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Chaperons of a Lost Poet
by John Vick
Reviewed by RINA TERRY
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Want to hear a secret? We all do, don’t we? And once we are the holders of others secrets, we have a burning urge to share them with at least one person. If I tell you, you won’t tell anyone, will you? And, of course they will, at least one other person. John Vick encourages us to share the secrets that hold us hostage and doesn’t mind how many people we tell. Secrets are important if there is the chance of anyone being done irreparable harm. Unfortunately, one’s life, lived as oneself, as one truly is, is not meant to be a secret. Vick knows this and his poetry proves it. He is a teller of secrets and, in the best and most liberating sense, a truth teller. What intrigues is the spin of mind—stable and unstable—the honesty that risks dismissal:
The journey of otherness, of the intentional unintentionality of gender identity and mental illness, is a thing to be feared with the same fear those claim in fearing God. We who cannot bring ourselves to admit our self-obsessiveness, we who scoff at the psychological violence done to those whose fitness for the norm, the status quo, is off by 10%, we who speak of spiritual journey and reject the birth of spirit out of the white hot emotional coals of finding ones I Am-ness, will be intimidated by John Vick’s messy birthing.
I would suggest watching very closely. It’s easy to miss something and every detail matters, from the sudden need to play with fire, to Coca-Cola print pants and a fringed leather vest to red silk in motion. This is more than memory and more than history. Vick’s work is not meant for a museum. If you can bring yourself to the place where you find the still life of me, in brilliant beauty, you may find that tricky word, acceptance, applies to each and every... you may even feel the need to utter an Amen as you lay down this book:
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 Detailed excerpts from John Vick’s Chaperons of a Lost Poet may be read by clicking the links embedded in the review or visiting the poetry section. |