POETRY REVIEW The weird, the dreamlike, the absurd

tOtherwise we’d be rocks, with no way in and nothing to eat.

We’re open.

BY HEIDI GRECO

Poetry is an ever-changing genre. The form that was once bound into strictly controlled lines where cadence and rhyme followed long-held rules has thrown off the old reins to run freely. Derelict Bicycles, a collection from Dale Tracy, runs freer than most.

The list of those Tracy credits as influences on her work ranges freely too. From acknowledging the importance of workshop leaders Stuart Ross (also this book’s editor) and Jason Heroux, the reach of her inspiration extends from ’90s TV series Twin Peaks, back to Dostoevsky, Keats, and even Shakespeare

Most effective of the poems, for which Tracy shares credit with another, is “A Weird Part of Whatever”—a compilation of lines spoken over the phone by her 93-year-old grandmother during the height of the pandemic.

To put any label on these poems, one needs only look a century back to the founding of the surrealist movement and poets such as André Breton and Paul Éluard. Of contemporary surrealists, Tracy refers to Ocean Vuong, citing his “Essay on Craft” as work that led to her poem “Careful Is a Fire That Tends Itself,” which she calls a response to his words. It should be noted as well that Derelict Bicycles is part of Anvil Press’ Feed Dog series. When the press introduced the series, its editor, Stuart Ross, explained, “I am drawn to the weird, to the dreamlike, to the absurd.” The promise of that lure has been fulfilled here. Although not divided into sections, as so many collections are today, there is movement in the placement of the poems. The opening piece offers the perfect entrance to the book; it reminded me of the pup tent in one of the final Harry Potter films, how its inside magically grows to accommodate the three companions, with even a second storey, bunk beds and a dining room. The comparison is an apt description for how these poems reveal themselves to the careful reader. They are often magical, and they frequently open to more than one might have anticipated.

As an example, consider this small poem—almost an aphorism—one whose title I admit was one of several words in the book which sent me to the dictionary:

“Poioumenon”

The dark can never be too full of itself.

As for that title, the word refers to a kind of metafiction whose story is about process, the process of creation — a kind of opening into. And this consideration leads me to a poem that is called “Open,” a piece that opens in an almost straightforward manner: Gods made us with windows to see how we’re doing inside.

But then it goes on for four more stanzas, doing a twist midway with a nod to “… quantum physics, animal behaviour, and time travel” and then, frankly, leaving me in the dust with its final stanza:

Semiaquatic crocodiles warn infrasonically, closedlipped.

Open though are their mystery pores, sensing something.

Nonlocal relations vibrate.

While I admit to being more of a plain-speaking poet myself, I also admit to a fascination with work that takes me places I don’t usually go. I enjoy being led to nearly buried discoveries, such as the foxes and wolves that lurk within these poems. There’s actually a small red fox on the book’s cover, looking patient as he sits in wait.

That fox, as well as the occasional wolf or deer— worms, an owl, the glimpse of a lynx—appears in several of these poems. The writing bears an odd kind of grounding in the natural world as well as quite a bit of human biology. References abound to the brain and eye, even the back of the head, perhaps challenging us to consider all the parts we’ll need to use to make our way into the heart of the work.

Some of the best advice about this book comes from one of the poems:

This is a celebration machine

With no instructions otherwise.

… Its process is a cycle: celebration in progress, celebration.

The derelict bicycle on the cover appears to have one working wheel. Let that be an invitation to give these poems a whirl and to celebrate the ride.

9781772141986