Pleasure Trout

Pleasure Trout

by Gloria Mindak/Mindock

review by Mick Mykola Dementiuk

    When I approached this chapbook it was with a sense of trepidation after all it reminded me I had once taken a poetry class in college, Introduction to Poetry, reading the sonnets of Shakespeare, the verses of John Donne and the poetics of T.S. Eliot, and came out of it with a feeble grade of C for my efforts. I knew I would never try that again, I could never make any sense out of poetry. I shook my head and went on with my life. But over the years I did look into the words of Allen Ginsburg or the drunken works of Charles Bukowski, finding some comfort and solace therein, because they “spoke” to me unlike the others who “poetized” and never made any sense.

      So when I found out the Gloria Mindock had a new book coming out, “Pleasure Trout” I smiled and knew I was going to order it. Gloria is the founder/editor of Cervena Barva Press but I know of her from her bookstore The Lost Bookshelf, which carries a few copies of my Lambda Award winning novel “Holy Communion” amongst others in its racks. I eagerly opened her book, reading page by page, and becoming bemused, befuddled and totally lost. What the hell? Then I again read her introduction where she says, “Don’t try to understand what is written here. Just enjoy the nonsense.” Well, of course, if I had heard this thirty years ago my poetry class would come out different, it wouldn’t seem that bad at all. I laughed, because I love the language that poetry uses, the rhyme, the meter, the words, which I use daily anyway.

This baby is heaven and

this baby is something

you ain’t got

If Mindock used exclamation points her last sentence would demand it, I’m sure. That’s what I love, nonsensical poetry.

One day you feel dull

and uncharming

You are lying

Actually you are largely

undeveloped

cooked up out of

fiction

If you could write, you

would be absent on noise

Or,

My arms are a huge

stall to entangle

your pedal, your feet

If I get rough, I can

diagnose your pulsing

solitude

    

     Once you begin to stop looking for meanings, in its absence, a meaning will surely come. Just shut up and listen, I think.

Ok, so this is only a

thought, a tale, a struggle

not to cease

Hey, we have all out lives

     Thanks Gloria, who woulda thunk it, poetry appreciation this late in the game, you made a new poetry convert, that’s for sure! Love your book. 

 Mick Mykola Dementiuk
http://dementiuk.weebly.com 
http://www.MykolaDementiuk.com
Lambda Literary Awards Winner 2013/Gay Erotica, 2009/Bisexual Fiction