Alan Britt, The Tavern of Lost Souls, Cervena’ Barva Press, Somerville, MA, 2023, 83 pages, ISBN: 978-1-950063-26-0, $18.95
Alan Britt, Garden Of Earthly Delights, UnCollected Press, Ellicott City, MD, 2023, 113 pages, ISBN: 979-8-9867243-6-2
In 2023 the prolific poet Alan Britt published two books of poetry The Tavern of Lost Souls and Garden of Earthy Delights. The titles are taken from the works of two classic artists, Vincent Van Gogh and Hieronymus Bosch. Britt is kin to these painters. though his means of expression is language. In fact, this poet paints his language. Perhaps it can be said that all accomplished poets do that, but Britt is kin to Van Gogh and Bosch. He is visionary and his works at times may seem eccentric, though they are verbal creations and explorations of his imagination.
Alan Britts supply of paints is far beyond the average writer. How he became acquainted with his wide-traveled world I don’t know, but his poems wear experiences and touches of color that few others possess. I think the best way to explore his work is to delve into his poems as best we can. Though his books are arranged in sections and themes, the true quality of his work is found in individual poems.
As said before in a review of a previous book, Britt dwells in non-linear imagination. Let us explore the poem “The Bandoneon” in the book Garden of Earthly Delights.
First, if you are unfamiliar with the word. look up “Bandoneon” in your computer or dictionary. You find out it is a musical instrument similar to an accordion. You find out it was made in Germany and became popular in Argentina. You can listen to the variety of music it makes both alone and in concert. (Computers are great for more than political propaganda and internet scams!). Here is the short poem:
THE BANDONEON
The bandoneon loosens
Her red satin gloves,
Finger by finger,
Then folds them
Across my exposed ribs,
Unbuttons her white blouse,
Then wriggles gabardine trousers
Down both barracuda thighs.
The bandoneon and I are engaged.
We wear our viridian rings
Of solidarity like penumbras
Orbiting the black moons
Of our eyes.
(published previously in Ascent Aspirations Magazine[Canada])
The basic metaphor seems to be that the bandoneon is like a woman or vice versa. You have to have a visual image of the instrument in your mind. The bandoneon has a series of buttons on each side of the instrument for the hands to play. The red satin gloves, in addition to being a visual image, are also a metaphor for musical sound (tone, notes, etc.) “Red” connotes passion and/or vivaciousness. The first stanza is a metaphor for a romantic tryst or the playing of a melody, a dance, a dream. Which is the prime image and which is the metaphor? Perhaps equal parts of both. “barracuda thighs” represents a slim, sleek sensuous beauty with the threat of devouring, or perhaps a consummating devouring by pleasure. I think the suggestions are equal in the image.
The one-line second stanza is straightforward but ambiguous with its sense of humor. Yes, they are engaged in activity—either sex or a musical performance. Also, the reader can take it as they are engaged to each other, i.e. committed. The third stanza is to my mind more symbolic than visual, though the inner eye can imagine two green-blue rings partially shaded in the lovers’ eyes, but the symbolic content rivals the sensuousness of the image. The musical instrument and the musician as well as the two lovers in their joyous amorous clutches are subordinate to the brilliant metaphor of moons and light and color. “the black moons of our eyes” is quite an expressive image that closes the poem but holds the reader to linger a moment dazzled as if in love, as if enchanted by the music played on the bandoneon
Prior to this poem is one titled “Tango For Thursday” in which the instrument and word “bandoneon” first appears. Following the poem discussed above is one titled “Second Bandoneon.” Both preceding and succeeding poems are longer than the one presented here. Other complexities are introduced. The bandoneons are both referred to as feminine. The woman (tune) that is the musical instrument is a seductress.
These other poems add to the subject of music and passion. Britt is nothing if not complex. It is necessary to quote the following poem for the reader here to get more of an idea of the poet’s treatment of this theme and the suggestions of meaning offered.
SECOND BANDONEON
Yes, there are two, but this one
With a sultry whisper awakens me
From an early morning dream.
