Review - Fake Math by Ryan Fitzpatrick

Fake math
by Ryan Fitzpatrick
Snare Books, 2007

Reviewed by Joanna M. Weston

Fitzpatrick’s poetry needs to be read with care, the title of each poem kept in mind. He crafts his poems with a catholic eye, taking in the universality of life and society, using every aspect in ways that surprise and intrigue. The poetry reflects the media-driven society of North America with its uneasy language, difficult juxtaposition of images, and confusing relationships. It is, however, doubtful that it communicates easily with the casual reader.

In the first, ‘The denatured poem’, he writes

The most ambitious
tipping bottle is status
and power based.

That Archimedes could lift
position in a love poem
slavery, trade unions, at all.

…

After a star fuses, will it
tolerate ambiguity, make
realities concrete?

A totemic court crafts
small holes in hominid
static complexity.

That Euclid is a denatured
denizen: geometric
sounds left hearbreaking.

(p.7)

He follows through on the title, using few images of nature but twisting them when he does. The natural images are hard, regulated, as in ’The Echo Game’ ‘Tree as precise order./ Rhizome as regal hierarchy./ A prairie flat echo./’(p.59) He sees the controlled plantings of city parks and finds them completely unnatural.

Later he writes

First off, my poem forgot how
peanut butter and jam tastes.
In kindergarten, a strong coffee
soap opera, my poem caught a fish.

The first two lines have some relationship to everyday. After all, when hunger strikes peanut butter and jam can be a poem of exquisite fulfillment. But the second two stretch understanding past belief and into childhood whimsy.

This poetry contains few clear statements about our society, Fitzpatrick preferring to entangle the reader in verbal sophistication and perplexity. Occasionally he takes on political incorrectness as in ‘Social undesirability’ when he lampoons the way society marginalizes certain groups:

Mom says black people are like
cavemen but they don’t have clubs.

Teacher says retards are just like us,
except stupider and less important.

English is hard. English makes a good
cold compress. English has many friends.

… Friend says that poor people should just
get jobs and they will be rich people.

(p.64/5)

Then he explores capitalism and its affects on our lives in such poems as ‘Social Commodities’

XXX If a pen stays gold.
If a word is a foodstamp, then good.
Value treadmill early in herd.
Hoard out money which miracles.
No single out any circulation.
Worldview has turned.
Just because we screw doesn’t mean.
Just because we assume swoosh pants.
Tradition and the tattooed cerebellum.
Sweat and swoon of commodity fetishism.

(p.23)

He piles up the images for four and a half pages, each one ‘Textbook perfect in the cockpit.’ (p.23) but ‘Communiqué a blank wall.’ (p.25) The reader is left puzzled and overwhelmed. This is, perhaps, the mark of this book, that Fitzpatrick leaves the reader as confused by his poetry as much as by the society we live in. If Fitzpatrick’s intent is to reflect our culture then he has succeeded.

-- Joanna M. Weston

A SUMMER FATHER - poetry - Frontenac House
2006 ISBN: 1-89718105-1 $15.95
THOSE BLUE SHOES for ages 7-12
http://www3.telus.net/public/west34/