Piero Heliczer's Svelte Rarity

                                                                                  

    

Book: & I dreamt I shot arrows in my amazon bra 
Poet: Piero Heliczer
Copyright 1959, Dead Language Press
Call # PR6058. E48. A5 (Special Collections in Branson Library at New Mexico State University

This is another signed copy, a rare collection published by the poet's own press, Dead Language in 1959.  Because of its fragility, (it's staple bound and very thin), it's tucked in a protective folder in Branson's special archive at NMSU.
For those not familiar with Piero Heliczer, Winston Dixon's delving essay/review of his collected works, Purchase in the White Botanica (2001) delivers one of the few comprehensive bios I found after scouring the web.  I highly recommend you check it out:  http://www.granarybooks.com/article/76 .

Heliczer's poetry has been described by reviewers as "impenetrable" and this is something that the poet apparently touted as a success, often appropriating lines of critical ill-favor ( "as it is, they read to me like translations of poems from a foreign language which I would like to understand. Forgive me" ) as blurbs for his work (Dixon).  As for me, I don't believe that any poetry's impenetrable.  Unfortunately, since I had a good clutch of books to examine for this blog, and, once again, since you can't take these rare signed copies out of the archives, I was unable to approach anything resembling trenchant criticism.  I will say that his poems never idle; and there's this roaming grammatical mischief working in tandem with a reach for sensuality: e.g.,

"to be spoken by one who lies
        on his back
christ says the girl in a
        collapsed heat
present says a voice from a
        small erection"

But lest this entry lurch into that vague grandiloquence I despise in glossy pseudo-reviews, high flown overprocessed ick whose sole ambition seems to be to make it onto the back of a jacket--"Glue Factory Press explores spaces between spaces between spaces" (that's a joke from Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Poetics Theater), I'll stop there.  Because I know Heliczer would be okay with, even exhilarated by, "I don't know what he's saying right now," I'll stick with that.

But it's not satisfactory to me.  So this entry is a call to arms.  Go to Branson and take a look.  Let us know what you think.  As for me, I'm going to provide a few more in depth reviews before I come back to the special collections.  Next week, we'll take a look at a book of poetry from the Gotham purchase you can check out from Zuhl.  In fact, it'll be on the shelves as soon as I'm finished with it.  Next review, our wise men will be fishing pondside.

-Paul French