Jenny Dreadful: Riches for One, Poverty for Two

Jenny's real last name is Rossi.  My first editorial suggestion would be to stick with "Dreadful," all the better since the work that fills the bulk of these pages is not particularly bad ass.  In fact, there is a great deal of touching and sweet to it.  I don't say that as a slight.  For all my flippancy, dismissiveness, ridicule of just about everything everyone calls dear, etc., the truth is, I really admire those with the balls (figuratively speaking, of course) to wear their hearts on their sleeves, believe in the possibility of the better day, holding onto ideals and integrity, like wishes to the heart.  I used to be like that.  Until I realized

I used to know this guy--yes, back in the day--let's call him...Brian Fast.  I was a wide-eyed rube just off the farm truck, and Brian was the hardened city boy.  We became friends.  I think that's what you'd call it.  Everything was a joke to Brian. He wrote songs about erectile dysfunction or shitting too much or whatever other novelty topic he could use to mock what others believed in.  I was only 23, and I held everything dear, and my earnest Springsteen knock-offs were ripe fodder for Brian. I learned a couple things from Brian.  One, that it's easy to make fun of everything when you don't stand for everything, and two--and more importantly--that if I stayed that wide-eye naif, I wouldn't last another year in this city.  And thus I mourn the loss of that innocence...

I don't know how old Jenny Dreadful is, but I'm guessing younger than I, and, again, I'm not saying that to disparage her.  There is something endearing about youthful cynicism tempered with heavier-than-usual doses of the ideal.  When you get to my age, there's just a heart that's been broken too many times to love anymore (sigh).  The problem is that usually the younger you are, the lousier the writing.  Usually.  But that's not the case here.  Which isn't a coincidence.  When Jenny asked if I'd review her chapbook, I said I'd have to read it first, because I didn't feel comfortable writing a negative review.  You bust your ass and leave your heart on the page, only to have some asshole (see grad writing workshops) dismiss it with the wave of a hand.  ("The image of the pineapple as a metaphor for loss in line 3 just isn't working for me."  Well, fuck you, David Norman.  I don't give a shit what you think.)

I'm not going to go all gushy here.  Frankly, not all the poems move me in this collection.  Which isn't surprising.  I have a very small window for what appeals to me.  Or as P. Scott Cunningham says, I "can't appreciate anything outside [my] milieu."  Very true, P. Scott.  Very true.  I need a certain subject matter, a visceral grittiness... I need Hank Bukowkski.  Or Kerouac.  And here we get both.  If with a twist.

In "Kerouac Is Kool," the subject is my favorite author--but it's not what you think. There are a million (shitty) poems affecting the hepcat Beat manner of speech, or commandering time for a mythical night out with Allen, Jack, Billy and Neal, overwrought, tired images of highways and trains, drinking from bags, living wild, young, and free.  Which is idealizing, just a wee bit.  This was the first poem that really grabbed me in this collection, showed me that I was dealing with a writer with formidable chops.  I've already confessed, I am no barometer for poetic prowess. But I do know writing.  And this is good stuff.

You must father a daughter to be this Kool / and leave her to the wolves of the '60s / you must be a man like that / Have many journeys, skip birthdays, grudgingly give a paternity test.


The first time I heard about Jan Kerouac was during a Beat festival at the Roxie sometime in the mid 1990s.  I was caught up in all things Beat; Kerouac was the reason I was in this city.  Jan was going to present a film that night but was too sick from the liver that was failing her.  She died not long after.  Jack Kerouac was an amazing writer, but even his biggest supporters are forced to admit, he was a rather shitty human being.  And as a father, his behavior incorrigible and shameful. Trying to emulate the father she never knew, while at the same time outrun a shadow of legendary excess, Jan was an alcoholic almost out of the gate, doomed to a wasted life.  I love that Jenny takes Jan's side here.  This poem succeeds in embracing the Beat aesthetic while infusing it with a punkish feminism.  Very cool.

There is a cute poem in this collection called "Oh, Bukowski," which I won't reproduce here, but in a handful of lines, I promise, it does as good a job of capturing the essence of Bukowksi as you'll ever read.

