Hard Reds by Brandi Homan

Reviewed by Karen J. Weyant

ISBN: 978-1-905700-81-3
Shearsman Books Ltd, 2008

Hard Reds, by Brandi Homan, is a collection of edges. From the title alone, a reader might surmise that these edges will be sharp, precarious, and even dangerous. And yes, while some of the poems found in Homan’s first full-length collection certainly contain language that could pierce the skin of even the toughest muse, many others are much softer explorations of what happens on those boundaries of lyrical language and tough, gritty narratives.

Homan opens her book with an Ars Poetica-type work titled “Explaining Poetry on a First Date,” which describes a conversation with a stranger. This opening work presents a poet who seems to be filling in the awkward silences between two people who have just met by explaining her love for the written word:

Why I can name every Tri-state poet, but don’t know local DJs.
A pilot pen makes me happier than any red satin

dress with polyester loofah sleeves. All my friends
carry moleskines. One scrawls homophones on her hands.

From these first lines, the narrator outlines not only her perception of the world of poetry, but also her personal attraction to what many may deem a mysterious art:

The lights are always low. It’s affliction, not religion.
Not once have I thought I could be saved.

And it is apparent from the works that follow that indeed, this poet really has no desire to be saved. Instead, every poem in this collection shows a writer teetering on those boundaries of what is expected in poetry and what both shocks and pleases us. Sometimes, the surprises come in the forms of twists in traditional themes of poetry; other times, these surprises come in Homan’s blend of physical details and softer, more surreal images. The most intriguing aspect of the whole collection is that Homan doesn’t avoid subjects with the potential to invite poetic melodrama, she just avoids the melodrama, even with subjects that so many contemporary poets find a bit risky.

Often, it’s the relationship between titles and the body of the poem that invites surprise. For example, “The Empty Side of the Bed” is not about a woman missing her lover, but a narrator who states, “When I kick you/during the night/it’s no sleep spasm./I mean to.” And “Origins” doesn’t offer a deep philosophical view of the universe or our place in the universe, but a narrator’s single musing: “How strange to be named/after alcohol and a song/about a cocktail waitress/with a good ear.” And then there’s the wonderful, “Why I’ll Never Play the Cello,” a poem that doesn’t focus on music but instead shows a narrator agonizing about the physical aspects of playing the instrument:

It’s not because I have small fingers,
pointy elbows. Or because I like to let my nails
grow long, cacophonous. I’m simply not meant
for the litany of your spruce chrysalid.

Homan attacks clichés, turning them upside down within her poems and actually making them work. In “Country Songs Always Tell Stories” the narrator explains

...I believe
you are a bull in a china shop.
Storeowners riot like in Beauty in the Beast,
the giant who doesn’t know his own strength
Lennie in Of Mice and Men who kills
the boss’s wife because he’s scared.
I’ve always felt sorry for Lennie and giants
like you, little bull with a thousand china
cuts I would lick shut.

Playing with clichés in the context of literature is a strategy that Homan uses again in the quirky “Love Song to Billy Pilgrim,” where an image from fairy tales provides a setting: “Listen:/We all turn into pumpkins at midnight./When music is reduced to violet light/and hum, we give ourselves over to the garden.” Still, it’s not just literature she references. In “Where You Touched,” the poet plays catch and release: “I take your friends’/glances and throw/them back, catfish too small to keep.”

As with most collections, there are some poems I stumbled over. For instance, “Echolocation” follows a poet who says, “I want a man who can/build me new planets/out of mint and tin and/still maintain good posture” and “A man who doesn’t care/I’m in love/with his overbite.” Such strong physical detail only left me wanting more grit, less dreamy recollections. However, for the most part, Homan excels at this balance–her collection twists and turns so that the reader, when finished, will feel a bit exhausted from the energy that abounds in all of her poems. And in a world where many poets seem to be playing it safe with their works, the zeal found within this collection’s pages will simply leave you wanting more poetry and wondering when Homan’s next book will be out in the world.

Find Shearsman Books on the web at http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/home.html.

Karen J. Weyant is a poet living in Western New York. Last year, she was granted a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her poems have been published or are forthcoming in 5 AM, The Barn Owl Review, Slipstream and Labor. She has also published reviews in Rattle and Strange Horizons.  She teaches at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York.

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