Unlocking Modern Mystery with Poet John Amen
A man drags his secrets from dream to dream,
secrets that drag him through a hundred skins.
Anima says give them to me,
but she never takes them,
& I can’t just let them go.
—Amen, page 13
In John Amen’s fifth book of poetry, Illusion of an Overwhelm (NYQ Books, 2017), what comes across as a private mythology actually holds a host of community—that of the seeker holding onto the t-shirt hems of the lost.
Unlocking the symbols of John’s words is a venture into the modern mystery of our human resistance to climb over mental barriers, thus avoiding our larger and unrestrained selves.
The venture into Illusion of an Overwhelm is a read for those who like a challenge. While it is a read for the kind of heart, it is not for the faint of heart, as these poems are exigent exercises in both form and content.
Sixty-four poems dissecting many displays of segregation vs. integration are organized into four sections: “Hallelujah Anima,” “The American Myths,” “My Gallery Days,” “Portrait of Us.”
When I delved into this avant-garde book, I found that the form of poetry differs in each section, each with its own symbolic language based on the section title.
The content varies, too, but is gathered under what I read as an overarching theme of divided selves reaching for completion and integrity.
Though some poems are difficult to decipher, doing so has its rewards, like unlocking the mysteries of visual art.
These poems are honest in their forever reach toward, but never obtaining, the satisfaction of communion with the larger self. The poems’ persona hesitates, and therefore, never touches that which is waiting.
Such is also the case also with Michelangelo’s masterpiece, Creation of Adam, 1508. Adam, the man, half-heartedly reaches to touch his Creator and is locked for an eternity in this disconcerting stasis.
This theme of “reach-for-but-don’t-touch-the-great-creator” is seen most prominently in the sections “Hallelujah Anima” and “Portrait of Us.”
Throughout the eighteen poems of “Hallelujah Anima,” Anima, the personification of man’s soul and in particular his “feminine” characteristics, moves with the persona. The persona teases this soulful, feminine side of his integrity. Anima never teases; rather, “she” patiently waits for what he will never do—accept “her” as a part of him.
While Anima waits for this man, other men appear, possibly willing to take the step with “her” into his wholeness:
Anima chews her boredom, flirting with the clerk, eyes a soldier willing to go AWOL.
—Amen, page 17
“My Gallery Days” is the most evincing section in form and content symbolism of a seemingly personal mythology. Entering this section of poetry conjures what it must have been like to visit a pop art gallery during the 60s—new, fresh but hard to decipher—at first. And then, wow! Like art of popular culture, here is the language we speak while not even hearing ourselves speak it.
As you read for the adventure of unlocking the code of John’s language and symbolism, you will find lines that resonate.
Such lines, for me, are:
I’ve learned,
what’s an apocalypse while it looms
can be a light rain when it arrives.
—Amen, 24
Watch, I threaten, I’ll pack my earplugs & blindfold, I’ll leave you, truth is I’ve left a dozen times, I never leave--the courtier, assassin, caregiver, I’m everything I was trained to be.
—Amen, page 27
Nine months in the dead mother’s womb,
decades under the white father’s tongue—
dread’s a crowbar wedged between your ribs
neither Prozac nor Ambien can dissolve.
With each breath, you feel the crack of bone.
—Amen, page 40
…That said, there are indeed doors
in the white father’s house that can only be opened
by a black son.
—Amen, page 46
You were right of course:
resistance is a midwife w/ a bad attitude.
—Amen, page 53
You pawned our sketches to Mr. Pharm, who attended
the opening…
—Amen, page 56
…Take this card she insisted:
Edward Hauser, Department of Conventional Aesthetics
…I swear in the silence the music inside me was crumbling.
—Amen, page 69
How often can I rearrange the wreckage in the sand?
Why spend another day bargaining with the dead?
—Amen, page 85
I needed to alphabetize what was slipping from me…
—Amen, page 87
Ultimately, John Amen’s poems reconcile the human puzzle of our existence. The apparent stasis of our fragmented lives ends with the revelation stated by the book’s last stanza:
Though all names are forgotten,
this remains: we uttered what the creator can’t;
the one music it needed from us,
this is what we gave.
—Amen, page 89
I read this as: Human beings, with appearances of supposed flaws—and with hesitancy to connect with our larger selves or with our creator—have our divine purpose.
Lovely.
NOTE: All quotes are from Illusion of An Overwhelm by John Amen, NYQ Books, an imprint of New York Quarterly Foundation, Inc., New York, New York, 2017.
John Amen
will read poetry and speak about
Dark Souvenirs: Grief, Memory, and Imagination
Wednesday November 18, 2020 5:30 pm MT!
Join Us!
Creatives in Conversation
Poet John Amen. Photo Credit: Chad Weeden.
About John Amen:
John Amen is the author of several collections of poetry, including, most recently, Illusion of an Overwhelm (New York Quarterly Books, 2017), a finalist for the 2018 Brockman-Campbell Award, and work from which was chosen as a finalist for the Dana Award.
His poetry, fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals nationally and internationally, and his poetry has been translated into Spanish, French, Hungarian, Korean, and Hebrew.
He is a Staff Reviewer for the music magazine and website No Depression.
He founded and is managing editor of Pedestal Magazine.
Find out more about John on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/johncamen/
Blog author
Mary Dezember, PhD, is a poet and author of fiction and non-fiction. She earned her PhD in Comparative Literature, specialization in Comparative Arts, from Indiana University in 2000, with PhD minors in Art History and Performance Studies.
Professor of English, she teaches Comparative Arts, Art History, Creative Writing and Literature at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Her publications include several non-fiction essays and articles and two books of poetry: Earth-Marked Like You (Sunstone Press) and Still Howling (CreateSpace Independent Publishing). Her novel, Wild Conviction, is in the works toward publication.