Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg

Yesterday I picked up a copy of this new book of poetry, the author's second, from Powell's. This sophmore journey from the founder of Octopus magazine (www.octopusmagazine.com), resonated with me immediately in a way few contemporary American poetry books are able. Within nearly every poem Schomburg speaks beauty, both natural and human, with a devilish tongue. In fact, he draws no distinction between the natural and human worlds, nor the holy and unholy, as they intertwine in every line. A woman loses her arms, from which grow tree limbs. A grotesque image straight from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, to be sure, but this is not the masochistic work of man. It is nature within man. Eventually she transforms into a tree and it is beatiful. Elsewhere two people give themselves to the bones of a coyote, another mysterious concept described in such natural, holistic terms, which thenceforth transform the dead coyote in a god of the forest. There is something of Nick Cave's lyrical genius in this. Something of Native American recognition that there are not two, or more, worlds but one, without dividing lines, without a black or a white element.

I would very much suggest it to any reader, even those without a firm grasp nor love of poetry.

Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg
Black Ocean Press- www.blackocean.org
2009