Post by johnyamrus on Apr 24, 2008 14:41:55 GMT -6
This book is available in the US from barnesandnoble.com...outside the states it's often available from amazon, though not always. If not, barnesandnoble.com works.
the following review was by Larry Jordan:
Blue Collar—a review
John Yamrus is a spy, ferreting out the intricacies of experience, the sort of poet with a hidden camera tucked behind a warm and welcoming voice. The dossiers of his adventures occur in “Blue Collar”; a collection of 39 poems published by Publish America in 2006. What you will find between its covers is a sharp focus on the particulars of moments that go mostly unnoticed. Noticing things is what Yamrus’ poetry does with a clear, and sometimes sharp, tongue.
In the introduction, R.D. Armstrong describes the poems as having “an easy comfort to them.” Armstrong quickly clarifies that he does not mean this in a trivializing sense. It seems that the language structured to capture the voice of an “ordinary” man is easily perceived as “ordinary” language. But it isn’t. It is succinct. It is always pointing at its subject.
The following is lifted from the middle of a poem titled: “there has to be”
there has to be
an end
to all the
tiny
little pains
that wear you down
and leave you sick
and staring at the wall
at 3am
on a Saturday night.
You won’t find viscous and opaque language here. Yamrus works at the other end of that scale. His poems choreograph a subject out onto center stage in such a way that they seem caught in a freeze frame by a surreptitious camera. These events are exposed to light that Yamrus tints with compassion. The poems come across with a kind of honesty that recognizes the plight of anyone struggling to make it through a single day—“this narrator understands us.” What he accomplishes is shifting the sense of “the ordinary” away from its prevalent pejorative use.
While he eschews rhyme and meter for the closer approximation of speech, there is a cadence that reoccurs throughout the poems, a cadence accentuated by the line breaks. This sound in the language establishes the narrator as consoling and wise, shifting a story or character into a view from an angle we do not often use. These poems are full of the things in everyday life that we offer up in sacrifice for the right to call ourselves alive, as indicated in the conclusion of the poem:
there has to be.
but,
I don’t
see it.
William Faulkner once said of Hemingway, “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.’ John Yamrus, too, has no interest in making it difficult for the reader to catch his view of those moments between blaring music and doing laundry. While using his “plain language” may draw criticism, the subjects, it seems to me, do not lend themselves to rhyme, meter or thick metaphoric language. All the puppeteer’s wires are in plain view:
i always figured i’d end up
being
the crazy one.
on
the street,
walking around
waving my arms at passing cars,
with hair down to my shoulders,
wearing high top sneakers...
This is the opening of a poem with a strong plot and curious foreshadowing, devices not generally found in poetry. None the less, it is an effective artifice for us with attention deficit disorder.
And no I’m not going to quote the rest of the poem. You’ll have to buy the book for yourself to find out what’s going on here.
Larry Jordan
the following review was by Larry Jordan:
Blue Collar—a review
John Yamrus is a spy, ferreting out the intricacies of experience, the sort of poet with a hidden camera tucked behind a warm and welcoming voice. The dossiers of his adventures occur in “Blue Collar”; a collection of 39 poems published by Publish America in 2006. What you will find between its covers is a sharp focus on the particulars of moments that go mostly unnoticed. Noticing things is what Yamrus’ poetry does with a clear, and sometimes sharp, tongue.
In the introduction, R.D. Armstrong describes the poems as having “an easy comfort to them.” Armstrong quickly clarifies that he does not mean this in a trivializing sense. It seems that the language structured to capture the voice of an “ordinary” man is easily perceived as “ordinary” language. But it isn’t. It is succinct. It is always pointing at its subject.
The following is lifted from the middle of a poem titled: “there has to be”
there has to be
an end
to all the
tiny
little pains
that wear you down
and leave you sick
and staring at the wall
at 3am
on a Saturday night.
You won’t find viscous and opaque language here. Yamrus works at the other end of that scale. His poems choreograph a subject out onto center stage in such a way that they seem caught in a freeze frame by a surreptitious camera. These events are exposed to light that Yamrus tints with compassion. The poems come across with a kind of honesty that recognizes the plight of anyone struggling to make it through a single day—“this narrator understands us.” What he accomplishes is shifting the sense of “the ordinary” away from its prevalent pejorative use.
While he eschews rhyme and meter for the closer approximation of speech, there is a cadence that reoccurs throughout the poems, a cadence accentuated by the line breaks. This sound in the language establishes the narrator as consoling and wise, shifting a story or character into a view from an angle we do not often use. These poems are full of the things in everyday life that we offer up in sacrifice for the right to call ourselves alive, as indicated in the conclusion of the poem:
there has to be.
but,
I don’t
see it.
William Faulkner once said of Hemingway, “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.’ John Yamrus, too, has no interest in making it difficult for the reader to catch his view of those moments between blaring music and doing laundry. While using his “plain language” may draw criticism, the subjects, it seems to me, do not lend themselves to rhyme, meter or thick metaphoric language. All the puppeteer’s wires are in plain view:
i always figured i’d end up
being
the crazy one.
on
the street,
walking around
waving my arms at passing cars,
with hair down to my shoulders,
wearing high top sneakers...
This is the opening of a poem with a strong plot and curious foreshadowing, devices not generally found in poetry. None the less, it is an effective artifice for us with attention deficit disorder.
And no I’m not going to quote the rest of the poem. You’ll have to buy the book for yourself to find out what’s going on here.
Larry Jordan
