Better Than The Best American Poetry
Dave Newman
Roadside Press
Reviewed by Aleathia Drehmer
This morning I read Dave Newman’s “Better Than The Best American Poetry” from Roadside Press. I am not sure that I had ever read his work before. He and I write very differently so maybe our work would not cross each other in many zines. His work feels like a life I used to have when I was broke and hungry wandering the streets of Seattle or Atlanta. When poetry was often my only meal of the day other than what could be scrounged from the food bank or given to me by a friend. There is something about watching yourself and others in the darkest places.
This book is sectioned off into seven parts and the first part was not my cup of tea, but part 2 started to move things along with poems about the working man and country.
“How practical poetry is in the hands of a machinist/ how you can still build/ your life around poetry/ when it’s made by people who make things we need.”-—Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, Thinking of Fred Voss
I found some of my own life in this poem. My mother spent much of her life working in factories making tube televisions or rewiring subway cars, with things like waitressing and gas station attendant mixed in. She didn’t have much, but she was a hard worker. I think as writers, as people who notice other people, we have all had this character in our lives so this makes the poem relatable.
“Now that I had less/ I believed I’d be able to do more.” —The Economy
This line struck me as that false hope we have when we are young that even with nothing we can become something. Isn’t that the motto of America really? It isn’t true though because those patterns are hard to break and to truly pull yourself up from nothing, you have to give away large parts of yourself, of who you really are.
“The destination/of America was still unknown.” —Etheridge Knight
Though Knight was a poet of the 60s, the political climate today feels much like it must have then. America is supposed to be this land of freedoms and opportunity, but we all know that hasn’t always been the case for everyone. It is an illusion. Newman sums this up in a line because America still doesn’t know where it’s going or how she will get there.
Part 3
This section of the book feels much like an ode to poets Newman has loved or those who have influenced his own work, and quite possibly the disillusionment of who they are in real life. As writers, we have lofty ideals about those who made indelible marks on our own careers. We often forget that they are just as human as we are with flaws and scars. It is important to remember that they aren’t untouchable.
“I ate stress like candy, and dreamed poetry was a house I’d build and/ that house would be made of enough money to allow me to create art/ but I knew it was bullshit.”—A Letter to Amazing (Joan Jobe Smith)
“For years I believed in maps, that you could read someone and about/ someone, and their life and work would provide direction.”-—Phil Levine
“If you have to call a poet, call one who believes in medicine.”—Diane Wakoski
And this goes for professors too, or those who seem to have a leg up in the writing world, but as Newman alludes, are mostly making shit up.
“What my professor meant was: be fake
He meant: tell half truths.
He meant: have the affair
But never: put it in a poem.”—Careerism vs. Literature
Part 4
“You can fill your heart with boats and water and never make the lake, never/make the river, never see the ocean.” —Boat
This section of the book feels like Newman is trying to work out the love of friendships or maybe even the deception one can feel inside the love of friendship. These are the people we go through our journey with, some make it farther than us, some fall behind, but we are all dreaming of something more.
“I was 24 and believed poetry
was an element no different
than oxygen or carbon
and at least as important
as a ham sandwich
for survival.”—Angels with Ugly Faces
Part 5
Newman has a way of dialing in on the themes we all want to get rid of in our lives—hunger, failed ideals, dark humanity, and poverty. This section of poems really speaks to what it means to be poor and doing whatever it takes to make ends meet. He looks at this from the point of hunger, working menial jobs, and the things we might do to feel more elevated in society only to learn it was an illusion we were chasing.
“Though there is no poetry/ without beans, without something in your stomach.” —So Many of the Poets I Love
“It’s tough being loaded down like a pack animal half stuffed/ with political flyers made of smoke and deception.”—This is to Say Thank You
In all of the dark streets Newman took me down in this book of long, story like poems, he did manage to make me laugh out loud in this poem:
“I don’t read other writers
while I’m writing
because I don’t want to be
influenced by their work
which is like a person saying
I don’t want to be around other people
while I’m breathing
because I want my breath to be original.” —Chuck Kinder, Writer and Professor, Throws a Party
Part 6
Here we find the everyman section of the book. The place where life finds you in middle age and far from the directions you had hoped to go in for one reason or another. It’s the place where you find yourself alone and thinking.
“Hard labor often requires a drink.
History was built on that fact.
…
The fear is we all
start blaming our fingers
for having knuckles
and the knuckles for aching.” —Jack’s Bar, Breakfast Time
“And I wouldn’t have slept any better
if my wife breathed in whispers
because I worry about sleep to the point of sleeplessness.”—I Eat the Sun
Part 7
This section of the book is one entire poem. It feels like the story of how he may have started to love poetry which is much like a fist fight in real life. There is so much work to get through, so much work to find words that speak to you which in turn influence the way you see your own life and how you string together the words from your heart and mind. All art as we know, is not original. When we write, we are collaborating with all the other writers we have ever read in our lifetime. We are indebted to that one teacher or person who handed you a book of poems that changed your life. The poem that is this section is called “I was Heading to the O on Forbes Avenue in Oakland.”
Here are most favorite sections:
“In college I neither made
things nor provided care.
I took poetry classes and other
classes about rocks and
dead presidents
and I tried to imagine a future
while planning my death.”
***
“Who do you read? Like books
might be the antidote to death.
I struggle because the answer
was no one.”
***
“I believed in rope.
I always saw myself as climbing.
I always saw myself
as falling from every height.”
All in all the work here was solid and at times gave me a glance of Micheline, who I love. In my older age, it has become significantly harder for me to stay focused on long poems or even novels for that matter, so I can’t speak ill of the length of the poems due to my own faulty attention span, but do know, there are some very long poems in here. I have to say I enjoyed the short punchy poems the best and the lines in the aforementioned long poems. I like things tied up quick and neat, but there is something to say about really pulling everything out of yourself in a truthful, honest way that is appealing. I think you might find a bit of yourself in this book nestled in the lines.
Aleathia Drehmer is the creator and editor of Durable Goods: The Missouri Collective which featured poetry from high school students affected by trauma. She was once the editor of In Between Altered States, co-editor of Full of Crow and Zygote in My Coffee, and art editor of Regardless of Authority. Aleathia is the author of seven chapbooks and currently has three collections of poetry available: We Don’t Get to Write the Ending (Roadside Press), Looking for Wild Things (Impspired), and Layers of Half-Sung Hymns (Cajun Mutt Press). She hosts open mic poetry readings at Card Carrying Books and Gifts in Corning, NY and had a Poetry in Play feature in May 2023 with the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes. LITTLE GRAVEYARDS (Roadside Press) is due out late-June 2025. You can follow Aleathia’s journey at www.aleathiadrehmer.com
