Saint Vitus Press & Poetry Review

The web's premier site for OUTLAW POETRY

Information on Booking
Todd Moore
for a Poetry Reading :












Todd Moore

co-founded the genre of writing now recognized as
Outlaw Poetry with fellow writer Tony Moffeit.  

Moore is also responsible for coining  the phrase
"Noir Poetry"  that refers to dark, edgy writing with a
hard boiled feel to it.

During his 40+ years of writing poetry he has published
over a hundred books and is responsible for the most
famous long form poem known to the small press
world:  
DILLINGER.

Todd Moore is now available for booking opportunities
to hold poetry workshops and/or do a poetry reading at
your venue, gallery opening, etc.  
ANYWHERE within
the USA & Overseas as well.  

Click on the link below for full details including pricing
info, etc.
SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY PLEASE.

CLICK HERE TO DIRECTLY CONTACT TODD
MOORE FOR BOOKING ENGAGEMENTS
SLEEPWALKING IN THE VOID

CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE.  By Wolfgang Carstens.
a review by Tony Moffeit

CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE is a book of poetry that uses darkness to get to the light.  
More than that, it is one of those rare books in which the darkness is the light.  The power
of darkness gives us the other side.  Hank Williams said it best when he said, “There ain’t
no light.”  Then he gave us through his songs a darkness which transcended darkness
and light.  A new kind of light found in a darkness in which you no longer want the light.  
Wolfgang Carstens writes with this same kind of transcendence.  In a poem about his
father, “happy birthday, mr. cool,” Carstens gives us a shuddering portrayal of a darkness
so powerful that the only ending can be one of emotional ice.  And yet...and yet...there is a
primal strength that is expressed most vividly in the stark honesty of the darkness.  The
lead poem of the book, “fragments of a dream remembered,” unveils the theme:

my nightmares of late mirror
reality and are increasingly
more difficult to abandon
in favor of returning
to the sad drama of flesh.

perhaps that’s how we know
the hour of our end approaches -
when nightmares are more joyous
than reality, and passing from one
dream to another is as easy
as never again opening our eyes.

The metaphor of sleep as a prelude or substitute for death is again marvelously honed in
the title poem, “crudely mistaken for life.”  The setting is the back room of a funeral home
“where bodies/lie dreaming on shiny metal tables” and:

humans spend one third
of their living in preparation
for a morgue drawer, beds
are staging grounds for graves,
slumber is dress rehearsal for death.

But again, Wolf Carstens gives us something else.  Through the darkness itself, there is a
breakthrough.  In response to the mortician asking if he has ever seen a corpse prepared
for burial, Carstens answers:

yeah, i say, i’ve seen corpses
prepared for burial
the streets are full of sleepwalkers
with eyes stapled shut, lips sewn shut
to the magic and mystery of blood
and bone living; drained, emptied
with no sign of a pulse, the stench
of death seeping from their mouths
sleepwalking from cradle to grave
with only brief dreams in between -
crudely mistaken for life

The power of this passage is remarkable.  Line builds on line, metaphor builds on
metaphor, to reach an incredible ending which yields a line so strong it becomes the title
of the book.

Death, mortality, memory of the deceased, abandonment, suicide, and grief are all themes
in this book.  But rather than evoking hopelessness, Carsten evokes a deepening, a
transfiguration.  He also evokes an intimacy, for how better to know a person than to
experience the immediacy of that person’s darkness.  Here is a passage from the poem I
mentioned before, “happy birthday, mr. cool”:

sadly, apart from his toughness,
his only other discernable skill in life was drinking
it was incredible how he poured vodka  
into a tall glass, adding a splash of Kahlua
and guzzled it down in one uninterrupted gulp.

he went from cold stone sober
to shitfaced in 30 seconds -
you could actually watch his eyes glaze
and cross before his empty glass hit the table.
the last time i saw him was Thanksgiving 1995.
i hadn’t been there more than 20 minutes
and he was already trashed beyond repair.
after falling and destroying a glass table
he tumbled down steep basement steps
and couldn’t climb back up -
when i went to help him
his third wife Janice screamed, “don’t fucking
help him!  if he can’t get up the stairs under his own
steam then he doesn’t deserve to fucking eat.”
so i left him down there in the dark
bleeding from his nose and mouth,
crumpled on the cold concrete floor
like a wet, dirty towel.

This book is stunningly evocative.  Be careful when you pick up this book, you might not be
able to put it down.

CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE
Wolfgang Carstens
epic rites press 01 Mar 2010
Price $15.50 Paperback

epic rites press: "because all our fingers are middle ones"™

Epic Rites Press
240-222 Baseline Road
Suite #206
Sherwood Park, Alberta
Canada T8H 1S8

http://www.epicrites.org
http://www.spdbooks.org

any press is only as "small" as its thinking.