BOUNDARY ISSUES: Thaddeus Rutkowski’s Border Crossings
by Larissa Shmailo
Border Crossings
Sensitive
Skin Books
ISBN 978-1977850898
Copyright
2018
96
pp.
Like
a Chinese-Polish American cross between Rod Serling and Emily Dickinson, Thaddeus
Rutkowski invites you to the portals of mind and matter in Border Crossings. In this first collection of poems, the fiction
writer and performance artist presents carefully sculpted, deceptively simple verses
of immediate interest to the reader, typically with an understated but potent
twist.
Whether
at the boundaries between cultures, the edges of human interiority, or the
trespasses of racism, trapdoors usually closed shut are pried open in Border Crossings. “Light and Shadow,”
among the poems opening the book, describes the poet’s initial conflict moving in
and out of hidden places:
My father opens a trapdoor
and leads me down concrete stairs
. . .
and leads me down concrete stairs
. . .
I don’t want to stay.
Spiders scrunch in the corners,
and pieces of copper tubing—
. . .
litter the floor.
Spiders scrunch in the corners,
and pieces of copper tubing—
. . .
litter the floor.
. . .
Spiders
notwithstanding, the poet finds himself liking the smell of horsehair cement in
the cellar and wanting to stay there. The rest of the volume’s poems proceed to
traverse borders to the secret and unknown.
As
Rutkowski comes to love cellars, so he comes to love spiders. The collection reveals
the rurally reared poet’s childlike fascination with spiders, bees, flies,
rodents, raptors, tree frogs, and other animalia of crevices and corners. There
is both a love for the honest presence of nature’s smallest and a vampire’s
interest in “little lives”:
I
can see and hear it now,
the crazy path of flight at blinding speed,
the inevitable, the unavoidable, hitting,
when the crazy fly comes into contact
with the eye, with the bed,
buzzing around upside down,
for the crazy fly has no great sense of equilibrium.
the crazy path of flight at blinding speed,
the inevitable, the unavoidable, hitting,
when the crazy fly comes into contact
with the eye, with the bed,
buzzing around upside down,
for the crazy fly has no great sense of equilibrium.
And:
. .
.
I
stand back
while a hyper bird perches on a jumbo stalk
so another can feed on the multi seeds
next to the mad mud hole.
while a hyper bird perches on a jumbo stalk
so another can feed on the multi seeds
next to the mad mud hole.
Perhaps
these innocent animals offer a kind of escape from other, more malevolent creatures.
From “Party Animals”:
I
throw a party
. . .
Another
guest says
he
killed people
who
looked like me
when
he was in Vietnam.
The
kindness of nature juxtaposes vividly with the descriptions of rednecks and
racists literally at the poet’s door; the conjunction is reminiscent of Viktor
Frankl seeing hope and life in a sparrow perched outside his Auschwitz barracks
window. The violent racists cross borders in threatening trespass and are held
back spiritually by the poet’s integrity and wit, with the help of small loving
lives.
As
a veteran performance poet and ranter, Rutkowski routinely crosses audience boundaries
with épater-le-bourgeoisie material. A common edgy theme is sex, delivered
with deadpan. From “Nine Rules for No Sex”:
No
kissing with a cold sore.
No kissing with a sore throat.
No thoughtless pressing, rubbing or brushing.
No fingering with long nails.
No fingering with hangnails.
No foolish fingering . . . .
The motion is sometimes toward stand-up comedy, as in “Anarchist Manifesto” ( “I believe in anarchy, / but not if everybody goes wild.”) The same wry humor obtains as the poet finds his Asian roots in food and found poems; “Found Poem, Hong Kong Museum”:
No kissing with a sore throat.
No thoughtless pressing, rubbing or brushing.
No fingering with long nails.
No fingering with hangnails.
No foolish fingering . . . .
The motion is sometimes toward stand-up comedy, as in “Anarchist Manifesto” ( “I believe in anarchy, / but not if everybody goes wild.”) The same wry humor obtains as the poet finds his Asian roots in food and found poems; “Found Poem, Hong Kong Museum”:
When
you are finished tilling the soil,
spading seedlings, weeding, winnowing,
spading seedlings, weeding, winnowing,
hulling,
grinding and pounding,
you may enjoy
the silky yellow rice,
the dry sticky rice,
the rat’s tooth rice,
the little flowery waist rice,
and the yellow husk full brow rice.
you may enjoy
the silky yellow rice,
the dry sticky rice,
the rat’s tooth rice,
the little flowery waist rice,
and the yellow husk full brow rice.
The poet encourages forays into the unknown, but with realism and caveats. Despite the “disappointing” toilet facilities of foreign places, and the shock of strange invertebrate foods, Rutkowski reminds us in the poem, “Border Crossing,” that “it’s the people we want to see.” And cautions his reader:
So let’s think twice before we cross
the twenty yards of no-man’s-land.
I know you want to get there
as fast as we can.
Larissa Shmailo is a poet, novelist, translator, editor,
and critic.
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