 CRUMBLING UTOPIAN PIPEDREAM: A REVIEW ANTHONY DRAGONETTI 9th March 2019 No book I've read fucks around less than Crumbling Utopian Pipedream by Scott Wozniak. You want a blurb, there's your blurb. These poems are hollow point bullets. They are meant to cause maximum damage in a compact shell. By the end of these 55 pages, you'll have gone through hell. If you're an addict, especially one in recovery, you'll be familiar with this particular corner of it. As a society, we have a tendency to glamorize junkies. Well, the young and skinny ones who lead exciting lives in the big city, anyway. No one particularly romanticizes the Oxy addicts in your small to mid-sized town, though. That's too real, too common. Wozniak's poetry is a few things at once. It's a bitter eulogy for the dozens of people he (or his narrator) lost to diseases of sorrow. The ghosts of pill heads, heroin addicts, and alcoholics haunt these pages. It's also an acknowledgment that the person who has lived these poems somehow got lucky enough to not be included in that body count. I hesitate to call it a celebration. There are traces of guilt about still being alive, though the struggle to survive was certainly hard fought. What, then, do you do with this new lease on life? Post-jail, post-rehab, what's an ex-addict to do with this new sobriety and second chance to make things right? You want to watch the world burn, naturally. Yes, in a desire for chaos (the only thing that makes sense), but also to burn the world clean like a wound. No one falls into the cycle of drugs, incarceration, and death because they're thrilled with the state of things. Wozniak has a vision and it's one of blood and flames. There is also a hard-nosed defiance to some of these poems. They acknowledge the journey has been imperfect, but there's a real effort to take the rage, the sadness, and the disappointment, and do something positive with it. Like write a book of tough as nails poetry. Stylistically, this is minimalism taken about as far as it can go without turning into the performance art gimmickry of Aram Saroyan. Every single word counts. Not a letter on the page is extra. The MO of each poem is get in and get out. It fits the theme of the pieces perfectly. Flowery language would have killed this project. Music would have killed it, too. There isn't any music here. There are the words and the venom behind them. That's enough. At first glance, you'd be excused for thinking this is another Bukowski trip. Excused, but wrong. Bukowski never went here. He was never this raw. Behind all the hubris, there was a sensitivity, despite the vulgarity. It felt like a put on, sometimes. Wozniak doesn't come across here as playing a part. This is the real shit. Take it or leave it. I'm telling you to take it. You can buy Crumbling Utopian Pipedream from Moran Press PURCHASE CRUMBLING UTOPIAN PIPEDREAM |
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REVIEW by Jason Denness
CRUMBLING UTOPIAN PIPEDREAM
What da cover says: Crumbling Utopian Pipedream is a book of poems born of the streets. It unflinchingly celebrates gritty realism while detailing some of life’s hard won battles, and continually urges the reader to face the obstacles life puts in our way, and to realize that we have the strength to overcome any and all hardships.
What I says: I was very impressed by this collection of poetry, the opening poems felt like this was a confession of sorts, violence, drugs and drink were the main topics, gradually things got bleaker from there. After a while I realised this wasn’t a confession, Wozniak is telling the reader what life is like for many people, and telling those sufferers that you can overcome these things, it will be tough but all these trials will only make you stronger. The final poem “My Brain off Drugs” felt incredibly honest and finished off the collection perfectly.
Other high points here were a possible poem for Brexit, “So Many Choices, So Little Time” calls for people to rise up from this catastrophe and create your own destiny. One of the best was “Crumbling Utopian Pipedream” the lines are short, so few words are used but somehow Wozniak manages to capture the readers imagination and you can instantly see what he is writing about. If you ever wandered what a poem would be like if it was written as society is ending then Crumbling Utopian Pipedream would be it.
Wozniak has some very clever titles and my favourite poem has one of the best, “Depends on Which Side of the Flames You’re On”, that poem is so good, a contender for my favourite poem of 2019. You should grab a copy of this book even if it’s just for that one poem.
What I says: I was very impressed by this collection of poetry, the opening poems felt like this was a confession of sorts, violence, drugs and drink were the main topics, gradually things got bleaker from there. After a while I realised this wasn’t a confession, Wozniak is telling the reader what life is like for many people, and telling those sufferers that you can overcome these things, it will be tough but all these trials will only make you stronger. The final poem “My Brain off Drugs” felt incredibly honest and finished off the collection perfectly.
Other high points here were a possible poem for Brexit, “So Many Choices, So Little Time” calls for people to rise up from this catastrophe and create your own destiny. One of the best was “Crumbling Utopian Pipedream” the lines are short, so few words are used but somehow Wozniak manages to capture the readers imagination and you can instantly see what he is writing about. If you ever wandered what a poem would be like if it was written as society is ending then Crumbling Utopian Pipedream would be it.
Wozniak has some very clever titles and my favourite poem has one of the best, “Depends on Which Side of the Flames You’re On”, that poem is so good, a contender for my favourite poem of 2019. You should grab a copy of this book even if it’s just for that one poem.
PURCHASE CRUMBLING UTOPIAN PIPEDREAM
JOIN L. M. BRYSKI
FOR THE LAUNCH OF
BLOOD CHILL
MCNALLY ROBINSON WINNIPEG
MARCH 1ST
7:30 PM
GRANT PARK MALL
Attention all readers in the Winnipeg Area.
Meet Moran Press author, L. M. Bryski, on March 1st at McNally Robinson - Grant Park Mall at 7:30 PM
Meet Moran Press author, L. M. Bryski, on March 1st at McNally Robinson - Grant Park Mall at 7:30 PM
l. M. Bryski will be signing copies of BLOOD CHILL. Please stop by and grab a copy and to meet a wonderful independent author!
If you can't make it and want a copy of Blood Chill, click HERE to purchase at Amazon or click the cover image.
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