Customer Reviews

Scary, No Scary

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Yesterday I picked up a copy of this new book of poetry, the author's second. This sophmore journey from the founder of Octopus magazine resonated with me immediately in a way few contemporary American poetry books are able. Within nearly every poem Schomburg speaks beauty, both natural and human, with a devilish tongue. In fact, he draws no distinction between the natural and human worlds, nor the holy and unholy, as they intertwine in every line. A woman loses her arms, from which grow tree limbs. A grotesque image straight from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, to be sure, but this is not the masochistic work of man. It is nature within man. Eventually she transforms into a tree and it is beatiful. Elsewhere two people give themselves to the bones of a coyote, another mysterious concept described in such natural, holistic terms, which thenceforth transform the dead coyote in a god of the forest. There is something of Nick Cave's lyrical genius in this. Something of Native American recognition that there are not two, or more, worlds but one, without dividing lines, without a black or a white element.

I would very much suggest it to any reader, even those without a firm grasp nor love of poetry.

Scary, No Scary is less like a book of poetry and more like a concept album--with better lyrics and lots of short songs. The point is I want to read it again and again--or almost just listen and let the words bounce around in my brain. It drives me through each time as if I forgot I was reading a book and started believing that I was traveling through another man's imagination instead. The whole book builds on itself to create a flushed-out happy-Hell. It teaches its reader to understand the later parts of the book. It is meant to read wholly and not just a collection of good poems that have nothing to do with one another. He explains ideas you yourself have had, but in a clear and imaginative way--limbs regrowing into branches, bears with no legs, and the idea of being compressed into a tiny cube. Imagine Walden pond, but surrounded by fire and a moat of lava. It turns all of those shadows you thought were monsters as kid into beautiful poetry.

I adore the poetry in this collection. I just get this feeling of sense hiding below the nonsense, this completely logical thread that could be grasped if only I could lunge fast enough. Always, though, it remains elusive. The poems twist and turn, making logical leaps that schizophrenics would scratch their heads at. However, somehow, the poems craft startling and surprising images. They evoke unexpected and novel feeling emotions. Certainly, these poems are wonderfully entertaining. But...there is more than that. There is more than that.