The pages of February

Watching gentle, large flake snowfall out my window this morning, sipping coffee, thinking of travels past and future, I journeyed in other worlds this month, in the pages of eight books, five of them completed, one sampled, one mostly read, and one underway.

Five of the books came from friend Jeanetta Calhoun Mish's Mongrel Empire Press in Norman, poems, short stories and a fictional novel, all with strong Oklahoma roots and subjects. 
The other included Longmire creator Craig Johnson's "Wait for Signs," a collection of short stories, purchased from friend Joe Hight's Best of Books in Edmond.
The books of poetry were "The Walmart Republic," J.L. Jacobs' Streets as Elsewhere," and Carter Revard's, "From the Extinct Volcano-A Bird of Paradise."
"The Long Rifle Season" by James Murray is a bunch of short stories, appropriately titled "Tales," most of them set in southeast Oklahoma, and including a fictional view inside Timothy McVeigh's mind. The fictionalized novel by William Cunningham is "Pretty Boy Floyd."
The seventh book is Natalie Goldberg's "Loving Color--Painting, Writing and the Bones of Seeing." Writer-teacher Goldberg lives in Taos, doing what I dream about, and I bought the book thinking it would be about writing. Instead, it is a book about a writer taking up painting, filled with her art and prompting. I found it has a chapter on Cezanne, my favorite artist, which means it's a must read to complete.
The eighth book was OKC Mayflower UCC church pastor Robin Meyer's book, "Saving Jesus from the Church," a discussion prompt in our Sunday night "Soul Detox" group. He has lots to say about the difference in institutionalized Christianity and what Jesus taught.
Reviews and comments on most of these are coming. The poetry books are the most difficult, as you can see from my previous review of "The Walmart Republic."

          

Journeys on maps of imagination-The Walmart Republic

Journeys of a different sort beckon when winter makes your body sluggish, when your soul seems half awake, when your imagination is  mired in the traditional map of Oklahoma.
I found new maps and soul journeys this February in a blizzard of new books from Mongrel Empire Press, (click the link to view and buy) a small independent press known for publishing poetry and prose of culture and politics and life deeply rooted in Okie.

Like any maps to new places, these were full of surprises and mysteries, discoveries and disturbances. The first two were "The Walmart Republic" by Quraysh Ali Lansana and Christopher Stewart and "Streets as Elsewhere" by J.L. Jacobs.
Don't expect a traditional review from me on these, because there's nothing traditional about them. I've had to read them more than once to even approach doing them justice.  I  even wrote the publisher, poet and friend Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, to ask questions so I could try to write intelligently.
These are deep maps of imagination which will stretch your mind and understanding of who we are and who we are not.
All I can do is give you a sampler, and a brief look at the poets--the storytellers and their narratives.
What can you say about a book that has two poems entitled "The Will Rogers Turnpike" by two friends, one from a small Texas town, the other from Enid, Oklahoma, who met and live in Chicago?
They found their Walmart title in a classroom comment when at OU, a disparaging term of our commercial culture. The poems include more than Oklahoma, as the cover with a weird map and Big Tex on fire more than suggests. There is fire in this book, speaking of the superficiality of our "culture,"  and the truth of common people, in 45 poems, stories in 87 pages.
My favorites?--A few.
 "The Suit" by Stewart, about a man bringing in his suit to the cleaners for his wife's funeral, and a conversation with the owner. Two lines:
"She is old as well, her body crooked
 from years over a stitching machine."

"Bible Belted: Found Two" by Ali Lansana
"oklahoma   the birthplace
of the dawes act    tulsa race riot
the reservation   a 900 foot tall white jesus"

"Will Rogers Turnpike," by Stewart
Two lines:
"A waitress fondles  trucker music with her wiry, spellbound
ears as I leave this scene."

"Will Rogers Turnpike" by Ali Lansana
A few lines:
"these roads my  veins dry red
clay body  sun-smoke wafts heat
tired of itself  wheezing semi-trailers
alfalfa between cheek and gum"

"Sunday at Mutha's" by Ali Lansana
Opening lines:
"we could hardly wait for crusty ol' reverend
jenkins' final Amen so the real sunday afternoon could commence.
"fried chicken and fresh catfish.
aunt maudell's potato salad.
aunt bonnell's cakes.
"fresh corn on the cob and green
beans from mutha's garden."

There's a lot of our world here we don't or won't notice--sadness, humor, black and white and in between. Steward says in one poem, "A poet's job is to remember, he thinks...." Ali Lansana writes in one poem of "the bone of your words."  There's remembrance and bone in their words.

I wanted to write about both of these books together, but there's too much here. "Streets as Elsewhere" next.