Ah, this bandoneon wth torso
Of a wasp entrapping ill-fated lovers
Between her flytrap eyelashes.
Later, at a friend’s wedding,
Incognito as a midafternoon shadow,
She drapes her ashen wings
Across a wrought-iron patio chair
Before tiptoeing a swirling tango
And teasing her fingernails
Through the white-gold curls
Of the bride’s windy tresses.
Afterwards she drives like a madwoman
Through a mountain tunnel outside
Pittsburgh (fluorescent Cyclops) only
To emerge cleansed once again
By the molting sunshine.
There she goes.
I can’t keep up.
(previously published in The Bitter Oleander)
The first two stanzas here need no comment as they are very illustrative and imaginatively enticing in their descriptive simplicity. In the 3rd stanza “incognito as a midafternoon shadow” is an ingenious and perhaps subtle metaphor-image. Then “her ashen wing” are draped across a wrought-iron patio chair. The contrast between ashen and wrought iron is significant. How? In a tactile sense as well as in a metaphoric or descriptive sense. The next image goes to lightness and dexterous skill as opposed to resting on the hard, heavy wrought iron. “before tiptoeing a twirling tango” is a masterful image. It expresses the dance, the music, the exhilaration felt. Maybe it seems trite to point that out but the observation and expression of it are anything but trite. The poems brilliantly dig in with the fingernails (of music) in the white-gold curls. A very sensuous poem this.
The poem closes as a woman and/or elation that escapes, can’t be contained. I think it is quite effective in its expressive words.
Fluorescent Cyclops? Perhaps the image of the tunnel on the road ahead. It is like one-eye and filled with artificial light, but the woman, symbol, of the music and emotion is cleansed by the sunshine. This poem is more lyric than discursive. There is a complexity in the imagery but essentially it is very accessible for most readers if they look up unfamiliar words.
There are other poems in Alan Britt’s books that are more grounded in ideas than sensations and feelings. In The Taven of Lost Souls The poems about Cicadas are easily comprehensible to East Coast readers.
Let us take a look at another brief but unbelievably expressive poem here:
Mexican Singer
(for Chavela Vargas)
Her voice
of scorpion
and camellia
trembles the black maples.
With fists of pepper,
fists from the bloody crucifix,
fists emerging from her womb,
she strolls among us
Incognito.
Access Wikipedia and read about Chavela Vargas and then on your computer play her singing her songs. Then reread the poem again. Though without the more factual knowledge of this artist an impression is readily available to the reader, with more information the reader’s experience is heightened and understood better. Britt may seem esoteric at times but the reader is asked to meet the poet halfway. Perhaps if you are Mexican or Latin American you are already knowledgeable about Ms. Vargas. If you aren’t exploring the subject further, it can be a more satisfying discovery with more acquaintance with the subject matter. Now that is not to say the poet’s poem is flawed. It just means that the reader is ignorant of the wider world and its experiences. The subject of the poem soars to another plane.
What is amazing, besides the ingenious metaphors of Alan Britt, is the range of his knowledge. Reading us work is not only a potentially enjoyable experience, but a learning experience. Here are two books to explore. Plus, there is some devilish humor in his works too. I will leave future readers to find it for themselves.
© Alan Britt and Dan Cuddy
Alan Britt has published 25 books and his poems have appeared in Agni Review, American Poetry Review, The Bitter Oleander, Cottonwood, Kansas Quarterly, Midwest Review, Missouri Review, New Letters, Osiris, Stand (UK), and countless others. He was nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world. Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein, and Yves Bonnefoy. He was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.
Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. In the past he was a contributing editor of the Maryland Poetry Review and an editor for Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. He has had a book of poetry published “Handprint on the Window” in 2003. Most recently he has had poems published in the Pangolin Review, Madness Muse Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, the Rat’s Ass Review, Roanoke Review, the Amethyst Review, Synchronized Chaos, Fixator Press, Beatnik Cowboy, Gargoyle, and The Chamber Magazine.
The Loch Raven Review 