DOPE

Various Authors

Edited by Debbie Kirk

Pink Anarchkitty Press (Tainted Coffee)

2007, 51 Pages, $5

Reviewed by: Paul Corman Roberts

When I discovered Debbie Kirk had edited an anthology entitled “Dope,” I thought “finally, an anthology that’s not going to apologize for manifesting the political and existential choice to smash a two-by-four into one’s forehead!”

Well, not exactly.  But at $5 a pop from Pink Anarchkitty/Tainted Coffee Press, there is not a better bargain for a quick “rush” from an underground anthology available anywhere in the small or large press this year. 

          The cover (a gorgeous shot of Kirk, covered in blood, some of which may not all be hers, wearing the damaged temptation of a come- hither hang dog look that says “more please”) and the brilliant introductory prose essay by RC Edrington do nothing to dissuade this. Edrington provides a service by differentiating between the addict and the casual user, particularly of heroin, and suggests that there are a number of users amongst us in society who don’t always fully cave into the junkie life cycle.

                    “Addiction is a weakness of weak people. It isn’t a disease the psycho-priest

                    currently makes billions off by peddling un-needed cures and psycho-babble.

                    I have no use for addicts.  But the fact is, every now and then I “need” to

                    bang a syringe of Horse through my veins to obliterate the fucked up world

                    outside.”

He is not wrong to suggest this, because the drug culture may be our civilization’s greatest example of Social Darwinism in the present, perhaps because so many of those enlisted are trying to escape that very present.  It is ultimately this “survival of the fittest” credo that is the price of surviving in the culture of dope.

          Edrington does deny the “addict” label however, and to disown addiction may also be denying something that is fundamentally human in nature.  After all, Edrington more or less admits to not wanting to give in to anything (“…as my ex-girlfriend once said, I refuse to give up control to any one thing completely…”) so isn’t control his real addiction, which heroin helps support? More importantly, the conceit suggests drugs can simply be used as a conduit to other identity constructs, perhaps even more dangerous than just that of the “addict.”

Still, one of the best poems in the collection is Ron Lucas’ “Moment of Clarity”:

                                                  my name is ron

                                                  and I’m finally

ready to admit

i have a problem

with both drink

AND

drugs:

i’m out of both.

Reminiscent of Leonard Cohen’s line “is there anything/emptier/than the drawer/where we kept our opium,” Lucas, like Edrington, gets to the hard heart of the matter…the “what” which keeps poisoning ourselves such a viable option…how the ritual of a suddenly found nugget of rock or weed or a freshly chopped line on a mirror can suddenly make very real and practical problems impossible to feel or remember.

In the end, most of the poems here tell us that drugs are bad (when will those of us in the underground ever figure that out, damn us) but none makes the case better than Iris Berry:

                    “it was the last trip to 9^th and Bonnie Brae

                    to 8^th and Hill

                    to Wilshire and Westmoreland

                    that last 3 hour bus ride

                    and that $20 cab ride

                    for what

                    to maybe get well

                    and probably get burned

                    it was that last cruise past MacArthur Park

                    that last 4 am front

                    still to this day unpaid

                    it was that last

                    911 call to Gower and Hollywood

                    that last three-day crack marathon

                    on Normandy Avenue

                    in a car phone selling

                    carpet crawling

                    curtain taping

                    extravaganza…”

-        Excerpted from “When The Life of the Party Turns Blue”

Berry is the only woman included in this collection, which is unfortunate.  A disappointment was to see no contribution from Kirk herself.

Overall Kirk has done an admirable job here, and provided the drug community with yet another memorable connection to the literary community. She has to be given credit for selecting a number of pieces which recover redemption in the models provided by users and addicts.  Even if their endings are predictably doomed, it cannot be said, amongst the many sad sacks presented here, that beauty and power don’t combine to give the illusion of the rush of transcendence and thus freedom.

Standout poems in this vein (so to speak) include the William Taylor Jr. poem “A Girl I Know”, Doug Draime’s “Murray & Marie” and Shane Allison’s “I’m in it for the Drugs and Booze.” It would be nice to see this anthology continue, with some more recklessness thrown in and a larger variety of work on display.

Last update : 18-11-2007 17:31

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