Still, the real strength of Jenny Dreadful's debut, Riches for One, Poverty for Two, is in its raw innocence, bite reconciled with reflection, punches that don't come at the expense of admitting personal loss and just how much that loss hurt, how big a hole it left.  At its core are the relationships that forge who we are, allow us to grow and mature, evolve, but these things never come free.

In "What Ray Taught Me," we get a glimpse at the dying stages of lesser stars.

I once fell in love with a man who had an open book for a face.
When we started to fall apart I couldn't help but leave copies
of Fahrenheit 451 by the bed.  "You're a bitch," he said but I just 
sat around flickering lighters until my thumb was raw.


I've been in that room, love dying on the vine and all that's left is for the rotten fruit to drop and just end it, so everyone can get on with their lives, alone and apart.  It's excruciating, the silence between us.

I play rock 'n' roll, been doing it for a while.  I write songs.  There are various stages to learning new songs with a band.  The first stage is the shittiest part, because nobody knows the fucking chords or changes or dynamics, and someone (usually the bass player [*note this is NOT directed at current WJ bassist, Big Tom]) will start shouting out random notes to replace the ones that are already there so that he can say he helped write it ("How about a...G?").  If you don't give up, give in, and can get everyone on the same page, the next stage is where the magic happens. Your first few performances are ragged, raw, sloppy but passionate.  Later on, you'll know the song better, and it will be more polished and professional.  It will be better.  But you never can get that initial energy back. (Listen to the Replacements' two version of "Can't Hardly Wait," the outtake from Tim and the official release off Pleased to Meet Me; you'll experience this phenomena firsthand...)

I use this analogy because through Riches/Poverty, I spotted mistakes, the little things you learn not to do in grad school, ending lines with prepositions, the improper quotation, etc., small things, and these errors will certainly get the snooty to to feel superior, but I am not sure the trade-off, polishing and packaging pretty at the expense of an imperfect band just figuring shit out and playing with reckless abandon is worth it.

I think you'd lose poems like this.

"I Could Use a New Country, Maybe Brazil"

where the sun knives my skin, paring it to the flesh of peaches
where even saudade is overripe, a bearable linger, like the sun
through the skin of leaves.

Not the sort of tenderness I'd expect from a girl who calls herself Jenny Dreadful. Which is why I like it.

Poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month (or maybe it was in fucking April, who really knows), I thought we'd devote a week talking about the least valid, lucrative, or tangible of all writing forms: poetry.  Or maybe we'll just do it until we hit a wall. Wouldn't want another "Burning Man III" debacle (http://tinyurl.com/4xjur47).  It's tough to understand poetry, at least in terms of its functionality in a modernized world. Poetry is like that guy who once had it all in high school.  He quarterbacked the goddamn team, all the girls dug him, all the guys wanted to be him.  But then you see him at your class reunion and he's bald, working in middle management, or selling cars, and he smells like cheese, and you can't understand how this guy was ever relevant.

For me poetry is pretty much this Cracked article (http://www.cracked.com/funny-2260-poetry/), a once necessary and even vital art form whose use has long been supplanted by things people can actually use, like breasts and the Internet.  Now I must admit, some of my best friends are poets, and that furthermore I, too, used to write the stuff.  In fact, I have a couple poems being published next month.  These are not new poems. Back in aught4 (sorry, Esther), when I first was getting sober and didn't know any better, between the rock and the roll, my ear still fucked up from the years of hardcore stimulant abuse, I wasn't playing the guitar, which reminded me too much of getting high, drugs and the music so inextricably linked, and poetry seemed enough like writing lyrics (it's not), so I stared trying my hand at it, and people started liking it.  I won some award at the CT Review and was paid about $400 to tour the state that summer as a "CT Student Poet," which is apparently some time-honored, -respected tradition, with a long list of poets whose names I don't recognize.  It was cool enough.  A pretty girl once asked me for my autograph.  Always thought I was someone, turned out I was wrong...

