Review: Fassbinder: His Movies, My Poems

Fassbinder: His Movies, My Poems
Drew Pisarra

Review by 
Julie Carpenter




 
Fassbinder: His Movies, My Poems, is a poetic reflection on the cinematic oeuvre of R.W. Fassbinder, by one of Sacred Chickens favorite poets, Drew Pisarra. It’s also one of my favorite categories of art: art that reflects on art, bending it, using it as a place to jump into something new. In this case, at the edges of the mirror Pisarra holds up to Fassbinder’s work, the world dissolves into the poet’s own creation. The reader need not know Fassbinder to enjoy this collection, but after reading these poems, you may find yourself searching out his films.

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Pisarra creates his own filmic universe in this volume; visual, moving, and concrete. As always there are a wide variety of pleasures to be found in the collection, with everything from succinct flashes of insight, to small but intricate narratives. From a letter to the dead director, to a recipe, to a script, these poems are each poured into a singular, apt form.  There’s an adroit and humorous artfulness to the collection that is always thoughtful, always taking root beneath the surface of the reader's consciousness.
 
For example, in one of this reviewer’s favorite poems, Pisarra turns a rumination on the word 'palimpsest' into a reflection on time, lost meaning, and a lost sense of self. Not only does the poem play with the narrator’s understanding of the word, but also the reader’s, with a sly, cutting sense of humor.
 
As always, these poems feel deliberate and spontaneous at the same time, everything stripped away, but nothing missing. Pisarra deftly walks the tightrope, and I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
 

Bio: 

"If Shakespeare and Cole Porter had a love child it would be Pisarra." - The Washington Blade

A grantee of LMCC (2023), Curious Elixirs: Curious Creators (2021) and Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation (2019), Drew Pisarra was also a participating poet at The Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It's Kept as part of a two-day event hosted by A Gathering of the Tribes and has been published in a wide array of publications from the Food & Wine website to Analog sci-fi magazine. His newest poetry collection Periodic Boyfriends is slated for release in Summer 2023.

His first book of poetry Infinity Standing Up came out in early 2019 c/o Capturing Fire Press and was favorably reviewed in The Washington Post, The Washington Blade, Gertrude, and other publications; his short story collection You’re Pretty Gay (2021) and excerpted in Ms. magazine. Additionally, he wrote the radio play The Strange Case of Nick M. (2021) which was commissioned by Imago Theatre and broadcast on K-BOO FM then co-authored Voiceover (2022), a dance-theater piece with Jerry Mouawad, also for Imago Theatre.

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