Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Review in The Lit Pub of Medusa's Country

Medusa's Country by Larissa Shmailo

06/27/17
Medusa peels herself from the pages of mythology to become a denizen of New York City’s margins. There, she waltzes with Thanatos: “The dance with death? / Ah, this: as I flirt, you draw near.” When Eros shows up, he lures Medusa on a peregrination toward a broken self: “My naked heart unrobes, undressed of anguished cries.”
Shmailo adds, “Larissa’s rose is sick and is consuming me.” This alludes to William Blake’s poem “The Sick Rose,” pertaining to self-destructive sexuality. While beautiful, the rose has become infected by a worm. Addressing herself in an epistolary moment, Shmailo states, “Dear Friend of ferment / who unearths worms // that enrich this blissful human soil.”
Here lies one of many moments of transformation. The poet, though brutally honest about her bouts with mental illness, mania, and deleterious behaviors, also acknowledges the alchemy available by casting pain into language. Purged, the expectation for starting anew enriches this “human soil,” fecund with possibility and, surprisingly, hope. Here is one of the many strengths of this collection of poems—it is relentlessly honest and (therefore) resilient.
These qualities guide the poet’s exploration. Along the way, the gorgon assumes other personae, including a prostitute named Nora, a reluctant villain, not unlike Medusa herself. Once, one of Athena’s priestesses, she was raped by Poseidon. Instead of being seen as the victim, Medusa was held responsible by Athena, who turned the gorgon’s curls into snakes (Blake’s worm?) and made all who gazed upon her turn to stone. Medusa was ostracized by her own power. Shmailo avers, “His eyes transfixed by my serpents / that hardened, froze, and pleased.” Indeed, misogyny has—from antiquity to Ibsen’s era to the present—castigated women who dared to exhibit intelligence and power. Many of these poems lead the reader through histories of misogyny and sexual abuse (as in the myth itself). In a poem titled “Rapes,” Shmailo confesses:
I abandoned myself to invisible hands,
the known vice and the strong vise of my nerves and my glands.
I half-screwed and cat-moaned and imagined your stare
in the stranger, his knife slowly teasing my hair.
She unpacks her poet’s suitcase of prosody and nuanced rhymes, knowing that a poem is not only about a given topic, but also about the agency of language itself. Like a stab, she writes, “The rapist called me fat.” Again, the victim, not the perpetrator, is rebuked. Nonetheless, these poems ultimately serve a triumphant voice—a brave and audacious “I.” Convinced of her prowess, this Medusa stares into her own mirror, where she confronts distorted notions of normalcy: “You, my reflection, in pain,” and, “We live in parts.”
Despite landing on a psychiatric ward, she frees herself with sardonic wit and blade-sharp language: “Bellevue, Bellevue, where nurses’ crazy laughter / rings through the night.” The writing is so visceral, the reader feels trapped in the “locked ward,” along with the author. One can hear the howls and smell the disinfectants.
However, with verve, with chutzpah, with urgency, Shmailo’s poems become spells, freeing her, transforming stone into flesh:
I spent my whole life seeking it,
wrecking, reeking, eking it,
in hydra-headed phalluses;
in aliases & pal-louses;
in papapapapaMedusas;
in mirrors & seducers.
Ultimately, she magicks death into an affirmation of life: “I love love’s desert and its snow.” Indeed, she has led us from one extreme terrain to another—and back to the silence of the page, where we marvel at her hard-won wholeness. As we read this book, it becomes our own.


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

The Awakening

My Awakened White Self: Trump supporters hate Obama because he is black.
My Naive White Self: Yes, some, but others are just disenfranchised workers voting against their interests.
MAWS: Trump supporters hate Obama because he is successful and black.
MNWS: That's impossible! A third of the electorate?
MAWS: Wall, Mexican judge, birth certificate, travel ban - they hear it and like it.
MNWS: But . . . .
MAWS: Larissa, grow up. We have a big fight ahead.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Happy Bloomsday! Lotus Eaters Erasure

ERASURE, THE LOTUS EATERS, ULYSSES*

BY LORRIES ALONG SIR JOHN ROGERSON'S QUAY
past Nichols' the undertaker's. Eleven, daresay.
Sent his right hand with slow grace over his hair:
Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere?
Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back;
It's a law like that. Curriculum. Crack.
It's the force of gravity of the earth is the weight.
Per second, per second. Post office. Too late.
Eleven, is it? I only heard it last night.
What's wrong with him? Dead. And, he filled up, all right.
Chloroform. Laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Phlegm.
Better leave him the paper and get shut of him.


*Lines in this found poem are taken in order between erasures from “The Lotus Eaters” episode of Ulysses by James Joyce.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

The Most Insidious Trump Tactic

The most insidious tactic of the Trump presidency is the message to us, the vast majority of Americans who are against him, is that we can do nothing to depose him. It is true that we have seen the Teflon Don survive innumerable scandals, that executive secrecy, doublespeak, and attacks on the media hamper freedom of information, and that Trump's autocratic threats are intimidating. And the craven Republican response to all this does not help. But remember: We are the majority. We have powerful leaders and allies. And we are informed and motivated. Let's keep sharing information, support one another, and work toward defeating the Republican majorities in the midterms in 2018 to impeach and convict Trump.

Saturday, June 10, 2017

"Abortion Hallucination" to Appear in Anthology

I  am proud to announce that my poem, "Abortion Hallucination," will appear in the anthology, Choice Words: Poems about Abortion edited by Annie Finch. Keep abortion safe and legal for all women!

Schadenfreude

Special Prosecutor Mueller has hired a specialist to review Trump orbit financials and an expert in obstruction of justice prosecution; Jared Kushner will appear before the Senate Intelligence committee June 23rd; committees in the House and Senate are calling for tapes and for Jeff Sessions to testify. Mike Flynn has handed over 600 pages of documents, and if he gets the immunity he wants, well, there will be a story to tell. Forgive my schadenfreude, friends, but I am really going to enjoy watching Trumpworld unravel.

Blog Archive