POUNDING THE DOOR INTO GRAY
By James DeCrescentis
Igneus Press
Canyon TX $10.00
Joan Didion has
spoken of how writers impose “a narrative line upon disparate images” in order
to “freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.” That is to say, writers generally impose a
narrative, impose ideas, to create an aesthetic whole. James DeCrescentis’ recent chapbook of eleven
prose poems takes a wrecking ball to that model. He does away with narrative, or at least with
imposed, plotted narrative, to allow the free reign of what Didion calls the
“shifting phantasmagoria” and the free play of the imagination.
DeCrescentis uses
streams of images, many of them surreal, that come fast on the heels of the
preceding ones, often in run-on sentences that serve to build the intensity of
the poem. But most images are striking
enough to put the brakes on just a little, so the poem does run off the tracks. DeCrescentis is very much in control of his
material. And though the poems present a
shifting phantasmagoria, meaning nonetheless erupts like crocuses in early
spring. A strong moral tone is evident
as well in certain of the poems. In “The
Italian Haircut,” a man barred from a neighborhood club in 1948, because of his
race. dreams of opening his own club, which he eventually does. The concluding stanza reads:
And I’ll make
it born into the same year, watching those
victory
gardens burning up one by one the children must
change racism
without money or violence, or catchy bumper
stickers on
foreign cars—-let everybody in.
The opening lines
of the next poem in the collection, “We Put Transistors Everywhere,” also burn
with moral fire:
And forget the
places as they get razed by bulldozers
with cranes
flattening to dirt what took so long to be
born a
religion of death so far out of touch flames bring
candles lining
small squares----
DeCrescentis
spent much of his working life as a counselor in psychiatric facilities and his
experiences enter into or color several of the poems. “The Shift” is short enough to be quoted in
its entirety:
I walk up and
down the halls of the ward and see a
two-tone paint
job clogging my lungs, which hoard all
pollutants
like back room meetings, terrible colors
walking the
straight line around a bend of ladders on
fire, even the
paintbrush loses direction. I do this
long walk
because the zombie wants some shuffle.
POUNDING THE DOOR INTO GRAY is a nicely designed chapbook
that features a cover painting by the author titled “Wally’s Café.” The
book is available for $10.00 from Igneus Press, 1301 Eighth Avenue, Canyon, TX
79015 or at www.igneuspress.com.
--Richard Wilhelm
