Review: David Rowe's 'Unsolicited Poems'

I tried to imagine writing a review of David Rowe's first book, "Unsolicited Poems,"
that my great aunt could read without blushing. But the thing is, if I avoided the pulse
quickening, cheek reddening moments in the book, I would be left with a clinical
dissection of the author's fondness for and use of language and his experimentation
with form. To fully acknowledge and revel in Rowe's vibrant universe, this reviewer
must sway alongside the writhing bodies; stand shot for bourbon shot with the rowdy
speaker who communicates with transcendence. In order to feel the impact of Rowe's
words, the reader must participate in the often grim and gritty actions and feelings
exhibited in these poems. And the scenes dance from the bawdy ("Dyslexic Sex"), to
the poignant ("Hungover Ode to My Father"), to the sublime ("For My Unborn Child:
An In-Progress Fairy Tale"). After reading, if one is left with a mouth full of the grit of
hard living, they are also that much closer to the earth and all its revelations. From the
onset, Rowe prepares his reader for a physical world twinned in beauty and filth. His
ode to Walt Whitman surprises: "Walt Whitman! He whose teeth kids are skipping on
the river!...He who emulated the holy dung beetle!", and also laughingly sullies:
"Himself the giver of geographical blowjobs!" Through lingual manipulation, Rowe
creates an intellectual speaker who isn't afraid to get rowdy. Another moment of this
divergent concurrence occurs in a number of poems. Rowe's use of the somewhat
archaic exclamation "O..." crops up in the book like a strip of sun through the clouds,
illuminating the sanctity of his true to life scenes:

O Rose-Rose-Rose
beats my heart is all I know
& she grocery shops in souvenir shops
because she lives in the CBD
& she bleeds every month with a real heavy flow
& she can't can't can't countenance
me and my lousy millennial ennui.

In each poem where it appears, it creates a reverence of subject, cluing the reader into
a moment of significance. That it appears in moments of ugliness (on the cardboard sign
of a bum, during drunken New Orleans reveries) marks the import of these people and
places for the speaker. His depiction of life is compelling, and although I don't think I could
keep up with the fast life he writes of, I relish the chance to experience it through his words.

-Nora Hickey
Blue Mesa Review