The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Poetry Review: Becoming the Sound of Bees
By Deniz Ataman
QuailBellMagazine.com
When turning to the first page of Marc Vincenz's Becoming the Sound of Bees, the reader is greeted with a verbal pop-up book, each page filled with percolating diction and scintallating imagery evocative of man's Last Supper before he wises up.
On an ekphrastic note, Bees feels like a mixture of the Gorillaz's 2010 portentous album, Plastic Beach, and Mark Danielewski's terrifying novel, House of Leaves. The former depicting man’s self-inflicted apocalypse filled to the brim with styrofoam and gooey plastic. The latter, an exploration of the infinite human psyche trapped in its own dusty container.
Vincenz pairs toxic waste with earthen crumbles, representing the unfortunate and unnatural distinction between man and earth. Now this sea spits and froths green bile along her worn edges, and/tired Max, shadow of a child in a pale greasy-paper complexion/Whose eyes that grasped constellations are grim like industrial smog. - Excerpt from "The Most Beautiful Book" Each poem explores humans' gravitational pull to its roots, while squirming away from the source to create their own entity. She taught me how to look on the other side/of the eye, how to cup my hands to hold a dream,/how the tree was a broken line of wind./She was a master of the forgotten tongue of leaves & broke bread/with the soil so she knew the sweetness of earth/down to its last crumb. -Excerpt from "Tree Lucidity" Despite the distinctions between nature and human's waste, the poetry collection philosophically surmises that man and nature are intrinsically linked. When separated, both entities suffer. …we listened/for the sound of bees/& hear nothing/but the wind box the panes/we began to hum & buzz & drone/becoming the grey matter/before words - Excerpt from "Static" This reviewer believes each poem to be read aloud. Otherwise the reader will miss the lyrical, playful, humorous, ironic, gloomy, explosive and silent shouts tucked away between each syllable. Boarding the steamer, we revelled/you bejewelled, I befuddled/sky-figured and transfixed in blue/we: doe-eyed, steered by instinct/you called it amorous intent - Excerpt from "Downriver" Vincenz creates a prosaic world filled with delicious diction and sardonic imagery that skyrockets the reader into the depths of the synaptic universe and back down to a rotting pile of garbage on Earth. His poetry is found between the two points, where if you listen close enough, you will hear the sound of bees.
#TheReal #Poetry #Nature #HumanCondition #Imagery #Diction #Apocalypse
Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Comments
Keith Wallace
12/7/2015 07:04:07 am
Great review, I will get this book. Comments are closed.
|
|