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A review by el_stevie
The Place of Broken Things by Alessandro Manzetti, Linda D. Addison
5.0
The Place of Broken Things is a collection of dark poetry from Linda D Addison and Alessandro Manzetti, both Bram Stoker Award winners. I have read Manzetti before, in his No Mercy Collection (also from Crystal Lake Publishing) and was looking forward to his latest offering as he has become a favourite ‘new discovery’ to me. I have not read any of Addison’s work so was curious as to how this collaboration would pan out; as it turned out, the poets complement each other very well.
The first poem, The Dead Dancer, is the standout piece. Written by both it chronicles the life of a dancer, who, though once free, has become no more than a puppet, dancing to a tune over which she has no control. Her surroundings decay over time, become a death house and the dancer is trapped on ‘the wheel going nowhere’, is like the moth trapped in a jar. The weaving in and out of musical notation and funereal metaphors ties the reader to the page, traps them in this bleak world as much as the dancer.
Another favourite is A Clockwork Lemon Resucked in which the death of creativity and thereby the removal of the possibility of the contamination of others with ideas, is explored. Destroying the poets, those who dream, leaves the world cold, unfeeling and grey. It is a warning.
I couldn’t read Mardi Gras without thinking of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ song She’s a Carnival. And even if the poet didn’t have this track in mind, music weaves its way through the lines of many of the poems, whether in imagery or by explicit reference.
There are 35 poems in this collection, tales of the homeless, of despair, loss and suffering, of fallen angels and distorted religions. These are poems which demand your attention, will not be satisfied with one reading but insist they be devoured. These are words to be savoured.
The first poem, The Dead Dancer, is the standout piece. Written by both it chronicles the life of a dancer, who, though once free, has become no more than a puppet, dancing to a tune over which she has no control. Her surroundings decay over time, become a death house and the dancer is trapped on ‘the wheel going nowhere’, is like the moth trapped in a jar. The weaving in and out of musical notation and funereal metaphors ties the reader to the page, traps them in this bleak world as much as the dancer.
Another favourite is A Clockwork Lemon Resucked in which the death of creativity and thereby the removal of the possibility of the contamination of others with ideas, is explored. Destroying the poets, those who dream, leaves the world cold, unfeeling and grey. It is a warning.
I couldn’t read Mardi Gras without thinking of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ song She’s a Carnival. And even if the poet didn’t have this track in mind, music weaves its way through the lines of many of the poems, whether in imagery or by explicit reference.
There are 35 poems in this collection, tales of the homeless, of despair, loss and suffering, of fallen angels and distorted religions. These are poems which demand your attention, will not be satisfied with one reading but insist they be devoured. These are words to be savoured.