POETRY! Handle With Care: a book of poems
and something sort of like art
POETRY!
by Chazda Albright
Lulu.com
Copyright ©2009
127 Pages
$21.45 Hardcover
With a title like that, I just had to take a look at Chazda Albright’s book. Being a fellow poet and artist, the title alone definitely captured my attention. Chazda introduces the book with an explanation about her medium:
The images here that are “something sort of like art” have been drawn directly in the book using tools available within the Microsoft Word program and a cordless mouse. Each image has been drawn as a
visual and spontaneous reaction to the poem it follows.
I’ve never been a fan of computer generated art or the limits and confines I myself have experienced with programs like Word or Paint. I have tinkered with both when it comes to creating book covers – with not much luck – so I admire anyone who can do a better job than me. Viewing Chazda’s manuscript in Google docs was quite fun since I could catch a glimpse of each upcoming page in the right hand margin before viewing it full size. Here’s a sample:
This sun pattern accompanies each poem for about the first 90 pages. The poems are each broken up by a piece of “Word” art, which also has the same sun pattern as a border. I didn’t mind the border at first although it does take up quite a bit of each page, but once the border disappeared from the poems and art on page 90 I almost felt like the poet/artist in Ms. Albright had been set free…free from the limits and confines that computer programs can place on our talents. It was also nice to see the “greeting card” feel of the book go away. At this point, the art also changes and has more of a sketch book feel to it which I think is very appropriate in poetry collections. I much prefer the raw edge. This small verse from this section seems to serve as an explanation:
I don’t know.
This is strange.
Nothing is responding properly.
Is it me?
The computer?
Life?
Most of the poems are rants probably best spoken out loud, like one I particularly enjoyed about people who wear sunglasses indoors and why. I envisioned the poet wearing sunglasses while reading it and really playing it up for the audience. There’s not a lot of rhyme to the verses, but I was glad. I think this type of book, with its mix of poems and art, would have seemed even more “greeting card” like had the poems contained a more metric verse. That aside, some of the poems do have sing-songy titles which I found to be distracting like “IntentionsIntentlyIntended” and “Dancing Daisies.” Most of the time, I enjoyed the poem more itself after having ignored its title all together.
My favorite poem of the lot was actually one of the more simpler ones called “He Brings Yellow Flowers to the City.” For me, it’s the best example of the type of word art a poem should convey. It paints a very clear and distinct picture and leaves the viewer/listener maybe wanting just a bit more, but left with a rambling of their own thoughts that can take them in any direction. Here is the poem in its entirety:
There’s a man
On the street corner
Selling yellow flowers
To passersby.
He’s tall and so
So thin
With inch thick black rimmed
Glasses worn high
On his face.
Salt speckled thick hair
Sweeps over his eyes
And a long, glowing white
Cigarette stands erect
Under his nose.
He shaved this morning,
But he’ll need to again soon
People, people
Take a flower and
Carry it in the city.
Yellow flowers are here!
As for the art, it’s an odd mix of shapes, repeating patterns, and doodles, reminiscent of and probably inspired by the likes of Warhol, Escher, and Van Gogh. Most of it, for me personally, didn’t really create a connection between it and the poetry. I also felt some of the art would have been better had it been printed in color when it came to pieces that used specific shapes, but that would have definitely increased the cover price of the book itself which is unfortunate. I think the connection is lost due to a lack of color. The artwork with a border is also not symmetrical in size to the poems with borders, that while not really necessarily, does create an odd balance when you are looking at two pages at once. Here’s an example:
My personal tastes in art lean more toward the doodles and sketches although a large carpet on my living room floor displays a repetitive pattern of squares and circles resembling martini olives that I believe Mr. Warhol himself would have loved. I certainly appreciate pop art, but I think the lack of color is what turned me off to most of the pieces in this book. But, I did particularly like the sketches that were meant to resemble people. Here’s one of my favs called “unartist.”
The biography of Ms. Albright in the back of the book lets us know that she is self-taught, but has had a number of personal art exhibitions throughout the western US and in Germany. She has written some erotica under a pen name and is currently at work on a fantasy thriller screenplay. You can view her ePortfolio at www.chazda.com. And you can preview POETRY! at fReado.
I commend Ms. Albright for using self-publishing to its full potential in creating both a work of art and a collection of poetry that is exactly what it should be: a presentation of one’s true self. Like a good museum or a good book, I enjoyed my time here.
