A new collection of humorous European poetry from poetic observationalist Rick Lupert, master of the poetic travelogue. Join Rick as he travels through Amsterdam with Rembrandt and Van Gough and discovers his hesitance with the city’s slogan “I Am Amsterdam.” Taste Belgium’s chocolate and beer in the cities of Brussels and Brugge (that’s how THEY spell it.) Stop in to Magritte’s house. Re-visit Paris, its cheese. its Monet, its wild eyed man with a giant toothbr… More >>
#1 by Marie C. Lecrivain on July 7, 2010 - 10:54 pm
Lupert’s ability to discover and convey moments of everyday satori are well known from his previous books, His sharp wit and role as the anti-Griswold on vacation in Western Europe are what make “We Put Things in Our Mouths” an enjoyable read.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Brendan Constantine on July 7, 2010 - 11:25 pm
I’ve just finished reading Rick Lupert’s We Put Things In Our Mouths, his twelfth
collection of poems. If you’re like me and have followed this poet since the release of his
first book, Paris: It’s The Cheese, it’s perhaps automatic to try to see each new project as
a progression of some kind. Indeed, many artists struggle against this expectation, trying
to out do what they’ve done before.
Lupert’s work has certainly evolved and this book represents a yet another refinement of
it, but as a close reader I sense no self-consciousness, or rather I still don’t. Another way
to say it might be that he nods now but doesn’t yet wink.
The downfall of many artists at similar points in their careers is that they become
connoisseurs of their own work. They also tend to forget what went into their initial
success, the roll of chance, coincidence, the random rewards of writing for it’s own sake.
Instead they try to recreate their achievements by sheer will and, as my mother likes to
say, the resentments are built-in.
Since I’ve been reading it, Lupert’s poetry has developed in a hundred directions both
subtle and startling, but his basic relationship with us hasn’t changed. He writes to us as if
we were together, in a library say, a room where speech is forbidden. His poems are
passed to us with a nod, a smile librarians can’t see.
If you need an instant example of what I mean, skip ahead to the poem, Some Museums.
Read it aloud at a whisper. Better yet, read it to someone else that way. Lean in close, as
though you’re in a gallery. Whoever they are, the other person will nod back. They may
even take your hand.
Rating: 5 / 5