More of Me Disappears

To gain entry to the John Amen's surreal, apocalyptic world, the reader accepts a solipsistic universe in which random events become symbols for the modern existential climate, "metaphors for a certain way of being," as the author explains in an interview. Perhaps that's why he advises us to "Plumb bright places for new symbols" (What I Said to Myself). He does not consider himself to be a political poet, but the bad news enters his poems anyway, juxtaposed between intense images that thwart expectation and flirt with disgust. In Walking Unsure of Myself, short lines slap the reader with images that blink off and on, mirroring the relentless ruminations of an anxious mind. A black dog snarls behind a white fence. I'm changing my clothes like a good American. A man gives birth to a war; his wife suckles it until her breasts bleed like IV bags. Handprints on a Christmas card. The receiver has not been hung up. The taxi driver keeps honking his horn. What occurs between breaths is a red herring. The kettle has been whistling for an hour, and I think something is wrong downstairs. Autobiography brings the element of confession into the narratives. Images and startling comparisons turn into and against each other, the mundane coupled with the epic. A poem is bound by its own rules, says the author. New York Memory #14 It wasn't so bad, that November, that sad month, bleakness settling into the New York landscape. Wind came off the East River, carrying dank secrets, tickling the manes of gargoyles, cutting through layers of clothing. I didn't write those days, took up art, large canvases, big, loose strokes with acrylic paint. I walked down Court Street in the evenings, sat on the Promenade sometimes. My father was dead; we were just married, and I wasn't happy, but maybe things seemed all right. We were eating fattening food, not arguing too much. In a department store near St Mark's, we decided to have a baby. Nothing was ever enough. But I don't recall it as a bad time, that November, that sad month, kind of like every day was a Sunday evening, a slow parade of hours leading us toward the hysteria of a weekday, our usual lives. "There's often great energy in being a malcontent," Amen says. To witness the poet connect to his "instinctive now" is to watch a poem emerge "that announces itself in the absence of self," as the poet Ai notes on the back cover. "Every day more of me disappears," Amen tells us in Vacillations, one of a sequence of fourteen short poems. Here, the poet turns inside-out for us: "My liver clutches grief." "There is a witch churning in my pancreas." "I cannot put my finger on what/is stomping up and down my spine," the self so minutely detailed that the poem paradoxically lifts the personal to the universal. "Paradox is my native tongue," the narrator says in Angelica Tells Her Story, whose tale ends with this plea: "Oh Marta, when late April dawns/ when snows melt and spring is finally suckled, I

I've been a lover of John Amen's work for several years. His poems never fail to take me with him on wonderful journeys sharing his magical visions. John's poetry is a gift I give myself. Exquisite--just exquisite!!

(Reviewed for VLQ by C. E. Laine) I loved John Amen's first book, Christening the Dancer (Uccelli Press, 2003). His second collection, More of Me Disappears (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2005), is an engaging encore, building on a strong poetic voice. More of Me Disappears feels familiar, yet pushes in new directions. The poet's voice is varied within its pages, sometimes an intimate whisper, other times a sandy growl, or a shout at the cosmic injustice that sometimes swallows things whole. In these poems, it is as though the reader holds hands with the poet, exploring observations, insights, and a deeply personal history together. Amen makes clear how one can study the same pattern or object in different lighting; he shows us how the shadows tend to shift. He puts on the coat of a storyteller, giving us narrative that doesn't leave its imagery behind. In poems like "Verboten", we glimpse something of Amen's history, intertwined with events that marked the world forever, as we see the effects of the Holocaust in the unique cast of Amen's light. In other narrative pieces, we see his parents, skirt around missing segments of memory, visit streets both seedy and beautiful. Opening the collection with unassuming candor and a touch of suspense, Amen writes (The Consummation): "Without warning, the river runs dry, its spine as glutted and songless as any morgue." This poet doesn't just observe life. Clearly, he's in it, living hip deep, embracing whatever gets tossed his way: (In the Making) "My name is a boa. I am the canary writhing in its throat." Amen shakes out the rugs we sweep things under, inspects what is found there. His awareness of sound is compelling, and his imagery often unexpected. A cool stream for a warm day, this collection is both gritty and tender. My favorite aspect of this book is its tenacity and its unadulterated sense of hope: (What I Said To Myself) Choose the butterfly over the chrysalis. Choose light, the ballroom, the well-lit restaurant. You have for lifetimes strummed minor chords on the coast of a dead sea. Think major, spindrift. The sex between you and grief is becoming mechanical. Despite your vestigial sentiments to the contrary, a scab's story is much greater than that of a scar. Your cock is not an umbilical cord, it is your heart's mouthpiece. Choose sunrise, please. It is time to do something that might cause embarrassment. Let emptiness mother your child. Put away the map, where we're going won't be on it. There is nothing particularly inspiring about a death wish. You have learned all there is to learn from the woman in black. It is time to stop insulting ecstasy. Masochism is an empty udder. What was is a cipher. Pick the rose over the injured dove. Pick warm waters. Attend a circus. Go for the comic. There is nothing more mediocre than the association of dysfunction with genius. Indulge in color. Believe me, there is not a problem. Plumb bright places for new symbols. Recommenda

If readers expect to find a title poem in this collection of 44 poems, they will be disappointed: The title comes from one of the closing lines in "Vacillations." "Leaves are quaking on the branch. Each day more of me disappears" There's not much humanity left in that "me" any more, apparently.

The brilliant contrasts found in John Amen's poetry are enhanced by his abilities as artist and musician. His words colorfully express the surreal and bitter, the heartwarming and expansive, all with a distinctive twist. Memorable lines stayed with me after this book had been set aside: "this garden of wilted grace" "the poison ivy of hollow hours" "the ash and ember of our days" "dogwood blossoms throb in the twilight" Amen shares the joy of love, the sorrow of rejection. His use of imagery ranges from humorous to haunting to delightful: Cicadas swarm like tourists; frogs conspire behind every blade of grass. The music of the iris is hard to withstand; its purple song claws at my heart; Amen fans are sure to relish this latest book. Poetry lovers unfamiliar with his work are in for an intense experience.