Well, my poetry career was a short-lived one.  Once I realized the best I could hope for should I master the craft (which wasn't happening) was abject poverty, chapbooks, and non-recognition, I jumped on the fiction bandwagon (Oh, and that decision has worked out smashingly).  I forgot all about poetry, and the only verse I'm writing these days are the ones that come before the chorus (and usually after it, too, and then again after the bridge, but sometimes we skip a bridge and add last verse and go right back to the chorus--a double rock 'n' roll chorus!).  

(But I still have a few poems that haven't been published, one or two of which I still think are quite good. Occasionally I get solicited by magazines, because I know the editor or because the author and I have appeared elsewhere together, and when I do I will send them some of these.  Which is why I have a couple poems coming out next month.  Not that you give a shit.)

My poetry career died a slow, unnoticed death.  The last poetry reading I gave was in '09, when a friend asked me to read at an event he was hosting.  It was me and three other readers.  It received a single Yelp review.  Which I will re-post here.  

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5/3/2009Janis R. says:

Being unemployed and finding something to do on a Sunday night, this was a good diversion from the mononity of sitting at home and watching another re-run.

[Reader A] is awesome!  She opened with the funniest poem ever that was a great ice breaker (too bad she was last).  Her preview to her collection of [Book Title] left me wanting more... can you start a blog or something?  I appreciated [Reader B's] poems, but loved his explanations to the inspirations of each one more.  Joe Clifford's personality is hilarious, but his poems left more to be desired... with the exception of his last poem about his brother... very deep; and lastly, [Reader D]... nice spin on America but had too many re-occurring phrases they took my attention away from the individual poem and left me comparing them to her previous ones.

Overall, thankful they put this together, had the courage to share their works and surprisingly sparked an interest to document events in our lives through this expression.

So clearly the world isn't exactly clamoring for my return to hexameter.  At least Janis R. isn't.  And who are we to argue with Janis R.? 

All of which is a long-winded, roundabout way of saying (much like my poetry itself), I am probably the least qualified guy to review the shit.  I hate poetry.  If Bukowski didn't write it, I don't want to read it.  I find Shel Silverstein infinitely more enjoyable than Walt Whitman, Liz Bishop, or any of the other stuffy set.  And of all the writers I've know, by far, the dullest have been the poets (current friends withstanding, for you are a wacky and zany bunch).  

When I think of poetry, I think if Steve Kobak.  Steve and I worked on a literary magazine at CCSU called Helix.  And holy fuck did we receive a lot of shitty poems.  Most of these came from lovesick undergrad girls.  The staff used to go through these submissions together, basically four guys hanging around a classroom after school, smoking cigarettes, reading aloud and seeing just how bad bad writing could be.  After one particularly dreadfully, sappy love poem, something about "long tendrils of hair," Steve goes, "Happy Two Month Anniversary, Honey."  Still makes me laugh.

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I received an e-mail last week from Candy and Cigarettes regular reader Jenny Dreadful, asking if I'd review her poetry chapbook.  Don't ask me why the fuck she'd think my doing so would, in any way, help her "career."  But I said I would. Because 1.) her name is Jenny Dreadful.  I've never had a cool nickname, and so I admire people who do.  Gluehead.  Kelpbed.  Jimmy Dread (Tom Pitt's friend, not mine, and no relation to Jenny Dreadful, at least not that I am aware).  Best I ever had was Tweek the Wunderkid.  Which stuck about as well as you'd think it would. And I gave it to myself.

Part of the reason I haven't gone further in life, I'm convinced, is because I never had a cool nickname.  Life caters to people with cool nicknames.  Reason #2 I said I would view Jenny's chapbook is that she asked me, however misguided her assumptions.  Let's face it.  I'm a nice fucking guy. Beneath the tattoos and the muscles (and the smoldering, movie-star good looks), I'm just a sensitive boy who loves to help others.

So this will be Poetry Week on Candy and Cigarettes.  Which should really drive up the ratings.  

Do you have a story about a poem that changed your life?  If so, please keep it to yourself.

(And I'll get to that review sometime this week, Jenny.  And it won't be a hatchet job.  I've read the chapbook and it's good.  I think you and I are going to be friends. You wrote a poem about Bukowski...)