Mike Meraz is a word surgeon, he eviscerates poems down to rivers of blood, love, heartache, sadness, joy, and wonder. I read She Poems from Epic Rites Press with great admiration. His poems hit hard and fast, like jumping in the ring with a tornado and getting your ass whipped.

Here’s sort of a list of some of what grabbed me and a quote from Schopenhauer that applies to Mr. Meraz.

“Tragedy, comedy, Matisse, galaxy, graveyard, TV star, street preachers and lighthouses, Jimi Hendrix T shirt, Spanish eyes, shotgun in my mouth, 8 ball side pocket, Persian/Mexican lady, Lucky/Blessed, Ghetto side of bed and ghetto pillows This is Love (#16 my favorite), Love is a law as strong as Gravity, Slice an orange without cutting it, a garlic burrito sucks, She’s back, the earth is well under my feet.”

Schopenhauer asks: Is madness connected with genius in general, or rather with only the “romantic” type of genius (Byron, Shelly, Poe, Heine, Swinburne, Strindberg, Dostoyevsky); and is not the “classic” and profounder type of genius exceptionally sound (Socrates, Plato, Spinoza, Bacon, Newton, Voltaire, Goethe, Darwin, Whitman)? What if the proper function of intellect and philosophy is not denial of the will but coordination of desires into a united and harmonious will? What if “will” itself, except as the unified product of such coordination, is mythical abstraction, as shadowy as “force”?

I’m no philosopher, but Mike’s words can you lead you in the dark. I recommend this book.

Catfish McDaris

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