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Steve Heen THE SEEDY UNDERBELLY OF THE HIGH-FALUTIN' OVERSOUL
(15 Poems / 15 Pages (30 Page Book) / $4)
Oren Wagner THE LAST REDCOAT
(21 Poems / 15 Pages (30 Page Book) / $4 ) Platonic 3 Way Press /P.O. Box 844 / Warsaw, IN 46581)
Oren Wagner and Steve Henn are close friends. They are also co-editors along with well known Small Press poet, Don Winter of the new Platonic 3 Way Press. They are 28 and 30 years old respectively. They have been submitting work for about three years and have an average of eight publication credits between them. This is their first book of poetry. They divide the space between the covers; half the book entitled, The Last Redcoat is devoted to Oren Wager’s work and the other half entitled, The Seedy Underbelly of the High-falutin’ Oversoul is devoted to Steve Henn’s work.
I asked Henn about his background, “I don't know that I've started writing in earnest yet. I've been writing a lot more these past three years than ever before, but really I started in high school. There were several years of awful stuff, tho, and then after that several more years of mediocrity. For quite a bit of the last three years I've been thinking of myself as a prose writer who is too busy teaching and schooling to get at the novel I've got about 4/5ths of a complete rough draft of, but lately I've been thinking of myself more as a poet, intentionally trying to expand my abilities and come up with creative subject matter in verse. I don't buy that "find truth and beauty in the mundane" crap. I've always written to entertain, and primarily to entertain myself. Novel subject matter, taking risks with what I write about are what I find stimulating.”
Henn’s poems are direct, narrative, and clear. They are warm hearted and good natured. Here is an example of one of his poems entitled, “Church League Softball”: “Oren and I love softball but we don’t / believe in God, so we decided to collect / a team of atheists to join the church league. / We filed for entry, marking “other” / in the spot for affiliation. Our fake name / was The Church of One, as in one life, / one chance, no soul, nothing to pray / to or for but today and tomorrow until we’re dead. / The rumor spread that we were eastern mystics, / that our experience of Him bordered on the sexual. / Janice, our token woman, got a lot of attention / from opposing men. She’d wave her tight ass / back and forth in the batter’s box, and they / served ‘em up with a slight arc, aiming / for her sweet spot.”
Oren Wagner’s work in The Last Redcoat is equally well written, but has more edge and bite to it then does Henn’s. Wagner writes impressionistically. This may be a bi-product of his years as a musician where song lyrics by their nature are often not linear in structure. I asked Wagner when did he begin writing poetry in earnest? “I've been writing for about twelve years, I was 15 or 16 when I started, you know, sad teenage poetry kind of shit. I was about 21 when I started writing stuff that doesn't make me recoil in shame (retrospectively speaking.)” I asked about his education, “An honor roll student in the school of hard knocks. After high school I was in a couple of touring punk bands. I've lived in Detroit MI, Warsaw IN, Seattle WA, South Bend IN, North Manchester IN, Colorado Springs CO, Zionsville IN and now Indianapolis IN, six of those cities have been in the past eight years, so moving around has been very formative or educational...I spent a year in college in Colorado, and have spent the last three years at a university in Indianapolis. Since I can't go to school full time, I am on the eight year program.”
Here is an example of one of Wagner’s poems entitled, “icons of the virgin”: “icons of the virgin are painted in the etceteras on the wall / surface, texture, erosion. / you don’t know that I can hear assembly line / efforts in your voice. / midnight sky of Braille and Arabic numerals / counting, falling. dot dot dot dash, / immaculate Morse code for V,/not for victory or for varsity / or for virtue. /latitude lines on an uncreated earth / still have their degrees and intervene with longitude / baby born into a cartilage cage / a metaphor for the unspoken / benedictions for the perishing apostle / zodiac, monkey pox , increased rations / assembly line icons of the virgin / etcetera etcetera written on her face.”
This is a very fine set of poetry. Well crafted, clever, mature, visual, surprising – from the minds of two friends, editors and emerging poets.
Copyright 2006, all rights retained by the poet |
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