Pablo D'Stair

“you don’t exist” is a collection of two stories, novelletes in length. The stories are by two different authors, but both start with the same premise, one which has been a staple of pulp fiction for decades: a guy going about his daily life stumbles upon a box, briefcase, suitcase, duffel bag, etc. full of cash that doesn’t exactly belong to him and, all of a sudden, he is a man on the run from various hoods who want their money back.

“bleed the ghost empty” by D’Stair is a poetic, dark piece about a guy who is out of his mind from either insanity or too many substances. This guy is lost up in the mountains somewhere and can’t seem to put one foot in front of the other without focusing on all of the consequences of getting caught doing it. What happens when he finds a bag of money and tries to get away with it. Armies of paranoia just keep attacking him. The whole story is rather bizarre and twisted and it is never clear how much of it is imagined and what is real and what is just paranoia.

“Pessimist” by Chris Rhatigan is similarly about a guy who stumbles on a bag of money and seems to go insane with paranoia, not knowing what to do with it or where to go or who is after him. His senses too are numbed by what he is involved in and he doesn’t know how to function. It only seems a bit light in comparison to D’Stair’s story, but both stories are dark and twisted and you can feel the protagonists in the stories sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire of paranoia, doubt, and fear.… (mehr)

My first impression of Pablo D'Stair's poetry came from a poem in his folio series, "an old song for wrong women." I have read through it once so far, and to be honest, it went right over my head. I'm not necessarily saying that it was a bad poem; it just might not have been the poem for me.
After the folio poem, I downloaded a copy of "The Choice of Dogs and Other Poems," because I wanted to check out more of the poet's work. I can't judge someone on only one poem. My reaction to reading these poems was the complete opposite of my reaction toward "an old song."
At first, I saw D'Stair's lack of punctuation to be an obstacle when reading. In my way of reading, punctuation is a way to pause for breath, emphasize, and to traditionally make a thought complete. With the lack of a period anywhere in the work (if there were a few, I missed them), the poems were given a bit of life. Lines and stanzas weren't confined to a rigid way of being read. There are different ways to read each poems and each way brings on a different experience.
A problem that I had found getting in my way while reading "an old song" was repetition of words or phrases. Often in poems that have immediate repetition, it turns me off because, even though an emphasis may be what the poet wants out of that phrase, my attention span can't handle reading the same thing over and over again. There was repetition written throughout this collection, but it worked with the poems beautifully. Not once did it seem to get in the way.
I found there to be a beautiful flow throughout all the poems that couldn't be overlooked. This flow is a contributing factor to why the repetition didn't bother me this time around. It worked its way nicely in the overall flow, making a music that compelled me to read on.
There were a few lines as well that I wish I took the time to write down so I could quote them in this review. I'll just have to go back and reread this collection again. I will enjoy every minute of doing so.
I look forward to reading more poetry from Pablo D'Stair when the next installments of the folio series come in, as well as read some of his prose writings.… (mehr)

I received this third installment edition of the folio series in the mail today along with the second, a guest poet [a:Sarah D'Stair|4593780|Sarah D'Stair|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg].

I read through this poem in no time at all. In the various sections of this poem there were variations of short sets of lines and others that went down the page a bit more. It was refreshing to not read a poem with almost uniformity in it's sections. One example is the first section. It's short and reads "you blink your eyes/ and I understand the backs of animals" It's just two lines. I'm not exactly sure what it means, but there is beauty a beauty to the words.

As with much of D'Stair's poetry there is a number of images throughout this poems entirety. It's difficult to place some of the images, but the creativity and the way different words work to create them are unique to me. I would like to take some more time to make a bit more sense out of everything being said.

I'll close this short review with a few beautiful lines that starts off section VI. "it's not night enough for moonlight/ not tread enough for stair/ it's not coiled enough for corkscrew/ not bone enough for bled"… (mehr)