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![[words on COME ON IN AND TAKE OFF YR SKIN AND RATTLE AROUND IN YR BONES by JUSTIN, ETC.]
*
Justin Etc. (AKA Justin L McElfresh) is my friend
‘i came to you w/ schizophrenia in my art’ he writes
he also lives in San Francisco
when I came across his poetry last year for the first time I knew I had met an idiosyncratic ‘poet’
a poet w/ immense personality & imagination
his poems come in the form of fragmentedly-lyrical catalogs
Justin wears a lot of stripes & plaid & vests
sweaters
blazers
a lot of nice patterned socks
he wears a lot of bluejeans
a lot of his poems are perhaps ‘prose’ poems, in which the lines are separated by two ‘bullet points’
this is what he wrote on the copyright page of my copy:
‘Sherling, “you cannot be normal” after reading this ~ i think…thx for reading & being the first dude I know from Georgia…jstn, etc.’
his ‘work’ has a dangerous playfulness to it
& it seems hyper aware of its own playfulness
there is close specificity in this book
surprising specificity that highlights the strange & brilliant mind of Justin Etcetera
like in the first poem:
‘swashbuckling through Wikipedia’s / entry on Cognitive Dissonance’
but Justin generates an exciting balance between culturally specific objects—meticulously labeled in these poems (or ‘pomes’ as Justin says)—& a sneaky pathos that’s never far away
for instance, after the above-quoted line, Justin follows with:
‘as i cd never imagine the quieter moments /benignly brutal / in need be, as we bemoan’
& lines like this:
‘i’m awake b/c my heartbeat is too loud…’
this brings up one difficult & intriguing thing abt Justin’s work:
you never know quite how ‘serious’ to take it
not in terms of ‘talent’
but in terms of how ‘serious’ we should ‘ponder’ the ‘meanings’ of these catologs
how much ‘connection’ the meticulously labeled cultural objects have with the ‘pathos’ in these poems
I am reminded of a quote from Salvador Dali:
“It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is notnecessary for me to know it myself”
therefore one may say Justin’s poems are ‘ambiguous’
but what does ‘ambiguous’ mean in poetry, really?
‘ambiguous’ originally meant ‘having multiple interpretations’
& it had a perhaps ‘positive’ connotation
now it seems that we use ‘ambiguous’ sometimes to mean just ‘confusing’
& w/ a negative connotation
but the ‘ambiguity’ in Justin’s poems seems critical to their vitality
his poems ‘strike’ me as ‘postmodern’
primarily because of their ‘self-awareness’
ironic humor
collage-like style
his poems also seem to have a dark ‘romantic’ lyricism:
‘O love, let us estrange ourselves from this apocryphia / w/ a jigsaw puzzle & potted ferns / as a bolt gun whispers silently’
paradox:
‘I AM A BRIGHT, BUOYANT WILDFIRE / in a raindrop’
bizarre ‘religious’ language / ‘spiritual’ defeat:
‘but our halos / developed inarticulately, & unplugged’
‘celestially horrific’
whiskey: ‘i want a bourbon / as strong as an ordnance fire’
pop culture references: ‘Melrose Place on Fox in the shape of Our Lady of the Flowers’
‘i. e., Willa Cather w/ her Beats by Dr. Dre headphones’
‘i say, “i imagine you as a John Denver song’
he ends the book w/:
‘brings to light the soft-core snuff film of our American splendour’
*
ultimately I am happy to read Justin’s poems
I do have to take them in doses
his poems are best when read not all at once
he has a ‘cultured imagination’
readers who are looking for complete cohesion will not find that in Justin’s ‘work’
although one could say his ‘fragments’ have ‘cohesion’
his poems are like really good wine or beer
they require an acquired taste
I look forward to what he writes next
*
find his blog here:
http://roughdraftjustin.blogspot.com/
let me know if you want one of his chapbooks – 5 bucks:
matthewsherling@gmail.com](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbm0xlbLdj1r1vr5po1_1280.jpg)
[words on COME ON IN AND TAKE OFF YR SKIN AND RATTLE AROUND IN YR BONES by JUSTIN, ETC.]
