Thursday’s Thoughts: What Grabs You?

Which author’s writing surprised you when you first read their work and what about it grabs you?

Since the question is mine, I figured I better answer it, and I'm going to go a bit askew and mention a poet, who has been featured recently here on Savvy Verse & Wit.

You guessed it, Arlene Ang. I've read her work for several years now in journals, and I will immediately read the latest issue of Pedestal Magazine or in whichever journal I find her published next.

What grabbed me first about her poetry is its eccentricty. Yes, her poetry is odd at times, but that's what I love about it. I love the way she thinks about language and applies it in her work.

The Itch on my Scalp Means is one of my favorites; this is how it begins:

"I’ve been drinking in the nude. There was

a special occasion sometime in my past:

the sliding door stuck and I invited the maitre d’
upstairs to come through the window"

I love the inherent suspense she builds at the beginning of her poems; what is this special occasion from her past and does it have to do with this maitre d'?

How about her poem, "Shipwreck"? (I have a poem with the same title)

"Arrival is another
optical illusion of departure—

to reach the bottom,
the body is called upon
to leave first: the surface, a self,

the neck of a broken bottle
that hangs by a string.

Prior to drowning,
people shout in unison
with their faith—little fetish objects
around their throat—

but do not stop
the ship from sinking.

ii.

Even water has a pulse.

It slows down in the absence
of living, and competes
with movements that have
to do with survival."

You'll have to read the rest of this great poem here.

Check out these poems in Poems Neiderngasse.

I also adore that she experiments with her art whether its photoetry in "Like Turned Tables" or her blog.

If you haven't checked out her by now, you should. There's even a chance for you to win a copy of her chapbook, here. Yes, that was my shameless plug for more entrants. Today's the last day!

Happy Thursday!