A review of Maxine Chernoff's 'Without'
The cover photograph of Maxine Chernoff’s latest book of poems, Without, shows a scruffy western American landscape in the hallucinatory amber light of late afternoon. The black shadow of a porch cuts a geometric shape across the landscape, framing leafless trees and twisted stumps; in the distance lies a low hill covered in chaparral-like vegetation. The photograph, by Carolyn Guinzio, suggests a dry land lacking the moisture needed to sustain growth: it is a landscape without.
Magazines #7
Steamer 3
The third issue of Melbourne magazine Steamer - edited by Sam Langer - features a number of one line poems: my favourite is 'rocker' by Will Druce: 'sssssstay onlike a roa deeeeeee afterrrrthash ow'. It could be drunk, it could be the beginning of 'Cherry Bomb'. Neologisms like 'onlike', 'roa' and 'afterrrrthash' suggest a mutating rocker vernacular that gets more interrrresting the more the rocker thinks about what they're saying.
Another poem from the issue, 'token' by Ella O'Keefe is one that knows it was written on a keyboard (as much as the hands may remember 'duck-egg formica'). It interrupts what becomes retrospective lyrical droning to jump up and want something a: 'Fresh!/Fruit!/Shake!'. Three exclamations suspended by the question of wondering ... Having energise the line and mood, new implausibilities may be murmured. We attend to mockery, then we're collaged onto a tarmac. Single quotes turn into double: a successful 'lawn-a-concept-centre' date then.
This could be O'Hara with clipped wings or Williams with the strength reversed to the end.