Erratic Sleep in a Cold Hotel
by Marie Kazalia
Phoney Lid Publications, 2000

Reviewed by Ibolya Kaslik

Sadly, there is nothing redeeming about Marie Kazalia´s first book of poetry. While the San Fransisco´s Crown Hotel, the setting of her book, seems to provide ample social and visual fodder for poetry and while the theme of poverty, though tired, is a compelling starting point for a poet, Kazalia´s work offers no insight into the impoverished existence of the author and the tenants of the Hotel.

Kazalia´s Introduction, which describes the events that lead up to her stay at the Crown, contains precisely the same information, ideas and themes as her poems. Kazalia, burnt-out from travelling and cultured-shocked, ends up at the Crown to write but she has produced mere surface descriptions of crackheads, hookers, alcoholics and abused women. In "Not much for a poor man" Kazalia writes, "sucking that pipe/getting that hit/doesn´t care who walks by/so long as it´s not a cop", making yet another cliched observation rather than creating a poem.

Kazalia is clearly out of her element and is slumming it, and this would be fine if she explored something more interesting than a middle-class girl pretending to represent life below the poverty line. But rather than experiencing any real self-consciousness or creative energy, her poems reflect her own middle-class pre-occupations.

So contrived is the grittiness, it feels like Kazalia could cleanse herself of these people she empathizes with but cannot identify with, with one good meal and shower. In "Spots (bindis)", for example, she writes, "how many years/ since this ugly blue room painted?/the crummy rug/practically solid stains." There seems to be little transformative power in these poems if not a total lack of poetic sensibility. There is also an unnerving sloppiness to the work on a technical level.

At first, giving Kazalia the benefit of the doubt, I thought maybe her lack of verbs, typos, punctuation problems and spelling mistakes were stylistic tics but, unfortunately, they are simply mistakes. In a world with such an abundance of great unpublished poets and writers it´s really depressing to see a book fraught with grammatical and technical flaws.

Kazalia should have been satisfied to keep her experiences and observations of streetlife in her diary as "Erratic Sleep in a Cold Hotel," an indulgent product of gen-X ennui, lacks the substance, polish and direction to be real poetry.

Ibi Kaslik graduated from the English Masters program at Concordia in spring 2000. Her work has appearedin "Matrix," "Hour" and "Peckerwood". She dreams of one day owning her very own banjo.