Prosthetic Gods by Jonathan Penton
Winged City Chapbooks, 2008
Reviewed by Jen Garfield

Opening with a bitter nod to the minds of Allen Ginsberg’s generation, Jonathan Penton takes us on a roller-coaster ride of one weathered, angst-ridden poet’s apocalyptic benedictions. Though it’s unclear who the deranged, philosophic ramblings are directed toward, my guess is they’re dissecting the relationship between god, man and artistic creation. With a biting tongue, he debunks egos, police officers and the poetic machine. “There’s no slice of the market you can eat,” he writes. “The market will always eat you.”

The voice, however disorientating and scattered (and not helped by the lack of titles and page numbers) is nonetheless compelling. I’m perplexed by why Venus rapes women, amused by the claim that “g-d is found in fucking/ That the fuckers don’t matter at all.” If nothing else, the conflation of anger and sex is uniquely ubiquitous and true to form. Occasionally, Penton comes up for air from throwing around the C-word in accurately rhythmic displays of wit and social commentary. He writes:

As the old men march for peace

while the young men march for justice

and the union blames them both

for the price of hot school lunches.

Most of the time, though, Penton channels a grisly sense of horror with a light touch. He fantasizes of “sex in the shoah” and argues with the war widow. He understands “there is no tape for the ways minds break/ there’s a million things that can go wrong.” He makes no sense at all, but with his expert cynicism, I’m not sure I could handle the clarification. I’ll take it as it is.

Winged City Chapbooks is an imprint of New Sins Press, which can found on the web at http://www.newsinspress.com/.

Jen Garfield is the poetry editor for Prick of the Spindle. Her poetry has appeared in  numerous journals and recently, she was the recipient of a 2007 Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. Her chapbook, Excuses for Happiness, is forthcoming from Pudding House Press.  This week, she likes Greek mythology, advice columns, and shih tzus. 

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