Black Lawrence

[REVIEW] O Holy Insurgency, by Mary Biddinger

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Oh Holy

 

Black Lawrence Press

91 pages, $14

 

Review by Sara Henning

 

O Holy Insurgency, Mary Biddinger’s second full-length collection of poetry, investigates the trope of love poem within an unrelenting rustbelt backdrop. This universe of desire is not just a savvy reinvention of romance, but a meditation on power in a stifling world. As I read these poems I am reminded of Helene Cixous’ apropos words from “The Scene of the unconscious to the Scene of History”: “at a certain moment for the person who has lost everything, whether that means a being or a country, language becomes the country. One enters the country of words.” Biddinger forfeits her physical tie to a world that fails her with a linguistic soiree of feminine Eros. These candid poems apply hyperbole and tender grit to form at times surreal, at times playful, explorations of lust as it exists in a woman’s body.

The first section, fittingly titled “Anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of the Lord,” induces reverence in a beloved as one worships in a house of faith. The speaker’s bond is both sacred idol and defense against an underwhelming landscape. The section’s opening poem, “Dyes and Stitchery,” prepares the reader for a psychosocial climate where dogs are designated drivers, children buy cigarettes, and dirt roads are lined by “elbow-high corn.” Yet, here we meet the speaker’ object of affection, and read on as she ignites with him linguistic cataclysms that reverberate through the rest of the book. Continue reading →

The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, by Adam Prince (A Review by Thomas Michael Duncan)

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Black Lawrence Press

$18/200 pgs

Call it original sin, or human nature, or whatever you like. Any way you word it, the human race is one of flaws and imperfections. We do everything in our power to present the best versions of ourselves, to bury objectionable motives and actions beneath a barrier of civility. In his debut collection of stories, The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, Adam Prince forces readers to explore this suppressed side of humanity. The characters in his stories are not villains; they are everyday people with their most unsettling thoughts and desires placed beneath a magnifying glass. What’s truly frightening about these stories is that the ugliness of the characters do not make them repulsive. Prince offers these men in a way that demands sympathy. Despite unforgivable faults, it is hard not to identify with these men, even to love them.

Take Ted Asmund- junior high school math teacher, socially awkward thirty-year-old, and inappropriately attracted to a young male student. The story is “Island of the Lost Boys” and begins with Ted fleeing his home in Tempe, Arizona, the morning after he attempted to kiss an adolescent boy on the mouth. Ted seeks shelter at his childhood home in Newport Beach. Without notifying his employers of his absence, Ted spends several days in California trying to clear his head. His environment also leads Ted to reminisce about his childhood, especially about an old friend named Cannon, Ted’s closest friend when he was young and didn’t understand what made him different from his peers. Ted recalls an uncomfortable conversation that underlines his problem:

One night Cannon and Rob were joking about how everything was in their pants. When the girl they’d brought over said she wanted another beer, Cannon said the beer was in his pants. And when the girl said they should put on something else to listen to, Rob said there was something else in his pants.

“Me too,” said Teddy.

“Huh?” asked the girl.

“There’s something else in my pants too. You should see, um, what it is.”

It was the same thing Cannon and Rob had just been saying, but the reaction was entirely different. “John, man,” said the girl- John was Cannon’s first name, and he had just started to use it- “John, man, you’re friend’s getting all creepy on me.” Continue reading →