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Tiny Teeth by Annie Menebroker
Perfect Bound 62 pages
R.L. Crow Publications $12
Writing poetry in America can sometimes be difficult, not because we lack an audience, but because too many poets are their own worst enemy, setting up artificial barriers, and isolating themselves from the working class man and woman.
Mark Twain said that "language should be talk such as humans talk and say something and be precise and arrive with some proficiency." Menebroker's poetry more than meets this standard. In this she shares something in common with the late Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski.
Menebroker's poems are readily accessible, celebrating life and the human condition. They are not to be mistaken with confessional poems, but are more like autobiographies of the mind and soul. There are poems of reflection
( I am thirty-two years old/and like to get letters from poets/and excitable people/ But there aren't many people writing excitable poems/People have this dull look about them lately/What is the matter with them?/The mail comes slowly and I've been/looking around for something better to do); poems about times past (sometimes/even when I don't want you/I want you to keep/wanting me/it is destroying us); poems of wry humor (the cat went/a long way/(with help)/a very long way/she came back/(unaided)/ and we fed her/bite size pieces/of fish and guilt/meow-meow/said the cat/smiling at us/rather/victoriously/I thought), and poems of tragedy told in a simple, straight forward manner (the scene is the ocean/and a wave of it/slapping against a small boat/knocking out a father/and his two children/curtain down/ green and green and green/the performers/will not come up/for a curtain call.
These poems were all previously published in the now defunct Wormwood Review, and are among the best poems Menebroker has written. The publisher is to be commended for pulling together this book, and for its attractive presentation. Ms. Menebroker has been writing for the so called "littles" for decades, and is in full bloom of her craft. Here she gives us a wonderful collection of plain-spoken poetry. We are fortunate to have poets like her around that tell us what they feel and say in a rich and soft-spoken way.
Neeli Cherkovski has called me a warrior, survivor. If this is the case, then Ann Menebroker is the warrior, survivor poet of Sacramento.
-- A.D. Winans
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