More of Me Disappears, by John Amen. New York: Cross-Cultural Communications, 2005. $12.00, paper. ISBN 0-89304-888-7.

Of Dark and Beautiful, of Ashes and Beauty: A Review of John Amen's More of Me Disappears

Upon reading the first few pages of John Amen's latest poetry collection, More of Me Disappears, I found myself contemplative of the title, thought that not only is the author not disappearing, but his voice is a startlingly alive and vibrant one with each offering.

And yet, I quickly discovered that through this strength of voice and scenes so skillfully rendered, one forgets that a single person wrote this, that each poem isn't a street in a strange but hauntingly familiar city; that each page isn't a complete and unique life in a crowd of truly fascinating people. This
is work that goes beyond reading and into the realm of feeling, of knowing.

Consider the stark revelations in the poem, "In the Making," in which Amen asserts first: "I wake to see my story convulsing beside me," and later, in the same piece: "Sirens sing but no one speaks their language/My name is boa. I am the canary writhing in its throat. "

Not all the faces in Amen's collection loom so large, not all are such "in your face" faces. There are, indeed, those that bear a certain, stoic sweetness. In "Angelica Tells Her Story," for example, a young woman tells the tale of a truly tragic life and yet, with the closing lines, issues this plea: "Oh Marta, when late April dawns/ when snows melt and spring is finally suckled, I want to remember/where I come from. If I forget, please, will you remind me?"

Another example of this appealing bitter sweetness, found in "Eulogy for My Mother," is: "My mother was a young swallow/ abandoned to my care. I raised her to adulthood/ and set her free."

And so they masterfully go, the pages of this collection, from the higher than the sky pondering of "though born of earth we died in the air" (from "Instincts"), to the high of a different sort in "The Bad Trip or Narcissism"; from the earthbound moods to be found in "One Night In Arizona": "The desert stretches like a gauntlet/ nothing between me and the dust/ but this thin membrane: distraction." to the resigned ending of the poem, "Breathing": "We are going to need electricity and steel, all the/ thick mud of Eden, beneath scabs of forgiveness."

This work is, again, a colorful city; a mix of dark and colorful, of ashes and beauty. With an intricate brush and a flexible voice, Amen paints and sings the reader through a series of lives with all their wishes, their reasons; with all their grand assurances, their weaknesses, their self preservations. Through the gasp and sigh of metaphor, he takes us to a place where the commonality of us
all is both mourned and embraced.

-Susan Culver