Shotgun Weather

By Todd Moore and Dennis Gulling

Crawlspace Press

www.stvituspress.com

Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman

This short chap is something else.  Often you feel like a guy trapped in a burning car—surrounded by intense heat.  In fact, one poem is about exactly that. 

The chap is equal parts Todd Moore and Dennis Gulling.  Both poets start with similar subject matter—violent people in violent lives.  The lives are brutal and often cut short.  The heroes steal and kill, sometimes for no apparent reason except that they can.  Lowlifes is the usually term given to the heroes of these poems—but are they lowlifes really, or just less fortunate versions of ourselves?

Although the subject matter is very similar, the poetry styles are dramatically different.  Gulling is closer to ‘traditional’ poetry in terms of form, whereas Moore  No reason to think this, but it feels that Moore was there first, and Gulling uses him as inspiration.

What is fascinating is that although many of the poems are introspective, none are naval gazing.  Moore, I know, often draws on his own life experiences to produce remarkably dramatic, often disturbing writing—using an extremely minimalist style that reflects the brutal short lives of his characters.

Want a taste?  Here is a Moore poem about his father.  His dad was a firefighter in Chicago whose work plunged him into horror, dealing with burned corpses, shading his life into darkness:

death

my old man

sd grabbing

me by the

shirt front

what the

fuck do you

know abt

death have

you ever

seen any

one die he

was so

close to

me his

whiskey

soaked spit

was wetting

my face

have you ever seen a dead man’s

blood fuck

I’ve had it all over me

I’ve crawled

thru tons of

that shit he

gave me a

shove & sd

don’t write

abt death til

you’ve slept

w/that whore

Moore makes nothing easy for the reader, certainly the reader does not have it easier than Moore’s characters.  In the poem you just read there is more than enough material for a long novel.  Talk about modern: delivering a novel in under a hundred words.  Moore writes first for himself, which is how it should be.  If you find his abbreviated writing style difficult—he probably could care less, and I’m with him.  Moore has a tough, take it or leave it approach, and as a result his work comes across as distinctly American original. 

Gulling is less familiar to me.  His work focuses on similar subject matter, but the writing style is more ‘accessible’—the lines are longer, the words not abbreviated.  As a result his style does not feel it has the same urgency as Moore’s work—but that’s ok.  His writing is tough, but without the stylistic challenges of Moore’s writing.  In the end, that’s what the chap is really about—authors starting from a similar place, then going off their unique ways.  Moore is a more challenging read which always pays off.  It’s blunt, direct, in your face.  Because of Gulling’s style, his writing feels less immediate, but that does not mean it is not very powerful.  And Gulling, like Moore, sketches entire lives into a few lines.

The chap is 24 pages, one poem per page.  The first half is Gulling, the second Moore. If there is a definition of ‘outsider writing’ it is `contained in this chap, through these poems.

Normally I do not include any “I” crap in reviews I write.  Hey, that was three “I”s right there--ey yi yi.  But this if I did not use “I” then I could not tell you how I attempted to use poem in this new chap in a feeble attempt to lay a number on my daughter’s boyfriend.

It isn’t often you can use poetry to intimidate your daughter’s boyfriend.  Or at least, try to use it that way.

Here’s how and where and when I read this chap.  I’d had it for a few weeks, waiting for the right time to open it.  A few nights ago, at 6:30, my 19 year old daughter phoned and asked me to take her to the hospital (don’t worry, she’s now fine, nothing serious).  She has a boyfriend, but he was at work, and after all I’m her dad.  So I drove her to an emergency room and ended up staying there until 2 am (in Canada, by the way, you don’t pay a penny for such services directly, it’s taken care of thru taxes).

Her boyfriend came as soon as he could (he’s ok, but any boyfriend of my daughter is suspect, by definition).  It’s quiet, so I sit for an hour and read the chap.  The first poem in the chap is Gulling’s, and in a feeble attempt to intimidate him (not that he deserved it, I was just being a dad), I read the poem out loud:

Burning

He came to

With the car on fire

She stood outside laughing

Waving a gas can over her head

He blistered both hands

Getting the door open

Hit the ground

With everything burning

Too busy trying

To stamp out the flames

To notice the bullet

She put in his ass

My feeble attempt at intimidation was to say this is what happens when a man does not treat his girlfriend properly.  They both laughed, so I guess the intimidation part didn’t quite work out. 

Last update : 30-05-2008 14:35

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