_____(Want/Need) by C.L. Bledsoe

Reviewed by Eric Weinstein

Plan B Press, 2008

C.L. Bledsoe’s ____(Want/Need) is divided into four sections, each of which appears to be part of a middle school English test: “Fill in the Blank,” “Multiple Choice,” “Crossword Puzzle,” and “Answer Key.” Although this unambiguous format lends structure to the collection as a whole, it ultimately damages and detracts from the power of the book by forcing it to rely on a gimmick: it depends alternately on predictable “answers” or complete non-sequiturs.

This is especially the case with the poems in “Fill in the Blank”; the options are inevitably unoriginal (“and we sacrifice _____(ourselves/each other)”) or bizarre (“Helicopter buzzing in the _____(sky/toilet)”). The enjambment Bledsoe employs (“hole in my stoma  ch / oose to believe”) is an interesting effect the first few times it is executed, but rapidly becomes overwrought and tiresome, distracting the reader rather than adding new levels of meaning to each poem.

Thankfully, it becomes apparent as the book goes on that the problem with ____(Want/Need) is with the structure, not with Bledsoe’s ability to write; lines such as “Sleep with one eye open     one on God    one / on the silverware” are innovative, and the frequency of these lines is inversely proportional to how highly structured the poem is. For instance, the entire section labeled “Multiple Choice” is roughly as imaginative as any multiple-choice test one might have come across while still in school:

5. I work because _______.

a. I need something to do with my time
b. my wife would get mad if I didn’t
c. it’s good to be useful
d. someday I won’t have to
e. they haven’t broken me as badly as they think

The section is rife with this sort of tired material, although there are a couple of good jokes: one possible answer for “8. I defecate because_____” is “a. of peer pressure.”

“Crossword Puzzle,” on the other hand, is the least formulaic and comprises several succinct and wonderful poems such as “5 Down,” which contains:

The smell of modeling glue, sex
is a constant, inundating
the blinking on and off forever neon
self.

The last section, “Answer Key,” consists of a single poem, but it is my favorite of the collection; in it, Bledsoe notes that “A man must push melancholy from himself like air.” Clearly, he is capable of fresh and imaginative poetry, and his future collections will no doubt benefit from his attention to true innovation rather than unwieldy formulae; in the case of ____(Want/Need), however, he has simply _____(stifled/outwitted) himself.

Visit Plan B Press on the web at www.planbpress.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.

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