Hammer & Tongs: A Smoking Lung Anthology
edited by Brad Cran
Arsenel Pulp Press, 1999
Review by Ibolya Kaslik
Hammer and Tongs, edited by Brad Cran, includes the voices of 12 promising
and already accomplished West Coast poets. The selections are long enough
for readers to engage with each unique voice and glean insight into the
hearts and minds of a younger generation of poets who are intent on both
the lyricism of their craft and revelations.
Cran's organization of the various poets is a bit top-heavy as the
first six poets are more serious types. Most memorable is Shane Book's
"Dust" which combines a personal and family narrative and Carla Funk's
series of Solomon's Wives poems which creates a Middle-Eastern world replete
with sensory and sensual details. The only break from this more somber,
meditative school of poetry comes with Cran's own junkie-aesthetic. For
example, in "Death by a Friend by Overdose" the jaded, disenfranchised
Cran reports:
look
what Jeff's done now,
the dumb-ass is all blue and cold and dead.
Worthy of mention too is Chris Hutchison's "Thirteen Spiders" a playful
series of instalments on the mythical virtue of spiders. The second half
of the book is more mixed up in terms of voice as, Aubri Aleka Keleman
deconstructs our first narratives - nursery rhymes, parables and myths.
Most successful are the "Raven" poems as Keleman taps into an almost fearsome
Hitchcockian intensity:
Darkness will streak
and stain,
and caught in the stick,
break into fine dark
feathers at last.
Ryan Knighton's poem "Braille", is the most poignant and well-crafted
work in the collection and, interestingly enough, is the most clearly
'West-Coast' in terms of location and climate: "Vancouver's
light autumn drizzle is what it is & it's finally pressing stars to dial
God." Knighton's work stands out as the most mature as his ability to
balance often times humourous detail with ideas is superb:
...My brother is a
blond child
in his Mr. Turtle pool.
There is no water & no way.
Knighton is unpretentious, more certain of his voice than some of
the other poets in this collection. Worthy of high mention too is Billie
Livingston who writes about abortion, adoption and adultery with grace,
confidence and without cliche: "How will he feel? He? If he were sick,
would you ask how I felt?"
Billeh Nickelson's cheeky, sensual and humourous poetry on homosexuality
are also memorable. Nickelson is the undisputed king of one-liners -"Being
a faggot means you get to/hear about everyone else's/faggot friends...".
But Nickelson also captures the dynamics of gay love in his work, with
tenderness:
My lover feeds me
mangos
with his switchblade
close against my lips.
Although there were a couple of weak moments of first Poetry Workshop
indulgence and a few teenage angst debacles, and it would have been nice
to see the authors' names next to their photos (why have photos without
names?) overall, Hammer and Tongs is a successful anthology. In
a country as large as ours, it is inspiring to see young poets, who are
several timezones and climates away, who possess the talent, humour and
skill to represent their work in such a rich collective.
Ibi
Kaslik is a graduate of the English Masters program at Concordia. Her work has
appeared in "Matrix," "Hour" and "Peckerwood".
She dreams of one day owning her very own banjo.
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