*
Justin Etc. (AKA Justin L McElfresh) is my friend
‘i came to you w/ schizophrenia in my art’ he writes
he also lives in San Francisco
when I came across his poetry last year for the first time I knew I had met an idiosyncratic ‘poet’
a poet w/ immense personality & imagination
his poems come in the form of fragmentedly-lyrical catalogs
Justin wears a lot of stripes & plaid & vests
sweaters
blazers
a lot of nice patterned socks
he wears a lot of bluejeans
a lot of his poems are perhaps ‘prose’ poems, in which the lines are separated by two ‘bullet points’
this is what he wrote on the copyright page of my copy:
‘Sherling, “you cannot be normal” after reading this ~ i think…thx for reading & being the first dude I know from Georgia…jstn, etc.’
his ‘work’ has a dangerous playfulness to it
& it seems hyper aware of its own playfulness
there is close specificity in this book
surprising specificity that highlights the strange & brilliant mind of Justin Etcetera
like in the first poem:
‘swashbuckling through Wikipedia’s / entry on Cognitive Dissonance’
but Justin generates an exciting balance between culturally specific objects—meticulously labeled in these poems (or ‘pomes’ as Justin says)—& a sneaky pathos that’s never far away
for instance, after the above-quoted line, Justin follows with:
‘as i cd never imagine the quieter moments /benignly brutal / in need be, as we bemoan’
& lines like this:
‘i’m awake b/c my heartbeat is too loud…’
this brings up one difficult & intriguing thing abt Justin’s work:
you never know quite how ‘serious’ to take it
not in terms of ‘talent’
but in terms of how ‘serious’ we should ‘ponder’ the ‘meanings’ of these catologs
how much ‘connection’ the meticulously labeled cultural objects have with the ‘pathos’ in these poems
I am reminded of a quote from Salvador Dali:
“It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is notnecessary for me to know it myself”
therefore one may say Justin’s poems are ‘ambiguous’
but what does ‘ambiguous’ mean in poetry, really?
‘ambiguous’ originally meant ‘having multiple interpretations’
& it had a perhaps ‘positive’ connotation
now it seems that we use ‘ambiguous’ sometimes to mean just ‘confusing’
& w/ a negative connotation
but the ‘ambiguity’ in Justin’s poems seems critical to their vitality
his poems ‘strike’ me as ‘postmodern’
primarily because of their ‘self-awareness’
ironic humor
collage-like style
his poems also seem to have a dark ‘romantic’ lyricism:
‘O love, let us estrange ourselves from this apocryphia / w/ a jigsaw puzzle & potted ferns / as a bolt gun whispers silently’
paradox:
‘I AM A BRIGHT, BUOYANT WILDFIRE / in a raindrop’
bizarre ‘religious’ language / ‘spiritual’ defeat:
‘but our halos / developed inarticulately, & unplugged’
‘celestially horrific’
whiskey: ‘i want a bourbon / as strong as an ordnance fire’
pop culture references: ‘Melrose Place on Fox in the shape of Our Lady of the Flowers’
‘i. e., Willa Cather w/ her Beats by Dr. Dre headphones’
‘i say, “i imagine you as a John Denver song’
he ends the book w/:
‘brings to light the soft-core snuff film of our American splendour’
*
ultimately I am happy to read Justin’s poems
I do have to take them in doses
his poems are best when read not all at once
he has a ‘cultured imagination’
readers who are looking for complete cohesion will not find that in Justin’s ‘work’
although one could say his ‘fragments’ have ‘cohesion’
his poems are like really good wine or beer
they require an acquired taste
I look forward to what he writes next
*
find his blog here:
http://roughdraftjustin.blogspot.com/
let me know if you want one of his chapbooks – 5 bucks:
