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Matthew Rohrer Matthew Rohrer is pulling off the main road in these poems, onto a side road that passes a forest of gold (or gold-colored) trees. That is the gist of the first two lines in "The Man Who Taught Matt Rohrer How to Write". It may be the obvious place to go, title-wise, to gain some insight into his latest book of poems A Green Light. MR goes on to say "my inclination is to pursue magic/but the overweight man with the mustache/twisted the throttle and said It would be a/big mistake to ride through there, and I believed/him." The deep golden forests that MR passes in these poems are dark and mossy, smell a bit like sperm, and are twisted and unusual. Very few poets have ever been, but only because they've been taught, along with MR, to stay away. And maybe because they don't fancy to, regardless. The desire to pursue magic cannot be taught, but only found in the forest itself. MR pursues his magic recklessly in this collection, disregarding all warnings, thumbing his nose perhaps at those that know better. I found the beating heart of this beast and it is "MK Ultra". It is the poem from which all the other poems are able to survive, because it announces the riff between the poet MR, and the persona that tends to misdirect. Many of the poems around "MK Ultra" struggle with being frank with the reader, giving him or her the actual MR or burying the truth in mirrors. MR is able to tap into so much emotion within this riff as he searches for his true self (his soul?) -it can be simultaneously awkward and beautiful. The poem is intricately constructed, leaving bits of plot behind for us to construct the scenes ourselves. The poem operates like a microcosm for the entire book, as if tiny mirrors were dumped into the chronology of things so that one scene can teach us about another, or deceive us completely. So, this is a book of mirrors. Some of these mirrors show us dark pools of humility, some make us think we are somewhere else. Some I think are full of lies and some are magic holes. The repetition of mirrors here is appropriate for a collection of poems that is completely aware of itself as a collection of poems. This concept is evident in "Second Poem for Theodore":
Just pretend my writing is like somebody else's. And in the prose poem "Mongolian Death Worm", MR shows up again as the poet, giving the poem an intriguing self-awareness: "I have lost interest al-/ready, in these few lines. I have been pausing for so long after/each period, and nearly as long after each comma, there's no/reason for you to still be here. There's nothing more to learn about the worm." Mirrors can fool, can mislead, can deceive-particularly a lot of mirrors. It seems as though MR may be unlocking his vault of dark secrets, but is disguising everything with mirrors--leading us down the wrong corridors. In "Disquisition of Trees", MR says: "The book that says the President is a friend of trees is a book of/lies!" A Green Light may be the book that says the President is a friend of trees. It is certainly not the book that MR suggests reading as a replacement, a book with "Not a tree in sight. Not a tree in the whole book." The poem ends brilliantly, reminding us to be cautious about pinning down what this collection is about: "It is a book about how to/have a big piece missing from your head and live." We know A Green Light can't be the book without trees, because it takes place alongside a golden forest (there are easily more trees here even than mirrors, and only a small handful of poems without trees). Like a forest, particularly a golden one, the book is easy to get lost in. The footpaths are deceptive and the trees are magic and throw apples. There are also a few zippers that associate themselves with death. And a lot of death, though MR allows us to disassociate ourselves from it. There is drinking and there is driving, though they never really happen simultaneously thank God. And God and the Devil are here, though they do not play together in the same poems. MR understands the importance of poem titles-they're precious and not to be thrown away. He is a candidate for being the Guided by Voices of poem titles in the literary world. Here are my favorite, ones I would classify as fabulous, in order:
5. Emu of Wonder/Mongolian Death Worm Number one because it is brilliant. Few poems could pull off a title that uses such a top-shelf (bottom shelf?) word, but the juxtaposition that it creates within the poem is mesmerizing. "Pussy Island" is among the most obviously intense and grave poems here. The deaths in this poem are the most accessible, the ones closest to what we know and fear. And they affect us most deeply because of the veil of its title. Number two because of the exclamation mark. Eyebrows are forced to rise and hearts must beat faster--this is the Ski Lift to Death! Ahhh! Number three is scary. Number four is beautiful in its over-significance. If the two titles in number five were forced to duke it out for sole proprietorship of the number five spot, I would no doubt side with the death worm. Especially since, according to the poem, the mere mentioning of the worm brings death... -Zachary Schomburg |