Catastroika
Reviewed by
Carolynn Kingyens
Catastroika
Author:
Charles Rammelkamp
Apprentice
House Press
ISBN
978-1-62720-298-5
As I read
Charles Rammelkamp’s glorious new book of poetry – Catastroika, I was, at times, reminded of the powerful ending of Schindler’s List, when we see the Jews,
particularly “Schindler’s Jews,” finally free, sitting together on train
tracks. But even after they were free, a new dilemma quickly arose, where could
they go that was safe?
“Where
should we go?” asked one of the Schindler’s survivors to a military man on
horseback.
“Don’t
go East, that’s for sure, they hate you there,” said the military man.
“I
wouldn’t go West either, if I were you.”
“Isn’t that a town over there?”
“Isn’t that a town over there?”
In one of
the last poems entitled “Catastroika,” we learn where Rammelkamp’s unique
book title
derives:
“The wordplay in the press on Perestroika,
Gorbachev’s
program of economic reforms –
Catastrophe.”
Catastroika is part catastrophe, part narrative
poetry, part history, part human condition, and a whole lot of resiliency,
especially on the part of its two main characters – Maria, daughter of the
infamous Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, and the fictional, Russian Jewish refugee,
Sasha, who newly arrives in Baltimore, where he quickly finds a job, learns
English, meets his wife, Riva, and starts a family.
Our first
introduction to Sasha comes in the first poem, “Call Me Sasha” –
But
still, I knew better
than
to pursue a friendship
with
his daughter Maria,
a
lovely fifteen-year-old when I first met her,
fresh
to the big city from “The Sleeping Land” –
what
“Siberia” means in Tatar, after all;
“The
Edge” or “The End” in Ostyak.
“Alexander Federmesser,” I introduced myself,
noting
my parents had named me for the tsar,
“but
you can call me Sasha.”
Maria
Rasputin, like a lot of daughters, loves her father, despite his pariah-like reputation
in Russia, and later the world. She was industrious enough to capitalize on her
last name to become a dancer in Paris, and later, a lion tamer with Ringling
Brothers, touring America until she was mauled by a bear.
In “Maria Rasputin, Lion Tamer” –
“I still remember that reporter
for the Associated Press asking me
why
I learned to tame wild animals.
“Why not?” my arch reply.
“I have been in a cage with
Bolsheviks.”
In “Big
Top” we learn how popular Maria Rasputin had become by Maria herself:
“More popular by far
than the midway freaks –
Miss Alainna Bennett, “Half Girl,”
whose body ended at her hips;
or Miss Dorothy Herbert,
“World’s Most Daring Horsewoman,”
Freddy the armless wonder,
Fat Lady Doris Bleu,
Midget Lady, the snake charmer,
the strongman and the trapeze artist
the aerialists with their Hammock
Act!
Forget about Chang and Eng,
the original Siamese Twins!”
Rammelkamp
covers a lot of years and ground over the span of the book’s 123 pages – from Siberia to Kiev to St. Petersburg to
Petrograd to Berlin to Paris to Crimea to Baltimore to New York to Miami to Los
Angeles. There are main characters such as Maria, Sasha, and even Rasputin
himself, but also a cast of minor ones as well – mothers, wives, husbands,
sisters, daughters, sons, the princesses from Montenegro, an antagonistic
priest with a grudge, a tamed tiger, an unpredictable bear, and even a brief cameo
from the Royal Tsars, themselves.
In
“Operation Former People” Sasha says:
“And oh, how relieved I felt,
slipping into bed with Riva,
our American children nearby,
safe to the extent
Jews are ever safe in this world.”
I read Catastroika in one sitting, and simply
could not put this book down. Each poem, a new puzzle piece. But with any
riveting story, there are lots of plot twists and turns, and of course, some
serendipity along the way.
The
characters in Catastroika will come
alive for the readers, each with their own hard-earned autonomy and distinct
dialect. You will hear them. I promise.
Charles
Rammelkamp is a master poet and storyteller. He not only has a deep
understanding of Russian and Jewish history, but also human catastrophe.
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