Bone, Gristle and Fat by Brian King

 

Bone, Gristle and Fat is a book of troubled surfaces and uneasy undercurrents. Brian King’s conversationally poetic voice is deceptively simple, but the tensions between his imagery patterns are anything but. On the one hand, as suggested by the collection’s title and its section titles, King’s focus is on the raw fragility of our physical being (“I think of / my ending…/ devolving into tissue, blood, water, / now bone, eventually merged with earth”), which he juxtaposes with a desire for the eternal (“I pray to God for favors – / release my unrealistic expectations”). On the other end of the spectrum is his engagement with the world we move through, the world of the natural and the human other, each with its consolations and challenges. Water images rise constantly to the fore, whether of stillness and tranquility (“Be a lake/a deep lake”), or of stagnation and the struggle to find flow (“it takes time to muddy the waters and clean up”; “when the dam breaks I’ll be free”), or of the complicated and dangerous depths (“My feet slip on the silt, one foot too far / I’m swept under rapids. / For a few seconds I lose my fear of death”). On both the social and the meditative level, the book is a self-portrait of a man “stumbling bumbling my way” between the expectations of a “conventional” life and the need for deeper meaning and deeper connection. The narrator matures, and sometimes, for a while, manages to “feel free, / connected to the present / and earthly dust,” but the balance is a hard one, and “between a push pull of /love and fear, wholeness, slivers of commonality / there’s never a steady tide.”

–Derek Kannemeyer, author of Mutt Spirituals and The Memory Addicts

 

Brian King’s Bone, Gristle and Fat is a journey of self-discovery, or, more literally, a physical building of self—from the hardness of gristle and bone to the strength of muscle, the give of flesh. In this debut collection drawing from a lifetime of experiences, readers will find poems rich in nature, in reflection, in the doubts and all-too-human-ness to which we can all relate. One gets the feeling that, for King, this relatability is what the writing is all about: “…the possibility of sharing words, / going out into the unknown,” he says, queueing up the wisdom like a gut-punch, “…someone may need them.”

–Joanna Lee, author of Dissections; Poet Laureate, Richmond, Virginia

 

A poetic journey that delivers a sweep of hard-won life experience, with emotional honesty and artistry. From heartfelt to haunting to hilarious, Bone, Gristle and Fat is a collection of verse that soars beyond body to soul.

–Steve McMillan, writer, editor, former news editor for The Associated Press

 

Brian King’s Bone, Gristle, Fat, leads the reader down winding pathways from the present, back to the Depression and war, and sometimes into uncharted, magical territory. Through zigs and zags, readers are never able to predict what we’ll experience by turning another page.

 

Who Are Your People tells the story of industry’s black ash that covered clothes hanging out to dry. The reader must sit up and take notice, not of what is seen, but what is felt.

 

Storytelling in the first person narrative suggests a melancholy undercurrent throughout the collection. This trip through time keeps the reader grounded in the journey, as in Life Cycle.

 

Lordy Crawdaddy captures adventures that fall hard on the shoulders of young men especially. It is the connection to loneliness, to life’s meanderings, that takes readers on adventures, such as riding with hitchhikers who ‘have no place to fall.’

 

The richness of this collection lies in the deft maneuverings of the poet. . .from anticipation of joy to death and dying. Readers meet characters who invite us to come along, to experience life, and perhaps discover what lies around the bend.

 

Do yourself a favor and spend some time traveling through this delightful book.

–Marsha Owens, Author of She Watered Her Flowers in the Morning