Amy Ouzoonian's Review Of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF MY MIND

A TRIP ON THE ROAD NOT JOURNEYED: A REVIEW OF...
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF MY MIND - POETRY BY PATRICIA CARRAGON
      Published By Rogue Scholars Press

Many poets have tried, but few have been gutsy enough to ask their readers to journey through the writers' subconscious. With tender steps that start out gentle as your grandmother's slippers padding down the stairs and then abruptly become stick-it-where-the-sun-don't-shine Stilettos, Patricia Carragon maneuvers every turn masterfully and guides her reader through in her first book Journey To The Center Of My Mind (Rogue Scholars Press 2005).

In this volume of poetry, Carragon leads us down corridors of time; dating each poem within chapters - noting when each was conceived. The dates of the poems are not linear, but then, neither is time as we recall it, rather time and dates, as seen in Carragon's collection are more circular or erratic and jumps in curving or jagged waves.

The titles of the chapters in each section group the poems into states of mind, The Loner Within; Anger, Inc.; The Flame and the Heart; Beyond Tears; Attitude is Courage; Dreams; Modern Life and Miscellaneous Musings.

In the first chapter, the Loner Within, Carragon shows a dark and unresponsive side of the mind. In Secrets, prosaic images of medieval architecture are presented as a world that is transparent, full of emotion and convoluted becomes evident. This is noted in the urgent lines "The telephone rings out of persistence...The fallen book breaks its vow...To bookmark secrets on pages that cry."

In Chapter two titled Anger, Inc. Carragon offers snapshots that are sharper and more pulsing than the previous charcoal and watercolor imagistic poems of the first chapter. This is especially true for the poem PMS Pizza a fun and delightfully ranting poem that paints out in true completion the personality of women in the peak of their Pre-Menstrual cycles and offers some tongue-in-cheek wisdom opening with a scream "God hates Women! / Pass the chocolate to my hips, please / Before I kill you tonight."

The Flame and the Heart pierce a narrative level in Chapter three. Some poems communicate like paintings others are similar to incantations; summoning emotions and connecting them with events as in "The Dance" where repetition is utilized to conjure the steps of dance. Images are brought to the page to emote as well in "Vixen in the Rough."

As the reader moves forward and meditates on Chapters four through eight, the former ideas and styles begin to merge and become less defined. Poems find themselves as individual messages and not categorized as easily. Chapter six, however, has a category that dictates the poems subject as being part of the minds journey. The dreams are illusive and become poems as the author attempt to translate them to find meaning.

Chapter Seven and Eight offers poems that address a kaleidoscope of events and life experiences that, added to the previous poems of Journey To The Center Of My Mind have made this road map of Patricia Carragon's mind something worth traveling through.

- Amy Ouzoonian is an Armenian-American poet,
  playwright, journalist and artist. She received her BA in
  Journalism and Creative Writing for the Theater from
  SUNY New Paltz. She is the author of Your Pill  (Foothills
  Publishing, 2004) and is the editor of two anthologies:
  Skyscrapers, Taxis and Tampons (Fly By Night Press,
  1999) and In the Arms of Words: Poems for Tsunami
  Relief (Sherman Asher Press, 2005).

Marilyn Jaye Lewis' Review Of AWAKENED

AWAKENED: POETRY BY MADELINE ARTENBERG / POETRY BY IRIS N. SCHWARTZ
      Published By Rogue Scholars Press

Awakened (Rogue Scholars Press) is a double-treat that is not to be taken lightly. This new collection of poems is two books in one. The first half features the intensely engaging poetry of Madeline Artenberg, the second half features the passionate, often playful, poems of Iris N. Schwartz.

Overall, Awakened is a slim volume, but the poems contained within it are so packed with imagery, emotion, with visual segues into the harrowing past, as well as back into a palpable present, that I came away from this book feeling as if I'd really explored these women's lives.

If you want to read poems that challenge your sense of justice, emotional or political; poems that stimulate your brain; or leave a path of chills along your spine, Awakened is a perfect book to get lost in.

- Marilyn Jaye Lewis, finalist, William F. Faulkner Award,
  The Curse Of Our Profound Disorder;
  Author, Neptune And Surf; Editor, Stirring Up A Storm

Matthew Mason

THE MARTYRDOM OF THE COWS: POEMS BY MATT MASON

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Talk Engine

TALK ENGINE:  ROCK & WORD

Fierce, cutting, stand-up-and-fight poetry anchored to 6-inch-thick guitar, boiling lava bass and flash-fabulous drums-finally, a spoken-word cd that gets it done! Updating the old Patti Smith template, Talk Engine's unabashed classic rawk sound is a fine match for its heavy-duty content. 

Vocalist/lyricist Jackie Sheeler delivers her tough, caring, socially-conscious word-rhythms with all the cool bravado you would expect of a New York poet and political activist.  Better still is when she opens it up and sings, like on the wonderful "Sophie," where her beautiful voice perfectly counters the unsettling lyrics.  

"Vigilante Verses" is great, too, a manifesto for indies, alt.s, artists and outsiders everywhere, metallic-lined with Landru von Dige's slinky, menacing guitar, Bryan Schmidt's prowling bass and Glenn Minasian's  agile but ballsy drumming.  Nice production job by Dean Parker and the band, too, especially on "God Enters the World," where the effects manage to sound cool instead of hokey.

All-around nice job, and a damned auspicious debut. - emily xyz

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