Laurie Price
Joel Lewis, My Shaolin: A Poem of Staten Island,
Hanging Loose Press, 2016
Joel Lewis’ newest book, My Shaolin: A Poem of Staten Island, is in part, a casually conversational romp through Lewis’ personal libraries and encyclopedias of little known information about a largely little known place. Let’s call it a tour, with a guide who smartly meanders through a mix, not a blend, of hi and low, serious and funny, and smart and dumb, etc., all in service of rendering the rhythms and whyfors of this sizeable, microcosmic corner of New York City: Staten Island.
Lewis is provoked by his subject, moving target that it is and that he is as a social worker commuting each day from Hoboken, New Jersey to lower Manhattan to get the Staten Island Ferry to his job in Staten Island. He determined that the writing of this serial poem would occupy his daily commute and mines such treasures as overheard conversation and the social climate among Wall Street workers.
His dreams and the music he listens to while traveling are as vividly portrayed as his descriptions of fellow passengers on the ferry or in the terminal. The writing is intimate, engaged and observant. Though I don’t really know him, as a reader, it feels like we’ve been having this ongoing conversation for years. I, myself, have never stepped off the Staten Island Ferry to the island side in all my years of growing up in NYC and taking that ferry – one of my top 10 favorite things to do – and have only ever been on the island, outside the terminal, once in my life. I feel like I literally missed the boat.
Although in his intro, Lewis invokes the Staten Island rap group Wu Tang Clan and explains the genesis of calling Staten Island Shaolin, I’m reminded of the 1980s Beastie Boys’ song “Year and a Day,” which is loudly and enthusiastically interrupted midway through by “Hello Brooklyn!” bellowed out in perfect Brooklynese, at which point the bass and drum drop down low and guttural.
It’s not hard to picture Lewis on his way to work, “non-team baseball cap” firmly hugging his head, ear buds securely anchored, notebook or Metro card in hand. This serial poem, in which the writing is daytime writing and takes place on his way to work, evokes all kinds of movement – three modes of transportation plus walking – plus what he sees with his eyes and perceives through various filters and modes of engagement. It’s all there, creatively separated by tiny “travel icons” – bus, boat, train and human walking.
The first poem in the book is The Dream Police. Even the title of this somewhat iconic poem is part serious, part comic and over its two pages, it touches variously and with terrific staccato at what’s to come: narrative observation interspersed with digressions, traces of self-aggrandizement, humor, hard and curious facts and even some statistics.
The writing is, as noted, mostly conversational though crisp and nuanced, with pleasures and surprises that are simply laugh-out-loud slapstick (“And WhyOhWhy am I not in touch this early morning / with the sad pancake that is America?), followed by a snippet of quoted cellphone conversation.
In an email exchange, Kim Lyons asserted, “There is no one writing quite like him. As if Charles Olson and Susie Timmons had a baby,” and I agree, and would add that his work sometimes conjures my memories of Ted Berrigan and Anselm Hollo.
The poem’s organization pays homage to Anselm Hollo. A rambling rhythm sometimes manifests in haiku-like fragments or sections off into short, spare lines that in turn segue into something like encyclopedia entries or clipped “Staten Islandisms”: brief explanations of something indigenous only to Staten Island or “Names of the Bomb Sniffing Dogs,” which is literally just that. The writing is always succinct. As Joel put it in a brief message, “I have been consciously stripping down my writing and (I) work against the ‘polish’ found even among way out writers.” This releases vivid color onto a borough I always pictured in shades of grey.
Throughout, the humor, self talk, recollections of specific musicians, tunes and dates of memorable performances and commentaries on contemporary culture carry the poem forward. When a local newspaper announces a new construction to bring tourists to Staten Island, Lewis writes, “… and to further lure visitors / an ‘urban outlet mall’ / will be constructed / below the big wheel / along with an ‘exciting food court’ / though the paper is silent / on what exactly makes / a food court exciting.’
Words slap at the page:
“Outside at the corner of Wall Street / the fourth white homeless person I’ve passed this morning / has set up shop with a black dog for a closer. / I smell a trending piece / for the Lifestyle section of the New York Times.”
and almost always cut across and down to other layers:
“Old summer
you strip the paint
off the morning.”
The images are clear and the surface is transparent. That Lewis wrings so much content and context from his morning commute is nothing short of extraordinary.
