LatinosUSA

Close your eyes, and you’ll be on the glossy lanes of the bowling alley with Paul, on the living room floor sitting cross-legged with Leda, and in the classroom of inattentive young students and the elderly lady in the back, listening, whose mouth looks like “a ruined white flower.” 

John Yamrus is tough and tender.  That he takes himself seriously is shown by the fact that at times he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is sardonic and empathetic.

His poems are spare, with lots of room for readers to move around in. They delight and instruct. They show us how to be with ourselves, how to be with others, and that there’s no one way; life is what we make up as we go along.

Who am I?  Yamrus’ poems answer this question.  Like all of us, he is a person in time and in a place, in “he was in,” a visitor in a nursing home:

i was there he was in 
wrinkled blue pajamas and a robe. 

i said: 
my father-in-law 
always used to say: don’t get old… 

i’m not old, 
I’m just a young guy 
something really bad happened to. 

The self in the poem is ironic (young/old), and he can laugh in the face of mortality. He can find humor in difficult situations, and empathy in the life of the nursing home resident.

A self among others, sometimes aloof as in “since the reading,” where he tells aspiring writers “i / told them/ how to reach me.”  Sometimes intimate as in “we sat” across a table in a diner: we/ talked about books/ and life and love and loss.” Sometimes alone, as in “he,” with his thought: “no/ summer/ is/ endless.”

His poems show us ourselves with others.  In “the name,” he is with a woman who “worked/ the counter/ late nights at Manny’s.” At the beginning, he says “Angel Face/ never seemed to fit Angel Face,” and in exacting detail tells why. There is humor, intimacy, and empathy. Angel Face

had
a collection of hairs
from a Persian cat that died three years ago
     
and loved 
her god-damn little boy
   
with
a force
that made
all the sense in the world.

How to live?  While there is good and evil, right and wrong, and no easy answers, we make it up as we go along.

“did you ever” is a dialogue that concludes: “maybe,/ but, did you/ ever hear of Son House?” Son House’s talent delighted audiences. He “played guitar/ like he had ten hands.”

In “she said,” the rough of reality is depicted. “i don’t/ give a shit/ what you do…”  While in “Leda was a dancer.” the poet and Leda, a dancer, were in a play, “and/ she sent me a/ telegram on opening night,/ which/ i thought/ was the coolest/ thing anyone ever did.”

John Yamrus is the master of the vernacular, the hyperbole, the understatement, and the line break. Whole lines often consist of one word, for a reason; similarly, the long lines are long quite deliberately. 

Zeugma involves the bringing together of two things not usually found together.  One of Yamrus’ tools, it is found in “the only books,” which shows the poet’s care for line break and layout, for how the poem looks on the page. 

the only books

he ever read
cover to cover

were
I, THE JURY
by Mickey Spillane

and 
a book
on dog training

The line breaks lend contrast to these very different books.  In this poem, as in others, there are two people, and a story, and empathy and a wry humor. 

Yamrus is existential (we make it up as we go along), and minimal (the single word line) and always in his poems “less means more.”

He is an original.  People (and other bad ideas) is a must read.