Received my april 15 trio from ml press. Three chapbooks, each about the size of my hand:
(green) aaron burch : MOLTING
(pink) ken sparling : ISN’T THIS WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR?
(ivory) david ohle : THOSE BONES
This was easily my favorite of the trios I have received from ML Press since beginning my subscription a few months ago. Previous trios have been hit or miss for me, but these three are all outstanding.
Burch's MOLTING is a strange kind of relationship story, which begins:
"MY HANDS ARE TURNING INTO BIDS, Penny said, & I said, REALLY? BIRDS? CAN'T YOU BE A LITTLE MORE ORIGINAL?"
[All of the dialog is capitalized, which typically indicates shouting but I'm not sure it's supposed to be understood as shouting: ML Press seems to have certain "house styles" - of which this may just be one. Either way, shouting or not, it's interesting.]
Sparling's ISN’T THIS WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR? is a complex assemblage of strange passages, some of them almost seem to pertain to archeology - maybe? Here is a passage, not especially archeological in nature:
"I was in the loop. I would say it was a loop. I began where I was standing, ran north, then curled back & ran parallel to myself till I came back to where I was standing. I would call that a loop."
Ohle's THOSE BONES, we are told, is an excerpt from a memoir. Given that I abhor most memoir, I would likely not have read beyond the title page were it not for the name Ohle. But now I am glad that I did. Unlike most memoir, this is actually interesting. Here is a passage:
"I cringed in the back seat, looking up at all those dead cows in the trees & the hundreds of vultures feeding on them...For years afterward, their bones fell like fruit from the trees, piling up in white rings around the base."
