A certain melancholy suffuses the 67 deeply personal poems in this debut collection by spoken-word poet and academic M.C. Rydel. Yet, glimmers of sly humor appear in many poems, shining an absurdist existential perspective on matters of death and immortality, the occult and religious belief, and obscurity and fame. As with many such collections, these poems are uneven in quality and execution, but a dozen or so are standouts, including the opening poem “Months of Immortality,” “A Call for Missionaries,” “Giving It All Away,” “Elegy for a Merchant Marine,” “A Feast During the Plague—A Song,” and the closing poem, which serves as a bookend (literally and figuratively), “You’re Already in Heaven.”
Rydel experiments throughout this volume with structure (free verse, prose poetry, and formal patterns) but always vividly captures telling details. He has a knack for creating unusual juxtapositions that startle the reader into a new awareness. And his original use of commonplace images, exotic references, and melodic wording make passages in even his more obscure or imperfect poems worth a look.