“Village Idiot”, New Poetry From Ross Vassilev
Michael J. Solender on the new collection of poems by OWC member and Opium Poetry 2.0 editor Ross Vassilev.
While legions of writers and poets struggle with punching up colorful words in just the right shade to elicit emotion or punctuate their meanings, Ross Vassilev manages to connect his work with the reader in black and white. Mostly black.
Vassilev, editor of Opium Poetry 2, and Asphodel Madness, has 10 of his works featured in the eChap, Village Idiot, produced by Full of Crow Press. Vassilev doesn’t rely on carefully crafted prose or just the right word combinations to create a mood or elicit a response from his readers. He speaks viscerally, in short bursts and with blunt phrasing that often punches his readers right in their gut.
There is an ache and dull flatness in Village Idiot that concusses one into re-reading the work over and over, giving rise to a certainty that you must have missed something the first time around.
His piece, a miserable profession offers the lament of the poet who has been forced to move back into the home of his parents:
I’m the poet who moved back in with his parents
after getting fired from his last job
I’m the 6-foot-1 poet who’s fat and diabetic
I’m the would-be pseudo poet who’s giving it a try
I’m the poet who sits on the patio summer nights
listening to crickets
and staring up at the stars
………….
Vassilev’s voice speaks to the disenfranchised. There is truly an irony in this. As we move into the second decade of the new millennium, the obsession with social networking and the insatiable need to connect even with people we are likely to never meet, Vassilev’s prose resonates with those on islands created from their own doing. In the eponymous work, village idiot, the protagonist finds himself fired from work, too lazy to shave, with energy for nothing much beyond staying up all night watching Fellini movies:
I’m a bum.
an idiot. a loser.
I’m a Sandinista.
I’m a goddamn
good-for-nothing foreigner.
…………………..
this country is overrun
with village idiots
………………..
give us all a hand.
Don’t confuse colorless with bleak, or without emotion. There is plenty of punch and even humor in Vassilev’s work. His writing is wry, sardonic and plays with both satire and rebellion.
Vassilev is nothing if not prolific. His work is all over the web and in addition to the above zines you can read him at Strange Road, Rusty Truck, Word Riot and countless other venues.
The cover and images for Village Idiot are by Peter Schwartz, of Dogzplot.
Michael J. Solender blogs here: Not From Here, Are You?
