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Tell the corpse a story Todd Moore Crane’s bill books, Albuquerque Price: not clear You can probably find it through http://www.saintvituspress.com. Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman I email regularly with Todd Moore, but we’ve never met. You would not think Todd Moore’s Dillinger world could possibly get darker. Well, prepare for a light’s out. Moore has written poetry on many themes, but the most consistent has been the grey world of crime, and in particular the life of John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber from the thirties. Dillinger was an icon, and Moore’s long poems on Dillinger suitably iconic. Like the gangster, they are laconic, to the point, with the threat of violence always present, and often fulfilled. Dillinger was seen in terms of his being on the run, his weapons of choice (love that Thompson!), his “friends” like Baby Face Nelson. In the latest chap from Moore, his take on Dillinger has swerved into the Dark Zone. Has his view of Dillinger himself changed, or is it America? Hard to imagine, but Moore’s poetry, at least in this chap, has grown even darker. Dillinger is no longer quite a semi-romanticized guy on the run, lonely, a ghost to himself. In these poems, Moore gives Dillinger a harder, darker edge.
Perhaps the poems are moving towards the end of Dillinger’s life, when things have a habit of catching up on you. But in the many poems Moore has written about Dillinger, I never saw one quite as dark as this: dillinger stuck a machine gun barrel against a cashier’s head & sd do you know the sound a black wi dow makes just before it bites you while the cashier was trying to think of an answer dillinger sd just put the fucken money in the sack I had not previously read this side of Dillinger in Moore’s work—threatening the innocent, being kinda nasty. Dillinger is evolving. You can see from the poem that Moore’s writing style continues to be very spare. Every word counts. This helps contribute to the dramatic vividness of his Dillinger poems. Elements are sketched in, words abbreviated, lines never more than three words long. Dillinger led a short abruptly ended life—the writing style certainly fits that. It is also stripped down poetry—nothing pretty written or intended. But of course Moore is not writing about a pretty world. At times you have to stop while reading to make sure you have the rhythm—and there is an incredible flow to the words, just not the flow many are used to. Baby Face Nelson is in other Dillinger poems, but as more of a minor character. Here he is featured in several poems. He seems more immoral, more defiant of death than Dillinger. There is a steady thread comparing Baby Face with Dillinger, and often Baby Face seems thoughtless, strictly out for the moment, whereas Dillinger appears to be haunted by the future. You get the feeling Dillinger has contempt for Baby Face. This chap is as close to perfect as one could wish for. Each poem is a vivid tiny story. Many of the poems could be expanded easily into a short story or novel. Each poem is short, to the point, spare and lean and giving no quarter. There is absolutely nothing in Moore’s poems that panders. No pretty blue skies, no flowers, nothing about the poet getting laid. He treats the reader as an equal, not as a consumer who needs to be kept happy. It feels as if Moore’s poetry, already kinda on the dark side, has taken the plunge. Perhaps this is because he is moving towards the end of Dillinger’s life…perhaps it is a reflection on the current state of America…perhaps it is the logical place to go with a subject like Dillinger. There is a depth to these slender, short poems—he gets more done (no pun intended) with ten words than other poets with twenty.
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