A Theory of Lipstick
by Karla Huston
Main Street Rag
Publishing Company
Charlotte NC
Copyright © 2013 by
Karla Huston
ISBN: 978-1-59948-407-5
Softbound, 73 pages.
$14
Review by Zvi A. Sesling
Last year I reviewed a
poetry chapbook by Ms. Huston and Cathryn Cofell. This year Ms.
Huston is flying solo and proving what a good poet she is on her own.
In the title poem it is
beware men and women you will learn more about lipstick than you ever
wanted to know, from lip plumper and bee stung devil’s candy to
alizarin crimson and lead – to men who kiss women wearing lipstick
to fruit pigments. It’s almost TMI.
But O it is fun. Huston as
we learned can be fun with a lesson.
She can also be funny
in a serious poem as in The Girl With God
On Her Pants. It opens
I almost said “in” her
pants/but this isn’t that kind of poem/and she isn’t that kind of
girl.
As you read this one you
learn that a good girl is chased by a hungry boy and the hunger is
nothing less than the ultimate main course.
There is also Sway
which begins:
The cruelest thing I did to
my dog
wasn’t to ignore his
barking for water
when his tongue hung like a
deflated balloon
Huston is also capable of
wonderful descriptions such as:
- his dark eyes like Greek olives, moist with desire
- pecking at her dreams like a chicken
- Were you always a shadow of a shadow, imitation of an imitation, a chameleon in sheep’s clothing?
- When I think of you, I think of earworms
- old woman skin that hangs like the hide of withered peaches
Huston is a sort of Mort Sahl
or Dick Cavett. A Nancy Griffin or Chelsea Handler. She makes you
laugh but at the same time she telling truths and you realize, not
that you have been had, but instead that you have learned something,
which raises that age old question about poetry—does it entertain
or teach or both. Huston would fall into that last category, both.
No comments:
Post a Comment