Popt Art Portraits. Popt Art Vol 1 Spring 2011 Edited by Jessica Harman (Lulu Press jharman14@aol.com)
Review by Jason Roberts
The mixture of poems, essays, stories and portraits is a beautiful thing. Popt Art is something you can pick up and put down (if you can) whenever you’d like. Inside you will find blunt humor, confessions and poems that will provoke you to reminiscence. Sometimes you might not understand them, but you don’t have to and that’s why I enjoy it so much. Some things are easy to relate to, at least for me, like the financial struggle people in the world must go through:
“The young mother is pushing through the supermarket, her toddler packed into the cart and screaming because she won’t buy the sugar doodles he saw on TV. She picks up a box of detergent, squints at the price, tries to read the fine print [glasses needed] she puts it back. Reaches for the cheaper store brand. All around her the boxes are cooing, buy me, you have to have me, I am the best. She skips the aisle of candies, she turns her head from the meat. Packaged hot dogs again. See her. You don’t, but try. Her life is pushing through supermarkets where everything costs way too much while her son cries and whatever she wants, she can’t have.” By Marge Piercy
Or how a pet walks around the house like we are its guests/servants:
“Puck the Abyssinian colored like a fine rabbit does not consider himself a cat. I am the son and heir, he says, am I not superior in my mien and breeding?...” By Marge Piercy
Take a journey into the mind of Antonia Jennifer Traitwright as she writes in her blog about What It’s Like To Be Schizophrenic:
“On the subject of beginning a description of my journey as a psychiatric patient, I will say that it’s easier to begin a novel than to begin a blog about psychosis. If I were writing a novel, I’d begin with direct, clear sentences, like “I decided to put on the pearl earrings,” or “it was a dark and stormy night.” But, I’m not writing a novel. I’m writing a blog about my schizophrenia.”
Thing that’s you may or may not regret from your childhood past:
“As boys – we dropped rocks, a flurry of bomblets, on a passing phalanx of toads. Commanders for once, free from the clamp of parental constraint, punch drunk with the notion of our control of fate – life – death. And like mini Dr. Mengeles, we experimented stuffing firecrackers down their twitching throats …” By Doug Holder
My favorite Entry would be by Joshua Abelow in his brief explanation of his work:
“A work of art is only as interesting as the conversation it generates”
“I use geometric shapes because geometry is the language of order and I am an orderly person.”
“My work is filled with skepticism and doubt and I’m not afraid to poke fun at my own stupidity or the stupidity of others or the absurdity of trying to make paintings in a world that doesn’t care if you make paintings or eat dog shit.”
He is a very blunt person. He doesn’t beat around the bush or try to push his art out into the world more than it should be. He does his art the way he wants to and not how it is expected to be. That’s how I plan to be as a writer, not following any rules or views by people concerning the way things should be written. Creative freedom is something of great importance and I’m glad Abelow has captured that fact in his art and introduction to his art.
Popt Art is something you can pick up whenever you want. It’s large selection of various pieces is something to enjoy in bulk or in part. Whichever you prefer, it is a great piece of literature.
* Jason Roberts is a Creative Writing major at Endicott College. This is his first appearence in the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene. For more information about Endicott College go to http://endicott.edu
Good review. The book looks like one I'd enjoy reading.
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