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By Victor Schwartzman, on 30-08-2008 15:32

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Published in : OW! Site Content, Reviews
Virgin Eyes/MK Chavez
Zeitgeist Press
1630 University Ave #34 Berkeley, CA 94703
www.Zeitgeist-Press.com
$5.95

One of the newest additions to the Zeitgeist library, poems of startling truth from a former stripper who has lived on the edges of society and now writes with both compassion and street smarts. Chavez is employed teaching addicts about wound care from a mobile hospital: ‘and for a few minutes I lose myself/as I talk about the dangers of breaking down crack with lemon juice,’ (“The Ritual”).

Chavez writes passionately, yet somewhat detached, about the subjects she knows intimately: the commingling of sex and commerce, the streets and addiction. These are poems of humility, yet with great sex appeal and a lot of class. Never to glamorize or elevate herself as a martyr, she relates her haughty well- traveled wisdom, cleaning the wounds of the damned, and looking out for others: ‘Stay steady/let go/but don’t get too high/have something that will bring you back/stay alive. Don’t fall asleep sister/you might get burned’ (“Sister”).

Of course the reader may not know if she has written this to herself or another, but the poem is haunting and matter of fact and I found very few poems in this chap that didn’t ring clear as a bell, all of them devoid of pretense and coming from deep inside the authors psyche. In “Mr. Bukowski I Didn’t Know You Were Dead,” she nails it: ‘I feel just a little bit more alone now/there is less ugliness to love/less proof that the best thing/to do if you want to be/a writer/is to write.’ Amen. This poem is one of the best in the book and should be the definitive Bukowski poem to end all Bukowski poems, and no more poems should be written about him from this point on. I hope to read more from this author in the future.

Last update : 30-08-2008 15:32

    
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