet.
How do you say Nada
and really mean it?!
This dream-stream institutiion
of wordy hamhockery is an endgame,
deliquescent homage to poetasters
masquerading as poets.
Rhetoric without substance
is merely that: a tribadic chanson
of faux populismo conceits
that say nothing.
Get a new script.
This onr poisons
the air we breathe.
Jed:
And thanK you very much for actually making my computer deface itself by having to go on a Pitch site, Du-fuss.
Jed:
Every troll with a computer and a wi-fi signal is just one more impotent flamer in a crowd that hides their mindless superfetation behind their anonymity. Your average Blattella Germanica has less fear of illumination.
Dear god, are you 14? Does your little Wikipedia-fueled romp help satisfy your linguistic priapism? Oh, thank all the universe itself that we have you to explain what meaninglessness is! Why, all I have to do is scroll up from here to see a perfect example!
Your words are the hand of Prometheus himself, who has reached down to hand us lowly writers who actually attempt to do something not the fire if creation, but instead the distant, whining sound of the world's tiniest violin, played by someone who never even learned to tune the damn thing.
Congratulations on the review.
I'm really not following Jed's interpretation here... and I do agree with Nairba - Ryberg is a superior poet and a wonderful person...as is Iris - who is much more than a "booze fueled" poet.
I hope you sell a million copies.
xo
Jed, really. Your comment reeks of someone who is obviously very proud of their own points who has probably spent a life-time being laughed at by their own mother.
There's a whole different way to leave a comment like that man.
You give yourself away pretty bad, you silly little less than 100 points on the IQ you.
Jason is awesome. And you won't find a soul more dedicated to being a poet. He's very aware of the voice he's chosen to speak with, and he's very used to shallow minds like yours reacting to him that way.
stupid is as stupid does, Forrest..."Get a new script" yourself.
A Simple Echo
(for Lea)
The tones of your phone number
on my keypad, the sound I make
yelling into the wind of intuition.
The unanswered ring, my voice
blowing back, a whisper of myth.
Fog-fingers reach out of the sea
to tickle the hull of the vessel
hauling Odysseus
under ridges of cirrus�
the sky magenta above Helicon.
I will call you.
I have myth to go on,
that and the magic of your name.
Who knows what it means to call the muse,
what it is to listen?
Timothy Pettet
Before I get intimidated by notices about HTML tags, I just want to say that I would like to participate in that conversation, should it ever become a public event. tim
Every mid-sized, third tier American city is burdened by the identical posse of jaundiced junior grade, hardcore Bukowski-ites. Minnows swimming in the wake of a leviathan. The same template is always honored: narcissistic, oppositional and profoundly fecundated with what passes for blue collar chic.
Sweet suffering Jesus! Is it 1950 out there? Is this etiolated Rimbeaudian romp through the gelid, eyeless universe of the interior still a message with a meaning. Nein, no, nyet. How do you say Nada and really mean it?!
This dream-stream institutiion of wordy hamhockery is an endgame, deliquescent homage to poetasters masquerading as poets. Rhetoric without substance is merely that: a tribadic chanson of faux populismo conceits that say nothing.
Get a new script. This onr poisons the air we breathe.
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