Subject: Review: Patti Sirens' Antarctica
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 07:50:36 -0800

Great Book: Antarctica: Poetry by Patti Sirens
ISBN 096506657-6, $12.95, Burning Bush Publications,. POBx 9636 
Oakland CA 94613, 510.482.9996
A Book Review
by Joanne James

Patti Sirens' new book of poetry, Antarctica, is a test of faith, a 
one-night stand, an unrelenting vision of the world you thought you 
knew. Here, the world is not a familiar, mundane, surface. In the 
title poem, "Antarctica" she demands, "look me in the eye when I'm 
speaking to you." Once you pick up this book, you wont' dare look 
away.

Whether you've lived in Santa Cruz, CA a few months or a lifetime, 
Sirens' poetry will challenge you to see this city through new 
eyes,the eyes of a Rebel Angel: "highway one veers away from the 
sea/snaking valley and river's jugular/church chimes charm the 
dreamer/save the sailor/drown the savior" ("Barn Swallows").
The Rebel Angel lineage of poetry descends from an unbroken line of 
risk-takers and poet-prophets such as William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, 
Alice Notley, and Eileen Myles. This is the poetry I hunger for. This 
is necessary magic.

In Sirens' poem "Odyssea," we are given what we need to know "how to 
talk heron and crow and coax the wildflowers from the ground they 
will listen to your stories and love you for your silences/they will 
remind you that you are wild and holy." There is the possibility of 
communication with what is natural and wise in the world(s) 
surrounding this one. I found that "Antarctica" is a metaphor for 
both the earth and the inner self; all those vast uninhabitable 
places where we find ourselves lost and without sustenance. We also 
long for these places as they force us to meet a deeper truth. This 
is wilderness that has its own presence and powers and is indifferent 
to our individual survival.

Sometimes there are no answers; only memories, regrets or sex and 
dreams and desire. This is honest poetry; no promises of redemption 
unless you are in the process of reinventing the world. "In the photo 
we are smiling but really our hearts were tearing apart like when you 
slice open a piece of fruit and you pull the halves away from the pit 
how what is whole suddenly finds something hollow in itself" (Dead 
Wallendas").

At the same time, Sirens is wryly humorous in poems such as, "The 
Telephone Rang," "Courage," and "All There Is." This collection finds 
a vital balance that will appeal to poetry lovers, lovers of 
language, and new converts. And if you've heard Patti Sirens' 
performance of her work, you'll be glad, as I was, to find a full 
collection of poetry that carries its power on the page as well as 
one the stage.

"Amelia's Last Flight" is an invocation and a prophecy, "I believed 
there were angels/creatures of light who came from the stars/lived in 
the wet grass/crawled through the night grass/seeing with feral 
eyes/who were proud in god's eyes and maybe god's themselves." With 
the repetition if "grass grass": and "eyes, eyes," it is as if an 
ancient chant is summoning strength for the journey. This is the way 
to enter the next millennium. Are you going to creep into the future? 
Or are you going to put on your black boots and create revolution? 
Patti Sirens' book, Antarctica, is the initiation you've been waiting 
for.

Patti Sirens will be reading at A Different Light, San Francisco, Mar 
23rd, 7:30 PM
and Barnes & Noble, Berkeley, Apr. 13, 7 PM
Joanne James is a local poet and student of creative writing and 
philosophy through the University of Iowa, Iowa City.