Duckwalking Is The Only Way Out Of Armageddon by Dustin Holland

 

Duckwalking Is

The Only Way Out

Of Armageddon

by Dustin Holland

Kanev Books

New York

Copyright © 2012 by Dustin Holland

ISBN: 978-0-937131-19-7

Softbound, 119 pages, $10.95

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

The enigma of Dustin Holland is: is he putting us on, or is he serious?  My guess,a little of both. He is funny, perhaps experimental, with undertones of seriousness that the reader needs to find for him/herself.  For example In Capitalist Anxieties:

poetry is

handed out on

street corners

no one is starving

doctors and food

for everyone

shoes and warm

too

property is a

myth in the business

man’s nightmares

war is over

and the earth

still has room

for the human race

the banks and

ammunitions factories

are closed

while supermarkets

hospitals

and libraries

open up

everywhere without

cash registers

the streets are art

galleries in

capitalistneofacist

bad dreams full of

smiling masses

swapping stories

in what used to be

government buildings

and television studios

This poem presents what appears as a humorous poem, but as you read and re-read it the

seriousness which may also seem as obvious as the humor, suddenly hits you – Holland is writing about a future utopia, but is that utopia only in Holland’s head? Is it the anti-Orwell utopia. Is it a libertarian view?  Is it green? Is post-apocalyptic?  What exactly is Holland’s message to us?  Is he prophet or fool?  Like a law school challenge, any answer might be correct.  What do think?

There are more poems of humor intertwined with horror with titles like Lenny Bruce Is Not Afraid, Cartoon Villains, Disgruntled, I’m The Child, A Dramatic Think Establishing Elizabethan Liberation/Revolution,  02750, Listening To John Cage’s Fonatana Mix and many others you cannot help but revel in.

Take one of the shortest poems: All

art if

you can call

it that

is meant

to be

misunderstood

loudly

So much truth in so few words, 13 to be exact, in which he puts down critics, people who speak loudly about art in a museum and the modern gobbledygook art of Pollack, the neo pointillism of Lichtenstein, perhaps even Picasso or any other number modern artists for whom a critic’s explanation is necessary for the average viewer to understand and the ultimate put down of the critics who determine whats is good or great and what is a trash.

In many poetry books you may get interesting ways to use words, or you might be challenged by the poet or perhaps you get political statements buried in verse. Rarely do you get all three.  However, Dustin Holland has risen above the ordinary, beyond the dull or romantic, away from the everyday and presented a book you will have to read a few times to absorb the many facets of his writing.  In the end, you will enjoy the time spent with it. And at $10.95 it is a bargain (also available as an ebook).

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Zvi A. Sesling is author of Across Stones of Bad Dreams (Cervena Barva, 2011), King of the Jungle (Ibbetson Street, 2010)  and the forthcoming Fire Tongue (Cervena Barva). He is Editor of Muddy River Poetry Review and Bagel Bards Anthology #7.