Spring Break
do not hold doors: The Underground Poetics of Jeffrey Dessources
Review by Lee Ann Brown, St. John's University
Issue date: 6/1/08 Section: Spring 2007
Grew Bap Books, New York City
http://stores.lulu.com/jeffreydess
Paperback $17.50
Download $10.50
141 pages
ISBN: 978-0-6151-3509-0
One of the prime responsibilities of poets is to voice dissent with the present culture, usually in hopes of making it better. In do not hold doors, Jeffrey Dessources actualizes this dissent into a literal descent by getting down into a newly imagined "underground." The layered worlds articulated here revolve around the intricate alphabetic systems of a real and imagined metropolitan subway. The extended metaphor of "underground poetics" structures a "Post Soul" (train) underground railroad that deftly plays with the NYC subway system's alphabetical systems and to create a rich nexus of complex poetic texts dealing with formative historical moments and pop cultural mixes. It's a call to power for the reader to "Stand Clear" of the underground cultural forces at work and is a provocative invocation to get on board or be left behind.
In an interview with Brian Kim Stephans, published in Jacket Magazine, poet, Alice Notley, who also uses the subway as a vast metaphor for a modern Dante's Inferno in her long poem The Descent of Alette, expresses a corresponding take on the poets' duty to oppose oppressive, authoritarian systems: "One is told constantly by anyone and everyone what is true and how to behave. Every transaction you have is founded on assumptions: what to say, how to dress, what a city is, a sex is, a human, the superiority of the human world over the animal and vegetal world, the rightness of whatever religion or atheism or philosophy or psychology is handy, the existence and superiority of American democracy etc - you know. One gets up and goes to work etc etc. Also, one rebels etc etc, in ways approved of by the university, or as my sons call it, the Crackademy." (http://jacketmagazine.com/15/stef-iv-not.html)
Likewise, albeit in a very different mode, Dessources' subway networks serve as sources of found and collaged observation in newly imagined planes that transport readers to new realms of thinking and reference. The opening section of the book is entitled "the platform" and begins by instructing the reader to "Please stand close to the edge," doubling "platform" as departure pad and as political sounding board. The introduction lays out goals of speaking to "the younger Post Soul generation and all the youth that follow." Dessources writes, "Through media, government, pop culture, our elders and other mediums, members of this generation have been fed information about life and African American culture on the surface. Half-truths, lies and omissions are keeping many individuals in the dark." He ambitiously sets out to right these ommissions with a personal riff on literary ancestors and histories that are not acknowledged and represented. After the prose intro of "platform," the author then proceeds to the "U Train express" of cultural reference directly urging the "You" of the reader to "DO NOT HOLD DOORS," nothing less than a call to not impede the progress of necessary revolution, concluding the poem with "Next stop… Ayiti." This provides a neat segue into the next section that centers on themes from the Haitian revolution. He's included a glossary of Haitian Creole that is riffed on through the book.
http://stores.lulu.com/jeffreydess
Paperback $17.50
Download $10.50
141 pages
ISBN: 978-0-6151-3509-0
One of the prime responsibilities of poets is to voice dissent with the present culture, usually in hopes of making it better. In do not hold doors, Jeffrey Dessources actualizes this dissent into a literal descent by getting down into a newly imagined "underground." The layered worlds articulated here revolve around the intricate alphabetic systems of a real and imagined metropolitan subway. The extended metaphor of "underground poetics" structures a "Post Soul" (train) underground railroad that deftly plays with the NYC subway system's alphabetical systems and to create a rich nexus of complex poetic texts dealing with formative historical moments and pop cultural mixes. It's a call to power for the reader to "Stand Clear" of the underground cultural forces at work and is a provocative invocation to get on board or be left behind.
In an interview with Brian Kim Stephans, published in Jacket Magazine, poet, Alice Notley, who also uses the subway as a vast metaphor for a modern Dante's Inferno in her long poem The Descent of Alette, expresses a corresponding take on the poets' duty to oppose oppressive, authoritarian systems: "One is told constantly by anyone and everyone what is true and how to behave. Every transaction you have is founded on assumptions: what to say, how to dress, what a city is, a sex is, a human, the superiority of the human world over the animal and vegetal world, the rightness of whatever religion or atheism or philosophy or psychology is handy, the existence and superiority of American democracy etc - you know. One gets up and goes to work etc etc. Also, one rebels etc etc, in ways approved of by the university, or as my sons call it, the Crackademy." (http://jacketmagazine.com/15/stef-iv-not.html)
Likewise, albeit in a very different mode, Dessources' subway networks serve as sources of found and collaged observation in newly imagined planes that transport readers to new realms of thinking and reference. The opening section of the book is entitled "the platform" and begins by instructing the reader to "Please stand close to the edge," doubling "platform" as departure pad and as political sounding board. The introduction lays out goals of speaking to "the younger Post Soul generation and all the youth that follow." Dessources writes, "Through media, government, pop culture, our elders and other mediums, members of this generation have been fed information about life and African American culture on the surface. Half-truths, lies and omissions are keeping many individuals in the dark." He ambitiously sets out to right these ommissions with a personal riff on literary ancestors and histories that are not acknowledged and represented. After the prose intro of "platform," the author then proceeds to the "U Train express" of cultural reference directly urging the "You" of the reader to "DO NOT HOLD DOORS," nothing less than a call to not impede the progress of necessary revolution, concluding the poem with "Next stop… Ayiti." This provides a neat segue into the next section that centers on themes from the Haitian revolution. He's included a glossary of Haitian Creole that is riffed on through the book.
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