ON A PLANET WITHOUT VISA: SELECTED POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS by SOTERE TORREGIAN

PATRICK JAMES DUNAGAN Reviews

On the Planet Without Visa: Selected Poems and Other Writings AD 1960-2012 by Sotére Torregian

(Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, Minn., 2012)

I WAS LAUGHED OUT THROUGH THE DOOR

                                            bacon and eggs for Sotére Torregian

A Saturday afternoon and high schoolers outside on Masonic yelling out “FREE CAR WASH” going down over up @ Wallenberg High School (did you Sootear Torryguard ever watch Video Days when Mark Gonzales ollies the Wallenberg STEPS? The whole damn three indy-grabbing back before construction blocked off the roll up he comes pushing in from off the street a damn great part w/ “some damn good jazz” fer soundtrack… I wonder  anyways how you would dig or not this hollering of these kids now some boys are out there before and usually itsa girls—very underage however, Sootear, don’t get any ideas—    BUT how they holler! Between them and the traffic nonstop the sun all abuzz with Sonny Rollins on itsa wonder I’m getting anything done

                                                                              I’m not so sure you can freeze bacon and/or if I froze this bacon before it went bad?     But I’m having a little wine as well so mebbe that’ll help   yr book is certainly more than enuff to give one ideas     ideas on life    on poetry    on women     on art    on friendship perhaps most of all     things I value  

                                         How many times have I too experienced

                              Today        I’m Chinese     that is to say

                                                                                      in this moment only

                              Like Lao Tzu     or like Li-Po

                                                                  (“Today”)

Of course never was it in French for me until now

                             Aujord’hui     je suis chinois     c’est-à-dire  

                                                                                            ence moment selment

                             Comme Lau-Tzé     ou comme Li-Po

                                                            (“Aujord’hui”)

The sun is out sky is clear poems would seem fall all round and on into night across the bay Shelby’s birthday dinner awaits celebration abounds everywhere World Series baseball goes down Detroit thousands of miles away city of urban gardens where perhaps some dear reader holed up in yonder bower reads . . . a Keats . . . an Apollonaire . . . a Torregian travels through the air  

                                                                      10/27/2012

            Like new used copy purchased for $9 (½ off cover price) @ Dog Eared Books on Valencia leaves me           

            wondering what poet so soon sold her or his advanced copy so untouched. . .in a city of poets…later @ 500        

            Club the questioning strange looks and handling of the book by peers…   

***** 

Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco. Things are appearing in 1913, Amerarcana, American Book Review, Bookslut, DeathandLifeofAmericanCities, HtmlGiant, Rain Taxi, Shampoo, Switchback, and The Volta.