For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed... by Hosho McCreesh

Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

ISBN 978-1-934513-09-5
sunnyoutside press, 2008

McCreesh’s poems are a struggle in more ways than one. We can certainly appreciate their taking on the broadest and most metaphysically significant questions of human existence—why we are here, the nature of pain, the secret truths behind life and death—but they quickly collapse under this weight, laboring to elucidate grander truths than those of which they are capable. The poem “In Its Purest, Most Perfect Form It Nourishes Even As It Bargains For Our Imminent Destruction...” is a prime example:

& that is
actually

a

very

good

thing.

The long titles (which are ubiquitous) are tedious and overwrought, while the language of the poems themselves is often vague and unfocused. Why is the inevitability of pain, as McCreesh puts it, “a very good thing”? What (or whom) are we imagining, and how does this overarching truth apply to it (or them)? This lack of concreteness plagues the book from beginning to end, preventing the reader from engaging with and remembering McCreesh’s poems for more than a few moments after turning the page.

To be sure, there are some interesting aspects of this collection. From Van Gogh to the Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton, McCreesh occasionally takes time to explore in depth the individual, human nature of the larger questions he poses. He is capable of some stirring poems, including “This Angry House of Bone That Someday Will, Again, Be Ash...” and “The Dizzying, Senseless Place, This Place Where We Simply Waste Time While Looking for a Better Way to Die...” The latter awakens unexpected emotions in the reader when it laments of the apocryphal prostitute Rachel, “& what if she would’ve / just / taken / the / ear.” If all the poems in this collection were this concentrated, then McCreesh’s treatment of major philosophical questions would be far more relevant to the reader; unfortunately, these brief flashes of down-to-earth, honest emotion and human imagery are too sparse to hold and shape an audience’s imagination for long.

Visit sunnyoutside press on the web at www.sunnyoutside.com.

Prick of the Spindle Poetry Editor Eric Weinstein recently graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with an AB in English and Philosophy. His writing has previously appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including The Archive,Wheelhouse Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, and Rainy Day. His poetry hasbeen nominated for inclusion in Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the SmallPresses (2009). A native of New Hampshire, he currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com