Charles Rammelkamp, The Trapeze of Your Flesh, BlazeVOX books, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-60964-465-9, 174
pages, $20.00
The Trapeze of Your Flesh is a unique book. It is narrative poetry but an easy and quick read if you want. It contains encyclopedic fact for those who want to research more on the subject. However, the reader has the option of how he or she wants to approach the book. The book is a history of the burlesque industry and show biz from the 19th century to the 21st. Each poem or entry in the book is one to two pages long. The poems are brief but telling introductions to the women who got on stage and danced and stripped and teased the audience. I wouldn’t call the book R-rated unless the reader’s imagination is that provocative. Oh, it describes the swirl and rotation of tassels hooked to the breasts’ nipples and other places, but is more descriptive than cinematic. The burlesque artists presented are notable names like Blaise Starr, Tempest Storm, Sally Rand and Lili St. Cyr. Night club districts throughout the U.S. are mentioned. The fates of the retired burlesque artists are revealed. This book is a gateway to further research into the subject. Perhaps the best description of the book is as Charles Rammelkamp’s bio in the back of the book states about a lot of his work. This book is “a collection of “historical or biographical” poetry sequences, written in dramatic monologue form.
I think the best way to get to the essence of the style and content is to look at one of the individual poems. At random, let’s look at The Dance of the Bashful Bride.
Wow, Julie Gibson made it to 106!
My grandfather used to talk about seeing her
at the Coral Room in DC.
He lived nearby in the Congress Park Apartments
when he worked for the FBI.
Said he’d even seen the Vice President,
Dick Nixon, in the audience once
when she did her signature act,
“Dance of the Bashful Bride”,
which started out with Julie in a wedding dress.
This was after she’d been arrested
In Massachusetts, on obscenity charges,
for doing the same striptease act.
Born in 1913. I’d forgotten all about her.
I assumed she had been dead for years,
until I read her obit in the Telegraph—
“a foil to the Three Stooges,
played Helen of Troy for Orson Welles,”
the headline read.
She once sued a Bucks County producer
for replacing her in the cast of a production
of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Sued him for slander for saying she wasn’t sexy enough!
Grandad said he saw her
in other clubs in the District,
like the Bayou, and also clubs in Philly.
Performed at a club called The Wedge
frequented by engineers working
on submarine defense systems.
They loved her so much they named
their “listening buoys” system for detecting explosives
“the Julie,” even invited her aboard
the USS Valley forge aircraft carrier!
“The Face that launched a thousand anti-sub sorties,”
Grandad quipped, and Grandma rolled her eyes.
“Bashful bride, my foot,” she muttered.
—-first published in Retreats from Oblivion
Sometimes the women narrate their stories. Other times a fan narrates. The author has a good sense of humor, and, though the stories don’t necessarily cause loud laughter, they do produce a chuckle like the example above. Sometimes the stories take a serious tone. Some of the strippers made Hollywood films. Others perform in Europe and have a history there. One, who goes by the name Mitzi Von Wolfgang in Germany, whose real Italian surname is Del Lupo. She is the grand dame of Italian burlesque, and started the Burlesque School of Milano. There are more stories in this book than a night’s theatrical teases on any stage. Also, a reader could spend an afternoon chasing photos of the performers on the web. This is a book of little known history.
© Charles Rammelkamp and Dan Cuddy
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for Brick House Books in Baltimore. Two of his previous collections of poetry are: Transcendence published in 2023 (see the Loch Raven Review online in Vol. 19 No.2) and, A Magician Among the Spirits, poems about Harry Houdini, is a 2022 Blue Light Press Poetry winner. A collection of flash fiction, Presto, was published by Bamboo Dart Press in May, 2023, and a collection of poems and flash called See What I Mean? was published in October, 2023, by Kelsay Books.
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 Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. His book of poetry, Handprint on the Window, was published in 2003. Recently he has had poems published in Super Poetry Highway, Literary Heist, Horror Sleaze Trash, the Rats’s Ass Review, Roanoke Review, the Amethyst Review, Synchronized Chaos, Fixator Press, The Manor Mill Anthology, Gargoyle, Witcraft, and the WE Anthology.
The Loch Raven Review 