EILEEN TABIOS Engages
(Ugly Duckling Presse,
Brooklyn, 2017)
Okay. This quickly disintegrated into a depressing read for
me. But, first, I should explain the subjectivity of that “me.” I am the mother
of a college student in the thick of looking for a summer job/internship. Our
entire family is conscious that not too far from today, he will be looking for
a more permanent, post-graduation job. So, yes, Monica de la Torre’s The Happy End / All Welcome is depressing
for its focus on (among other things) the job hunt and, as is typical for many
entry-level jobs, the compromised lifestyles of slugging through a job.
“Table 17,” for example, shows the randomness of landing a
job—there’s not necessarily a direct correlation between most qualified to
receiving the position. “Table 17” offers a dialogue between a “RECRUITER” and
a “WORKER”:
“WORKER
My English is not
very well.
My English is … no
English.
My English is no
where.
My English is not
good and it is heard badly.
My English is no
frequently.
My English is no
native so apologies for everyone.
RECRUITER
(She remembers the orientation session in
which talent scouts were told to employ, at the drop of a hat, anyone whose use
of language might increase activity in audiences’ corrugator muscles or do the
opposite, prompting zygomatic tension.)
Congratulations,
you’re hired.”
But in this case, how does one prepare to be the candidate
who “might increase activity in audiences’ corrugator muscles or do the opposite,
prompting zygomatic tension”? Poor son…
“Career Track,” on the other hand, offers this question once
a job has been landed:
“Have you ever felt that your work
hasn’t, as you had hoped turned out to be a prelude to some higher position,
but rather that you’ve been pushed out of it into something lower?”
That reminds me of when, years ago, I languished at the
bottom of a corporate ladder. For months, I’d wake up in the morning and my
first thought to greet the day (occasionally second, after the thought
“Coffee!”) was, “I hate my life.”
Elevating the poems are de la Torre’s sharpness in observation:
“Individuals in dead offices are
workers.
Individuals in living offices are
human performers.”
—from “YES OR NO”
When one works in a huge bureaucracy—actually, this can
happen in non bigly organizations, too … SAD—efficiency suffers. In “Table 41”
is this excerpt, which says something about language and the effectiveness of
what is referenced by said language:
“COMPANY MANAGER:
What do you
suggest?
CONSULTANT:
It would be my
honor to devise a business plan for your company that meets everyone’s needs.
For that, I would conduct private interviews with your staffers. There is no
one-size-fits-all solution, especially when it comes to something as personal
as sublimation. I mean, ultimately that’s what is at stake.”
The answer sounds reasonable on surface, but could well be
obfuscatory. I wouldn’t hire someone who gave me those words in a job
interview. But I do believe folks like that manage to gain employment.
Indeed, the poem aptly addresses bureaucracy, including
bureaucratic language. Suffer with me, Dear Reader, through the deadening
bureaucratese of
[INSERT COFFEE BREAK]
I paused for a coffee break before continuing to write this
review, so as not to let depression prevent me from eliding the strengths of
this collection, e.g. wit, as indicated by such titles as “VIEW FROM AN AERON
CHAIR,” “VIEW FROM A DODO CHAIR,” “VIEW FROM AN UTRECHT CHAIR” and “VIEW FROM A
FOLDING CHAIR.” The titles are witty because the poems are situated to be
unfolding within a job fair. This reflects how the poet says her collection is
“[a]fter Martin Kippenberger’s installation ‘The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s Amerika’ (an assortment of numbered
tables and office desks with pairs of mismatched chairs within a soccer field
flanked by grandstands) which references a giant job fair held by the Nature
Theater of Oklahoma in Kafka’s unfinished Amerika…”
Such partly leads to an organic structure of poems titled by the types of
chairs as well as the numbers on tables (e.g. “Table 41”)—allowing the poet to
riff on different ways /types of job interviews. The results display admirable
expanse, from being funny (e.g. “Table 25”) to subversive (e.g., “GUERILLA
ADVERTISER POSITION”) to (to quote from the poem itself) “tenderly sardonic” (i.e.
“AD COPY”).
There’s also a series of “Case Study” poems that are
dream-like, if not odd (despite the matter-of-fact tone):
The “Case Study” poems evoke thoughts that may loosely
surface from someone helming a table at a job fair. Why? Perhaps for distraction. Why? Perhaps they fit the thoughts of someone
helming a table at a job fair when s/he knows there’s actually no job to
offer…?
Relatedly, de la Torre’s eye is lucid from such lines as
“A vague interior finds in an
exterior specific correlation.”
—from “DESCRIBE WHAT COLOR IS NOT”
and
“Red nails once stood for status.
Now it’s Be a Dahlia Won’t You? The
Thrill of Brazil, Yucatan if U ant, I’m Not Really A Waitress.
Or the mimicking of natural nails.”
—from “YOUR FORECAST HERE”
Let me further exchange depression for appreciation by
noting the presence of prescience (sorry, couldn’t resist the alliteration) in
this book. I assume, for example, that these poems were written before the
current administration. But in “YES OR NO,” de la Torre explains the merits of Rump=ian
walls:
“Partitions need less maintenance
than plants.”
Such a shame since a border of plants could at least elevate elevate the landscape.
How then to end this
review? the reviewer wonders, scratching her itchy head. How about, then,
with the last line of the last poem—it’s what can result from a deadening
experience, like a process where its success does not guarantee happiness (e.g., job hunt), or when someone
doesn’t want to do his job well (certain heads of state): from “OK, THIS IS
IT”:
“The next one up is in made-up
tongues.”
*****
Eileen Tabios does not let her books be reviewed by Galatea Resurrects because she's its editor (the exception would be books that focus on other poets as well). She is pleased, though, to point you elsewhere to recent reviews of her work: SILK EGG: Collected Novels 2009-2009 was reviewed by Aloysiusi Polintan for Renaissance of a Notebook; The Gilded Age of Kickstarters was engaged by Jim McCrary for The Halo-Halo Review; and ECSTATIC MUTATIONS was engaged by Aloysiusi Polintan for Renaissance of a Notebook. To date in 2017, she has released two books, two booklets and three poetry chaps. More info at http://eileenrtabios.com
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