Hanging Loose Press, 2016
Joel Lewis’ newest book, My Shaolin: A Poem of Staten Island, is in part, a casually conversational romp through Lewis’ personal libraries and encyclopedias of little known information about a largely little known place. Let’s call it a tour, with a guide who smartly meanders through a mix, not a blend, of hi and low, serious and funny, and smart and dumb, etc., all in service of rendering the rhythms and whyfors of this sizeable, microcosmic corner of New York City: Staten Island.
Lewis is provoked by his subject, moving target that it is and that he is as a social worker commuting each day from Hoboken, New Jersey to lower Manhattan to get the Staten Island Ferry to his job in Staten Island. He determined that the writing of this serial poem would occupy his daily commute and mines such treasures as overheard conversation and the social climate among Wall Street workers.
His dreams and the music he listens to while traveling are as vividly portrayed as his descriptions of fellow passengers on the ferry or in the terminal. The writing is intimate, engaged and observant. Though I don’t really know him, as a reader, it feels like we’ve been having this ongoing conversation for years. I, myself, have never stepped off the Staten Island Ferry to the island side in all my years of growing up in NYC and taking that ferry – one of my top 10 favorite things to do – and have only ever been on the island, outside the terminal, once in my life. I feel like I literally missed the boat.
Although in his intro, Lewis invokes the Staten Island rap group Wu Tang Clan and explains the genesis of calling Staten Island Shaolin, I’m reminded of the 1980s Beastie Boys’ song “Year and a Day,” which is loudly and enthusiastically interrupted midway through by “Hello Brooklyn!” bellowed out in perfect Brooklynese, at which point the bass and drum drop down low and guttural.
It’s not hard to picture Lewis on his way to work, “non-team baseball cap” firmly hugging his head, ear buds securely anchored, notebook or Metro card in hand. This serial poem, in which the writing is daytime writing and takes place on his way to work, evokes all kinds of movement – three modes of transportation plus walking – plus what he sees with his eyes and perceives through various filters and modes of engagement. It’s all there, creatively separated by tiny “travel icons” – bus, boat, train and human walking.
The first poem in the book is The Dream Police. Even the title of this somewhat iconic poem is part serious, part comic and over its two pages, it touches variously and with terrific staccato at what’s to come: narrative observation interspersed with digressions, traces of self-aggrandizement, humor, hard and curious facts and even some statistics.
The writing is, as noted, mostly conversational though crisp and nuanced, with pleasures and surprises that are simply laugh-out-loud slapstick (“And WhyOhWhy am I not in touch this early morning / with the sad pancake that is America?), followed by a snippet of quoted cellphone conversation.
In an email exchange, Kim Lyons asserted, “There is no one writing quite like him. As if Charles Olson and Susie Timmons had a baby,” and I agree, and would add that his work sometimes conjures my memories of Ted Berrigan and Anselm Hollo.
The poem’s organization pays homage to Anselm Hollo. A rambling rhythm sometimes manifests in haiku-like fragments or sections off into short, spare lines that in turn segue into something like encyclopedia entries or clipped “Staten Islandisms”: brief explanations of something indigenous only to Staten Island or “Names of the Bomb Sniffing Dogs,” which is literally just that. The writing is always succinct. As Joel put it in a brief message, “I have been consciously stripping down my writing and (I) work against the ‘polish’ found even among way out writers.” This releases vivid color onto a borough I always pictured in shades of grey.
Throughout, the humor, self talk, recollections of specific musicians, tunes and dates of memorable performances and commentaries on contemporary culture carry the poem forward. When a local newspaper announces a new construction to bring tourists to Staten Island, Lewis writes, “… and to further lure visitors / an ‘urban outlet mall’ / will be constructed / below the big wheel / along with an ‘exciting food court’ / though the paper is silent / on what exactly makes / a food court exciting.’
Words slap at the page:
“Outside at the corner of Wall Street / the fourth white homeless person I’ve passed this morning / has set up shop with a black dog for a closer. / I smell a trending piece / for the Lifestyle section of the New York Times.”
and almost always cut across and down to other layers:
“Old summer
you strip the paint
off the morning.”
The images are clear and the surface is transparent. That Lewis wrings so much content and context from his morning commute is nothing short of extraordinary.