Saturday, April 21, 2012

A Loud Gray Bird's "Fad"



Only cool people can understand what's cool.” - Fad

     I like the weird and the strange, especially, when it comes to books. Fad: Poetry by a Loud Gray Bird (copyright 2012 A Loud Gray Bird), looks like a small, unassuming chapbook... or is it? Fad tells the story of a moment in time, a universal moment of crisis: that of identity: The Poet... who is he? Is he a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, or is he nothing more than an amalgam of different personalities pieced together from bits of electronic media and pop culture?
      At first, Fad comes off as a short read, with a handful of verses surrounding a longer stream of consciousness poem, in which the poet starts, as best as can be described, “cast out” the confluence of information – 21st century images and phrases - he's been forced to ingest from the Information Age; a self-exorcism, where, at the end (8 pages later), he's restored his “Command of Language.”

Trounced by subliminal tides
I'm a peanut
Between continents
On this clueless raft
With no language
To salvage my tongue
Or give condolences to its mother
I'll raise its bastard son
To be my superficial lover
And fuck its lifeless
Under this relentless sky
Burnt and starving (or just hungry?)
I surrender
My tears
To this desiccate sea

Its a (Disney) pirate's life for me


      This is where the poet now stands, alone, naked, with a decision – to escape, or, again, embrace/internalize the never-ending flow of information that overcomes every human being on the planet?
    Truthfully, every artist, at some point in his/her existence, will find him/herself in this position. The idea of asking, “Who am I?,” is not new, but Fad has found a different answer to his question, one which I will not reveal (spoilers).
    Suffice it to say, reading Fad feels, and IS subversive, which, as any good poet will tell you, is the end goal, which Fad has accomplished successfully. Is Fad cool? I believe so, but I leave it to each reader to determine that for herself.


(Fad: Poetry by a Loud Gray Bird, copyright 2012 A Loud Gray Bird, http://aloudgraybird.tumblr.com, 26 pages, $3 – can be purchased at Skylight Books, www.skylightbooks.com )

(words and photo copyright 2012 marie lecrivain)

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