Was Chicken Trax Amid Sparrows Tread: Poems and One Long Movement
by Bree
$10.00
The Temple Inc.
Was Chicken Trax Amid Sparrows Tread: Poems and One Long Movement
A fascinating book here, three parts, the first poetry with all sorts of "streetness" about it, including monkeying around with language so it comes right off the concrete/asphalt:
"...Love thine enemies,/My mother usta say./How'd she know to cover/Her tracks that way?//We ain't no chickenbone souffle./Just a face name////Whatever/We are wakes us." ("No Need for Alarm," p.22).
Real, personal-world stuff here, a strange combination of the masses and educated sophistication.
Then we move into the second part, a long essay, almost a little book in itself, about sharp headaches and rectal bleeding, getting taken to the cleaners by the medical profession, and finally (polyps and sinus infection) getting diagnosed and cured. And ironically, the way Bree twists and turns it all, it comes out top-drawer literature. Part three more poetry, and this time more "normal," I might even say Lifshinesque, with a touch of Bukowskian sharp-edgeness:
"Bacteria grows best when left alone/with no breath/in a dark, closed home.//The moon wants not a container,/but vast darkness.//The monk needs vastness alone./ Vastness of soul,/vastness of breath,/light and dark become one...//Bacteria may know much about peace,/but can't share any with monk/or with moon/for he lives all alone in a closed off room." ("Bacteria and the Moon," p.136).
Lots of irony here, quiet ironic slashing at status quos and what are usually seen as "normalities." Bree is the incarnation of twisted, punishing rebellion and at the same time a macabre, horrific experimental humorist.
--Hugh Fox East Lansing, MI
"I just finished Bree's book and I love it. I think Movements is what Kafka might have written if he had to confront the modern American health care system and if he had had been female, and if he had a sense of humor."
-Michael Henson, Cincinatti, OH
"The poems in this book simply pour over the reader, repeatedly drenching them in their song until the reader is breathless, all but drowned."
-Josh Gage Cleveland,OH
i finished chicken trax yesterday and wanted to write to tell you how much i enjoyed it. especially the long movement part; it was touching and hilarious to follow you through the u.s. medical system and i am sad the journey is over. just the right mixture of subtle and in your face, if that makes sense.