Missing Me, Missing Pieces

Ah, those hands there have seemed to be reaching out for me in numerous ways lately. I think I have finally walked far enough away that their outstretched arms can no longer extend into my immediate area, but that remains to be seen.

Between regular life, work and attempting to continue to write (which has been rare even for me) I have failed to return here and fulfill my wish of starting a blog. At least, the time away has given me an idea of how this blog can be more than just a place for me to spew self-promotional garbage. I have been returning to an idea over and over lately concerning those of us who write to write, whether it be prose, poetry, or non-fiction. That idea is to give a small space here in the expanse of the world wide web to these writers.

I know, what the hell do I know about writing, or authors, that would lend me the credit to give an opinion? Well, regardless of ability, or smarts (ask my wife, she'll tell you about the lack of smarts) I want to give something to the small potatoes of the world. I am one of these lost, forgotten, eye growing, dirty, mis-shappened wanna-bes. Not a wanna-be famous potato, but a potato that realizes that their work does reach out to someone and that someone out there took the time to read those words and offered feedback all us potatoes secretly crave.

So, get ready you small potatoes-- you never know who or what I might be talking about here in my own patch of dirt, but be sure I will wash your skin and cut into your white center to let others know who you are.

Well, without waiting to long to get this started I present to you my first small potato: Kathryn Rantala.

I am sure to many this name is quite familiar and not all that small, but in this world of writing, and especially poetry, it's a hard road to grow into something more than a passing name that someone out there thinks they may have run across somewhere, but where remains unknown, and what that name stands for is even harder to guess. Rantala is the editor/publisher of Snow Monkey a magazine that has changed over the years and now is published twice a year as an anthology. And she has also began publishing books from other authors such as John Sweet, Denis Emorine and Rebecca Loudon through Ravenna Press.

It was after a visit there that I decided to pick up one of Rantala's own books, Missing Pieces. The book is a combination of poetry and prose dealing with the many aspects of daily life and death in the city of Seattle during the Thirties and Forties and is littered with photographs from the King County Medical Examiner's office in Seattle.

Steve Sneyd, a past Small Press Writer of the Year, easily captures Rantala's work in his review in which he states, "Here, indeed, is the sound of silence." Rantala takes the mundane, lost fragments of lives and gives a voice to those who have gone missing.

I am reminded over and over by the poems and short prose sections of a passage from Henry Miller's, Tropic of Cancer, "It is to you, Tania, that I am singing. I wish that I could sing better, more melodiously, but then perhaps you would never have consented to listen to me. You have heard others sing and they have left you cold. They sang too beautifully, or not beautifully enough." Of course, Miller is expressing these sentiments to a single person and Rantala in Missing Pieces attempts to express these sentiments for those who were never listened to in life, or in death. It is as if the world listened to the characters of these writings and decided that yes, these songs were too beautiful, or not beautiful enough for those around to listen, to take that step which might have changed an outcome, a life, because of the numbness that generally affects us all when we consider those that do not play an intricate role in our own lives.

How many people have we each listened to? People who think we are listening, yet we are only appearing to listen, to take in and care about the events of this person who in the end is not a considerable part of our life. Rantala captures these lonely people repeatedly throughout the book and I wonder how many times I have been that person who sings to the crowd only to have my voice echo into the vacuum of deaf ears. I have sang to many people who I thought would listen and care enough to take the lyrics and respond, but not many wrote or sung back. I think each of us have been to that point where we just want to be heard and have someone say, "Yes, I hear you. I am here for you."

Rantala listens well and writes her own lyrics to the characters within this book and also gives them a voice to continue to sing to us. I know I listened, I heard the notes and they touched me because I am one of Rantala's characters: lost and still wanting to be heard by someone who cares.

The idea of what we see in front of us instead of what we should see if we were listening is clearly stated in the poem, roxbury road.

roxbury road

What can be seen:

things that are wrenched,

things made of parts,

soft or soldered things,

things over-tightened or loose,

breaking things.....

In the above section of the poem things are seen, but they are mechanical, non-living items of our lives. The poem gives us a snap-shot of how we often take in our world. We are too busy, to into our own self to see what may be in front of us, the others breathing around us.

The final two lines of the poem tells so much about us, "You can see quite a lot / when you drive down the Roxbury Road." But no where in the poem does the observer see a person; notice the man shining shoes, the pregnant lady walking the sidewalk, the children gathered together on the corner. Why do we not see what is in front of us and why do we refuse to get involved when we know those singing to us are singing for a purpose?

Many of the poems take the view of the character singing to the world around them to only have silence returned. It is this pleading that makes the book, as a whole, rewarding to read and reread. I cannot say that I understood exactly what I should be taking away from each poem, or even each prose section, but in the end it worked as a complete package.

I found myself returning to the prose sections more than I did to the poems. This is not to say the poems were less worthy of a revisit, but rather to say how taken in I was as a reader by the images and actions of her words in the prose form. One story in particular, the reunion, has garnered four reads so far and I am sure will get more in the future.

The story unfolds easily and the reader gets to know and care about the main character in a very short span of time. This is something that I find rarely in short short fiction. The title refers to a class reunion. The main character fights within herself about going, then not going to the reunion. Most of this happens on a commuter bus where the main character notices those around her, yet does not take them in -- just as the other riders see, but refuse to come out of their own private space to learn about people they spend so much time with every day.

A bee enters the bus when the main character does and in the end the bee gets more attention than anything, or anyone, else on the bus. The attention is slight, yet in the end becomes larger than anything in the life of the main character and helps to form her final decision on whether or not to go to the reunion. Not a friend, a person from school, or a co-worker helped her to decide, yet a bee, that cannot listen or reply back to her words, sang to her more beautifully (or maybe not) than anyone else in the world.

Relationships between people who know each other and those who know nothing of each other make numerous appearances in Missing Pieces and they get me to thinking: who have I sung to, who has listened, and have I listened to those who have sung to me?

Over-all I enjoyed this book for the thought-provoking ideas presented. I bring a lot of personal baggage to this trip though and cannot say everyone would enjoy the ride as much as I did. There are some poems and short prose sections I felt did not add much to the book, but in the end the whole made up for any weakness in the parts.

Of course we all must remember that everything above is my opinion and only that....I will not be rating books here with a scale from one to five stars or anything like that. I want you to be able to decide for yourself if what I present may be what you are looking for in a new book or author. And the main reason I am here is to give an extra voice to all small potatoes.

If you have a new book out, or coming out, and would like to have a chance of seeing a review of your work presented here feel free to e-mail me with the general theme and to get the mailing address. I am most interested for the time being in reviewing poetry collections, or chapbooks, but this does not automatically rule out anyone or any book.

Thank you all for stopping by the blog and I hope to see you again soon.

SP