Hard Damage
poems, Aria Aber
University of Nebraska Press, 2019
~
“…every aunt has a son
who fell, or a daughter who hid in rubble
for two years…” – from Funeral In Paris
Of hermetic departure and homeless echo, Aria Aber’s Hard Damage is a work of deep citizenry in which words begin to sound like the words they were made for. Or from. I’m not sure. One moment I’m packing snowglobes in ash and the next I’m losing my footing while listening to a eulogy that distance has written for want. What landmark nostalgia. What shocked intimacy. Aber knows speech hides in the saying. Knows headline is a melancholy click twice removed from identity sorrow. There is no undoing in the doing. Revelation, here, is baked into the bone. If Aber’s imagery renders hypnosis a given, then this language has it go without. Be taken, reader. So covertly enspelled.
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and here I tell my son, who’s never heard a cricket, how long I believed in god.
not every tooth makes it into the group of teeth I know about. a mother is told by god that her writing appears read. you eat like a bird then eat the bird for saying nothing. I warm a hand on a burning fish. our water seems distracted. by the ghost of what he’s killing.
(i)
he shot three of us in the stomach for throwing a snowball at his pick-up truck. none of us died completely. by none I mean a priest and a pilot are changing the diaper of an indifferent baby. by scar we mean we held sticks and surrounded the paw
that our god had filled with fog
–
(ii)
it takes we guess three low-flying helicopters and a herd of wheelchairs to scare jesus away from eating the bomb that we made
for men
only dogs
can hear
–
(iii)
by stomach I mean both field
and church
are empty
and that whole
meals
reappear in the newborn’s outstanding loneliness
RECENT REFLECTIONS
on not human enough for the census by Erik Fuhrer:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/29/not-human-enough-for-the-census-poems-erik-fuhrer/
on Something Akin To by Kaleigh Maeby:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/29/something-akin-to-poems-kaleigh-maeby/
on Hijito by Carlos Andrés Gómez:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/26/hijito-poems-carlos-andres-gomez/
on : boys by Luke Johnson:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/24/boys-poems-luke-johnson/
~
RECENT PLACES
poems at Underfoot Poetry:
https://underfootpoetry.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/barton-smock-7-poems/
three poems at The Collidescope, here:
https://thecollidescope.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/goodbyes-for-exodus/
interview at The Collidescope, here:
https://thecollidescope.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/hungrily-poetic-an-interview-with-barton-smock/
interview at Flyway Journal, here:
~
RECENT PRIVATE PUBLICATIONS, self-published:
MOTHERLINGS, 52 pages, 4.00
poems, June 2019
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
or Venmo @Barton-Smock-1
*be sure to include your mailing address in the comments of the order. any questions can be directed to bartsmock@gmail.com
Animal Masks On the Floor of the Ocean, 114 pages, 10.00
poems, June 2019
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
or Venmo @Barton-Smock-1
~
RECENT POEMS
[years ache]
my children haven’t gone a day without their stomachs. sometimes…
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~
on not human enough for the census, by Erik Fuhrer:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/29/not-human-enough-for-the-census-poems-erik-fuhrer/
~
on Something Akin To, by Kaleigh Maeby:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/29/something-akin-to-poems-kaleigh-maeby/
~
on Hijito, by Carlos Andrés Gómez:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/08/26/hijito-poems-carlos-andres-gomez/
~
a lonely child makes no fist and snow arrives to draw a snake. I mean to chew but forget. your knock-knock jokes have gotten better. I don’t hate your stories. the head-kisser’s
bowling
score.
tornado that lost our emptiness.
–
about the baby,
has it forgotten how to smoke
–
mom she rolled ache into our socks at a gas station
–
there’s no one to tell
my eyes
I’m early
–
to the quiet of egg sac
anthill
are ankles
lost
–
kingsoftrain 