theblurb

Matchbook by Beth Gylys
La Vita Poetica Press
Reviewed by Charles Jensen

It seems certain that for as long as people have known loneliness, they’ve sought to alleviate it through small ads that summarize their needs, interests, and desires—in as few words as possible to allow for greater variety per column inch of pricey newspaper real estate. The ultimately poetic task of distilling one’s self into the smallest amount of language possible is the primary conceit of Beth Gylys’s handsome new chapbook Matchbook, in which twenty-five diverse and divergent voices call out to unknown lovers, both seen and imagined. Divided into smaller but familiar sections, “Men Seeking Women,” “Women Seeking Men,” “Men Seeking Men,” “Women Seeking Women,” and “I Saw You,” the book explores our ideas of love and sexual desire, but first and foremost, it asks questions about why and how much we, as people, need each other.

Gylys smartly connects the conventions of the personal ad with one of the briefest and most succinct poetic forms—the sonnet—and, with the precision of a newspaper editor, squeezes each voice into just fourteen lines. Most often the language feels authentic, torn directly from the back pages of free weekly papers, and Gylys does an exceptional job of making each voice distinct and realistic. Only the occasional end-rhyme draws attention to the form and the venue for these pieces, such as juxtaposing “I like warm beer and psychedelic rock” with “I used to have a band called Crusty Jock.” (“ISO Undertaker’s Daughter”) But even here, the awkwardness of the form creates the kind of frisky humor you’d be apt to see in a posting of this kind, one that begins with “I don’t do beaches, romance, or dinners out. / If that’s what you want, call the other ads.”

The speakers range from an amputeed Vietnam Vet who promises “one hell of a footrub” to a “dark-skinned, proud, and made of curves” soul sister seeking same. Along the way, we meet the matrimonially unfulfilled husbands who “want to want again,” a lonely woman who misses her late father and wants “to love / someone the way he loved my mom.” Gylys’s poems pierce into the essential risks of these lives and recognizes that people are often at their most honest when they are mostly anonymous, confessing to acts of fetish or disarming emotional appeals. And part of the pleasure of reading the book is the having unfettered access to the private lives of people we pass on sidewalks, in our offices, at the movies. “I took / the El-train into town last week and watched / a man you might have been,” writes a woman under the title “My Psychic Saw You in Her Crystal Ball.” If we could peer inside each other’s hearts as easily as we read this book, it would take the disasters out of dating and the unhappy endings out of the American divorce rate. All these voices are only asking for one small thing—a chance at happiness—and Gylys imbues each of them with a formal authority over their own lives.

Other high points of the collection include “Filthy Rich ISO French Maid,” which begins

     I hope to find an aproned girl in heels,
     seamed stockings, small cap pinned neatly in her hair—
     for fun and pleasure. A twenty-ish au pair
     who’ll tie me up and dust me, serve me meals,
     who sprinkles “C’est la vie” and “S’il vous plait,”
     in casual conversation. In bed I’ll be
    “Mon cher”—make her cry: “Mon Dieu!” and “Oui!”

It’s hard to resist the urge to connect him with the speaker of “You Smell of Money” in the Women Seeking Men section, who states, “I like a man who brings me presents: flowers / and pearls, a diamond studded watch, furs, / a lamp from Tiffany’s—a man who showers / the one he loves with everything that stirs / her pleasure.” Even authentic details are added to what a conventional newspaper would consider “Alternative Lifestyles”: The gay man who writes “I Don’t Like Judy Garland” bemoans the fact that, because of it, “My friends all think I’m straight, / except the ones I’ve slept with,” while “No More Toasters” wants a “butch and proudly out” partner because “I’ve qualified for three [toasters], enough / to keep me brown-edged for a lifetime.”

Adding another layer of pleasure to the work is the gorgeous printing and binding of the collection by La Vita Poetica Press. The limited edition of 200 is hand-stitched with red and gold threads and features red and gold marbled end sheets that make the poems seem more intimate and, without disparaging them, precious. The cover itself folds over like a matchbook cover, with the front piece tucking under a flap, held in place by a small piece of Velcro. Entering the collection this way, past all the small yet essential accoutrements, shows this publisher has great care for the work put out by the press, enlivening and honoring the content through careful design.

A quick but enjoyable read, Matchbook bridges two forms by uniting their language. The restricted assertions of the personal ad meet the regulation and convention of the sonnet with grace, revealing there an revionary use of the Confessional mode. Like these voices, Gylys’s work is sometimes naughty, sometimes nice, and always, always hopeful.

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