Chelsey Minnis - Poemland

Chelsey Minnis
Poemland

Poemland (Wave Books 2009) comes without a table of contents or index of first lines, but with plenty of barcodes. No individual poems have titles (if there are individual poems) but every so often there will be a fully inked page (and barcode) that creates a sort of divider. By looking around online, it seems that each page contains a discrete poem (usually four or five lines long), though ideas continue across several pages. I’m fascinated by the whole thing, and the seeming randomness of application and tone. Here are a few poems (I think), as example. They all come from the same section (if it’s a section!), early in the book.



I like to live a hard life but I know I shouldn’t do it . . .

I should live an easy life or I am a fool!


The sea-crabs try to cling onto anything.


The crab fishermen don’t even want all the crab . . . they want money . . .

Even though their mustaches are covered with ice . . .


+ + +


If you are a person you can also be someone’s goat . . .

I can tell you about it for free . . .


I can long remember a nastie thing . . .

If it is well done . .


+ + +


I look to the left and right with my eyes and then I swing the sharp thing . . .

As you rise out of a cloud on a mechanized contraption . . .


If you open your mouth to start to complain I will fill it with whipped cream . . .

There is a floating sadness nearby . . .


+ + +


Don’t try to walk away from a little girl like me!


This is a recollection of flopped happiness . . .

And it is a fistfight in the rain under a held umbrella . . .


There is a way to smoke your cigarette and look out the window but you’ll never get enough of it.

Chelsey Minnis