Reviews for Teahouse of the Almighty

The average rating for Teahouse of the Almighty based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-31 00:00:00 Chris Lopez This book. I took it off my folks' coffee table to, quite honestly, squeeze in my 2015 reading goal. Oh that skinny book I cracked open briefly last visit to my folks--that one with the Ella Fitzgerald poem, and poem for a son in prison--that will end my year quickly and well. Smith's signature and note to my mom in the front of the book--my mom can't remember where, but she must've shared her work with youth--belied the stature in my mind; I thought she must be local. Little did I know I was opening a poetry book of such substance and significance. It was quick, but it was no filler, squeeze, or spot holder. And thankfully, it took a night, a morning and a night, so I got to end one year and begin another with a monumental dose of gorgeousness. I cracked it open on the train and couldn't put it down when we arrived in Penn Station, inviting two older teen boys walking behind me to marvel at my ability to walk and read at the same time. Do you know that feeling of simultaneous gratitude and betrayal when a poem with a hopeful title winds up being the most lyrical, tragic thing you've ever read? Walked to Herald Square blessing the bright lights always keeping New York City in day mode, book still cracked open. A poet dear to me recently critiqued my writing as not being poetry. It was a prose form, one my traditional poet friend was not accustomed to. Still, after reading this book, I think I better understand what poetry is, or is meant to be. Each word or turn of phrase like an object with its own memory, triggered to spew forth its own story. Before I got to my destination, I read half the book, and on the walk in Brooklyn wrote my own image-punching poem inspired by Smith's taunting, lyrical, vivid imaginary. Opened up a new day and new year with her last crumbs. She called her girl self a "little crumbsnatcher" in one poem; now, she reigns truly as crumb gifter, gifting morsels.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-09-30 00:00:00 Alek Stanley Emmett was all pelvis, theatrics in lieu of heft and measure. I threw Rich out of bed and made him dance naked in the hall. His spurt was ludicrous. A.J.'s cocked to the left, dots of Hai Karate flowering his tests. And the bubbled one with gut smothering the stub. Florid dramas of the teeny weenie, the entertainments of strut, snug synthetic fibers, blustery spiels. And now this little yellow pill that grows even history huge. And easily. Yes, and damn. - walloping! magnifying of a guy's anatomy easily, subject line for a junk e-mail touting a "penile enhancer", pg. 9 * * * Flustered, without license or sanction, the women clawed at whispered cotton and lopsided seam, pushed irritants to their ankles, and stood upright for whole seconds, just long enough for nipples to pimple in soft wind. Behind them, a home that once held his pens, his grimace acknowledging a tumble phrase, earthquake that grew pliant in him, and now twenty-eight quick asses framed in the window. Much too rushed for structure, the photographer did what he could to stun the slow chaos - heads were twisted, eyes in blink, pubic hair indistinct and shadowed. As sirens wailed, the women hurried into their clothes - blouses with nervy stink circles, skirts accordioned in haste. Their names were nothing and they were rootless in their wandering away. There was no sense to their sacrifice, until the night came and the poet's slow remembering hands returned for their soul. - Sacrifice, pg. 22 * * * He says I am gumpopper, wondrous shoulders, evil on the days when I bleed. I say take hold of both my hands. He speaks cool water on me, nudges my mood with proverb. I watch him undress, skin unto another skin, and I turn away to keep from craving that. By the time his hands touch my shoulders, I am almost insane with disappearing, and the thunder. - Little Poetry, pg. 31 * * * A lyric unravels, spins on dizzied axis, one syllable slinks and becomes several. A stark shaft of light illuminates a never-over evolution. Each exhalation excites and concludes with a slight upturn of phrase that compromises the hip, roots fat legs, lends such southern heave to torso. Mysteries thrive in the belly and in the miraculous of her throating, send two errant verbs round 'bout themselves and into the keys of her spine again. It is not for us to know her trilling suddenly murderous and cringe beautiful, inbound. Her legs gone. A lack of this elegance is the end of evolution. Consider the soundless hole. Over. - Elegantly Ending, for Ella Fitzgerald, pg. 40-41 * * * My job is to draw the pictures no one can voice, to soothe and bellow toward the numbed heart, to breathe in your chronicles, discuss them out in lines weak enough for you to read and swallow. My mouth is a jumble of canine teeth, I bite only at the official whistle. My job is sexy leads for the bones clattering in your closet, to sing you sated each night with a forgettable soundtrack of paper and ink. I am neat, easily folded, a sifter of truth born to be burned. I count your dead, fathom their stories, bless them with long, flexible histories and their final names. There are no soft stanzas in this city of curb sleep and murdered children. We need soft words for hard things, this silk brushing the inevitability of rock. Birth truth in this way, just once. Craft the news and overcome all that you ever were - a reason to turn the page. - Stop the Presses, pg. 65 * * * many more than that many, this hallelujah, this bruise Jesus all over purpled ankle, more than this scrubbed silver and next needle this whole heart in an African hand much more that these drum digits this possible this wait a minute what does this say this page 47, more than this mad, this unlatched, this bandage and gut swirling, what stiff number was the blanket, scissored felt and eye buttons, glitter elmer glued to gone outlines, names too simple to be so hard pronounced. more than that, even more than conjured million, this cock/tail, this twitch and drool, this vomit, this legislation. - Psyche!, pg. 76-77