lnprad's review
2.0
A reviewer on HTMLGiant included Rauan Klassnik on a list of poets that, “made [her/him] care about poetry in 2013,” describing Rauan’s poetry as “tiny, dimly lit room[s] with the air running out…Although the words feel familiar they are always unraveling in new ways—each poem feeling more surprising than the last” (JDScott). (btw, Rauan is a contributor of HTMLGiant, comments frequently, and this fact makes me feel weird and usually suspicious: when writer A comments on writer B’s work, when writer A & B are in the same lit. circle, granted alt. poetry is inherently, probably, a small circle; e.g. Ken Baumann’s, another listed contributor at HTMLGiant, five star review of this book on Goodreads, which more or less yells out ‘cahoots.’ Anyway.) The several hundred different words used by Rauan in The Moon’s Jaw, yes, are made new in their construction of skeletal scenes, detailed by sickness and violence and, what someone with a stiffer O.T. moral backbone might label, depravity. The good ones are disarming, scraping ‘beauty’ out of violence, semen, and “our wasted bodies” (58), which speaks a lot about how affective his stylized midnight shit-scapes can be. But, as the HTMLGiant reviewer insists, ‘always unraveling in new ways’? ‘Each more surprising than the last’? After say page twenty, after the pleasure in the initial shock dissipates, the surprises ultimately come when the poems’ tone alters. Also, Rauan at times attempts to muddle up the gender binary line too, which generally an interesting ploy, but nothing comes much from that other than, well, muddle that you could get away calling progressive (?). Which is all to say, trust nothing you read on the Interweb—or only half of everything you read on the Interweb, even this. Though, if you’d like, message me your address and I’ll send you a postcard with all this written, for the sake of trustworthy physical material.
Example of what works:
“The suns are crows, burning, austere, & frazzled—& we’re turning round them, each one of them—Like a pig on a spit … our bones & fat—Dripping & snapping, each—Other. In half, Repeatedly, Imploring … “The Messiah has come!” … “He has come!” In spirals of boiled semen … A toilet—Filled w/ roses … An ice cube in a starved man’s mouth” (60).
What doesn’t:
“She moans like you’re doing it already—But she holds back. Or seems to. & you force her. & she submits—Towering, Up, Over, You: Sheathed in metal. Like stars in twilight. & then, leaning down—Whispers: “Come, baby, come.” As she tears out yr heart—& touches yr face. Church Bells: Raining. Blackbirds. She stares, down, on her bright pink knees” (50).
Example of what works:
“The suns are crows, burning, austere, & frazzled—& we’re turning round them, each one of them—Like a pig on a spit … our bones & fat—Dripping & snapping, each—Other. In half, Repeatedly, Imploring … “The Messiah has come!” … “He has come!” In spirals of boiled semen … A toilet—Filled w/ roses … An ice cube in a starved man’s mouth” (60).
What doesn’t:
“She moans like you’re doing it already—But she holds back. Or seems to. & you force her. & she submits—Towering, Up, Over, You: Sheathed in metal. Like stars in twilight. & then, leaning down—Whispers: “Come, baby, come.” As she tears out yr heart—& touches yr face. Church Bells: Raining. Blackbirds. She stares, down, on her bright pink knees” (50).
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