Order ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS here
(also reviewed)
Order THE CHAOS WE KNOW here
I have this obsessive compulsive relationship to words. I believe that the strongest fiction uses a calculated number of them, which all carry their own weight in the meaning of a sentence. That's why I hate words like: as, if, it, things, do, etc. They have no weight. They're empty calories that could be used anywhere, that wouldn't influence the identity of a story whatsoever. What you just read probably doesn't make sense, but it will if you take an hour of your day to read the delightful little study in crime fiction and language that is ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS, by poet, author and book reviewer Keith Rawson. There are other people out there, who love the break down words as much as I do, and Rawson might just be one step ahead of me in that game.
ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS is a collection of poems. I am a notorious non-reader of poetry and non-appreciator of the art, but this book found its way to me through mysterious channel and I've actually enjoyed the crap out of it, because it's the farthest thing from conventional poetry, at least from the limited knowledge I have of it. In the introduction, Rawson discussed his creative process for poetry, calling it a writing exercise, a way to jump start whatever fiction he needed to write on. So Rawson's poetry is more of a deconstruction of visions and ideas than the conventional abstract construction that poetry is. One sentence flows into the other, incomplete, and the next spins the entire meaning of the poem in a new direction. That's one way you'll get me to giddily read poetry and enjoy the crap out of it. ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS is cerebral, clever, unpredictable and it shows a certain continuity with the obsessions Keith Rawson first exposed in THE CHAOS WE KNOW a couple years back.
Speaking of which...
It's not only Keith Rawson's process of writing poetry that I can get behind, his vision as well. I have something against unnecessarily bleak art, and some readers will perceive Rawson's artistic output to belong in that category, but I disagree. What he does is something I can relate to. It doesn't have a name, but I've felt it before. I call it ''apocalyptic visions''. See, men have strange ways of coping with stress and one of them is having these intense visions where horrible things happen and lives are ruined. The poem CIGARETTES for example, is a moment transformed into an apocalyptic vision through great anger. SHOTGUN is another example that uses more abstract and visceral language, but that forms a vision just as strong. Reading ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS, I felt this uncanny emergency of this moments I felt intense rage and grief. It's not a happy reading at all, but it definitely connected with me.
Writing doesn't get any more niche than what Keith Rawson is doing. You either get it or you don't. There's no objective appreciation to what he's doing and it's what makes it so quirky and charming. ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS is a unique poetry collection (at least to my knowledge), that deconstructs tropes of crime fiction and creates unique visions of a terrifying, yet familiar anger. I'm still not a poetry enthusiast, but I've enjoyed ALL THOSE HUNGRY MOUTHS maybe even better than the previous short story collection that I've read from him. I consider myself an obsessive cerebral person and an emotional wreck and it spoke to those two dominant sides of me. I dug it, yet I'm not sure you will unless you try. The time/money investment is advantageous, though.