I don't know how to review a book of poetry any better than I know how to review any book. That's a weak way to open a review, but I want to be sure that people know that I am not an authority on the subject of poetry.
That said, I got an afternoon of entertainment out of Mather Schneider's Drought Resistant Strain (Interior Noise Press, $15). It is on par with every other book of poems I have read (a lean variety, I assure you) in that it seems to span the poet's entire life. And shouldn't it? Don't our years crowd around daily events with no real reasoning or impetus? Mine do. Some days it is 2007 in my mind. Some days it's 1999.
Some parts were conflicting with each other and this allowed my mind to disengage. I don't want to go into those details, but it was between pages 50 and 70 that this happened the worst. My mind will disengage on its own often enough. I can only read very engaging work as a result. Here were some of the things that kept me going:
So what if love
is a lie
where we agree to meet?
(After Crossing the Border at Nogales, pg. 32)
That poem over all gives much by what it does not give. It is the story of a man smuggling his bride from Cartel country. And she appears later, many times, notably in a poem about her friend whose husband had her deported.
Then there was Shim, on page 37:
Between falling
in and out of love
there is a pinnacle
but remembering itself
can be a kind
of height sickness
Who knew that Mather Schneider knew a thing about love? This is the truth, though, this stanza. His ability to love is further illustrated when he addresses a woman who wants to know if he wants a piece of him on page 52:
I want the piece
you have saved for me
And later we learn that this woman might have been a prostitute, after all, as in page 107:
Because she is a prostitute
there is no break-up
which is a ritual governed
by another set of rules
Hookers make numerous appearances in these poems, as do other seedy characters. There is a man who killed 52 other men in Vietnam and says so only with the slightest nod of acknowledgment. There is a man who can't remember which one of his girlfriends is in jail. A man with a weird hole in his head and another who once was a famous wrestler. All of these men make up the world as Mather Schneider sees it, a world in which,
with no reason to struggle
the human race would deteriorate
The weakest poem in the batch had to be “Tuscon Monsoon.” It made me feel like I had fallen on something very unpleasant. I'm not sure what place it had in the book, either. Just my gut reaction: this doesn't belong.
I suppose, over all, this book would have been worth $15. Obviously I didn't pay for it. It's the copy that is up for the winning in this contest. I think it'd be worth $15, though, definitely. And here is another stanza that really hit the mark:
They all look shocked
staring through their little windows
stiff as the sweater people
in the Sears newspaper insert
lining the bottom
(“Fragile,” page 82)
