Review: All That And More (A Review Of Free Hugs: Selected and New Poems By Jefferson Carter)

By Peter Mladinic

 

Jefferson Carter, a satirist who understands irony, pokes fun at himself and others. 

In poems with topics such as aging, music, gated communities, home repair, shopping, parenting, and being online, readers recognize themselves and smile, and even laugh aloud. His subject is life today, and his temperament eschews the superficial. With integrity, his being true to the poem, Carter gets away with things others couldn’t, because he is good—with sound, rhythm, imagery, and the line. The voice readers hear is friendly and inclusive. Never violating the unwritten social contract between writer and reader, Free Hugs is politically incorrect in a correct way, talking about topics such as: Thomas Jefferson’s slaves, colonoscopy preps and get rich quick schemes, designer soap, sex for sale, gurus & legal aliens, self-adsorbed poets, air-brushed models, the perfect body, Scientology, hospice as a metaphor for life, Shirley MacLaine’s spiritual journey, carbon anti-shock trekking poles, the Old Testament, raging heterosexuality, my life partner (the woman formerly known as my wife), clothing-optional yoga, Mr. & Mrs. MAGA, liberal guilt, blogging, and Ernest Hemingway’s shotgun. In poem after poem, Carter enlightens and entertains. 

Free Hugs teaches by example how to do satire—in poems. Carter is first and foremost a poet. Here are the beginnings of three poems: From “Blame Sutra,” “I blame yoga, no, not yoga, I blame / Buddhism;” from “Pasture,” “To a narcissist, all / the world’s a mirror;” and from “Mall” “All those air-brushed models, / 12-feet-tall, pouting & whispering, / ” ‘I ’m beautiful. You’re not.’” This poet knows how “to get right down to it,” without any “poetic throat-clearing” at the beginnings of his poems.” Picture three boxes—in the largest box, the word “novel;” in the medium-sized box, the words “short story,” and in the smallest box, the word “poem.”  Carter knows by skill and instinct that the poet has less room to work in than the novelist and the writer of short stories. A good example of what he knows is found in the first poem in this book, quoted here in its entirety:

 

Mockingbird

 

Our third president owned

a pet mockingbird named Dick.

Let’s not mention what else

he owned. Dick dug Monticello,

that big white layer cake.

He’d click & chatter. He’d mimic

the field slaves’ hosannahs

until he’d almost faint, wobbling 

on his perch like a double

fistful of dirty cotton.

 

The modulated rhythms of “Dick dug Monticello” and the metaphor of mansion as "layer cake” blend so well with what comes before and after those lines in the middle of the poem. The color white works on multi-levels, and the speaker’s cognizance of slavery’s drudgery and dehumanization is clear. Much is said and suggested in ten lines. Without telling readers things they can find in history books.

Carter takes risks. His delight in “going to the edge but not over” is obvious, and contagious. These poems are fun to read. At the end of “Don’t Tell” he says, “I registered for a workshop / titled 'Shuffling Off This Mortal Coil,’ where I’ll confess to thoughts like /  “‘You be the dancer, I’ll be the pole.’” A less forthright speaker would come off as offensively misogynistic. Similarly, in “Cashmere” Carter goes to the edge. An anecdotal poem, with situational irony, this poem involves the speaker’s elderly mother and a gay male couple. She finds out her romantic interest is already coupled at a party. “He arrived with another man, both / wearing identical powder-blue / cashmere sweaters.” Carter’s satire shows the light side of the mother’s disappointment, the speaker’s

 

widowed mother as she flirted, 

innocent as a zygote, trying to 

hold hands with this difficult man

who, beneath the kitchen counter,

pressed his leg against the leg

of the one he came with.

 

This poem’s tactile image is the perfect ending. Carter risks. His satire spares no one, no facet of society. Toxic waste dumps are nothing to laugh about, but liberal guilt about them is, in “The Last Generation.”

 

An 80-year-old wrote

a letter to the editor 

apologizing to future generations

for the toxic waste dump

they’ll inherit. WTF?

Making amends, Step 8 of H.A.,

the Humans Anonymous program?

Officious asshole.

 

The letter itself is not funny, but the speaker’s reaction to its author is. Readers may rightfully surmise that the speaker is the poet. But also, it would be remiss not to note the speaker is a persona, an agent for the poet’s satirical, often outrageous comments on topics such as porn, the Pope, the NRA, white male privilege, and the proliferation of poems about the body.

 

Jefferson Carter is a satirical poet, but, most importantly, he is a poet. A poet of inspiration and formidable skills, ever-mindful of craft. “Microwave” satirizes “the homeless guy / on the median who touched my fingers / as I gave him some spare change.” But it also shows their connection, what the haves and the have nots have in common. And it exemplifies the notion that in poetry language moves through a pattern and the basic unit of organization is the line. “Yesternow” brings the past to present, and its image toward the end evokes understated tenderness and longing. 

 

I’m driving north, where

I once rode my old gelding

 

around the reservation, 

visiting the hogans

 

of my friends. We’d 

drink coffee & laugh

 

at my little orange horse,

his cow hocks, his blaze face

 

& nasty disposition.

 

That last line undercuts sentimentality, and the result is pure poetry. 

Free Hugs showcases the best from four previous books, and the new poems are an extension of all that has preceded them, satire, and then some. In “poking fun” at “anything and everyone” the poet does not spare himself. That is evident in “The Judgment-Free Zone” and in “Help! I’ve Fallen….,” which concludes with “hoping I’ll still recognize / whoever comes to rescue me.” In his satire Carter recognizes, and celebrates humanity.  He is himself, an original, and his latest book, Free Hugs is a significant contribution to contemporary poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, The Whitestone Bridge, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.