PARTYKNIFE by DAN MAGERS and AUTOPSY TURVY by THOMAS FINK and MAYA DIABLO MASON

LUCY BIEDERMAN Engages

PartyKnife by Dan Magers

(Birds LLC, Austin / Minneapolis / New York / Raleigh, 2012)

and

Autopsy Turvy by Thomas Fink & Maya Diablo Mason

(Meritage Press, St. Helena & San Francisco, 2010)

[Editor’s Note: For “Random Diptych”, three poet-critics accepted my invitation to review two books together, with such books chosen at random from GR’s available review copies.  “Random Diptych” presents a special challenge as, in addition to reviewing the individual book, the review also must read each book in the company of the other.  Here is the result from Lucy Biderman.]

PUMP DOWN THE VOLUME

Pump down the volume, yeah

           

Lining up the words                   you’re drunk again

                                                drunk again or stoned

                                               

alone with the seven continents

                                                the 44 presidents &

                                                your human anatomy

            Dan Magers, “All Tastes Are In Nature,” I will line up the words

            herein & make you wait for your name like a sex game,

there’s your “cross training,” & will ball up like CVS sweat-

socks the badboy things I ever have done & gift them to him

in an xmas popcorn tin, degradation for which there is no

designation, I mean no mention, enter the declension, psychedelia

by smooth smooth smooth smooth cover band 

                                                Pump

down the volume to the center of the

stage                                        the red-set Flareless page

You’re my daughter, my special problem: the only

one who grows

            Daddy & girly Autopsy Turvy

when he bends down to talk to her

            I seem to feel it I’m never going to//

            she answers enormous & undaunted

            cheat on myself I will not say I will

            not will not will not say my d—

literary construct sites, boa constrictions,

tonight we’re gonna have a good time.

 

*****

Lucy Biederman (http://lucybiederman.blogspot.com/) is a doctoral student in English Literature at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. She is the author of a chapbook, The Other World (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Her poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in The Literary Review, Parcel, RHINO, Ping Pong, ILK, Shampoo, and Gargoyle.