Book Review: Marcus Wicker-Maybe the Saddest Thing
Harper Perennial, 2012. Poetry.
Reviewed by Christine Holm
In the
penultimate poem of his debut collection, Marcus Wicker takes his readers from
1992 Dr. Dre – floating through the mind
of “the mother” after two hits from a green bong – to a supermarket, to a
Christmas morning, to a countryside, before slowly and carefully turning the
gaze, where
in
double-wides
& mansions
this
is happening. & these people sit
inches
from your cubicle.
They
teach in your schools & sing
in
your choir. Make your lattes
&
dental appointments. They walk
your
streets & sleep in
your
bed. & on & on & on. &
sometimes
these people
are
you.
This is Wicker at his best: a quietness of details, a
precedence of his own flow over the history of hip hop and jazz that make
footholds throughout Maybe the Saddest Thing, and a means to manage
making his readers participants. With lovely subtlety, the posturing of
self-talk and reflections open up poems of identity – and, in some ways, a
coming of age – for not only the speaker himself, but also those of us who
never wrote love poems to the likes of RuPaul or Pam Grier, but maybe Justin
Timberlake, except by way of collective memory.
Maybe
the Saddest Thing echos and extends our poetic pull and play with pop
culture. In particular, Wicker's second half of the book – “Beats, Breaks &
B-Sides” – makes use of hip hop stylings of sampling, similar to some of the
work done by John Murillo in his 2010 Up Jump the Boogie, and 2008
National Poetry Series winner Adrian Matejka's Mixology. Calling up the
laid-back grooves of A Tribe Called Quest, Common and J-Live, Wicker's poetic
voice seems to find an authority. This confidence allows the closing couplet of
“Who in their right mind thinks...” to read not as a challenge, but a
sincerity:
True
story. The boy never left that room.
Go
ahead. You can ask me how I know.
Here, again, we readers are given an extended hand, a young
man ready to share his observations if we are willing to inquire. There are no
tricks, no sharp turns, regrets or apologies. In the final poem, “The Break
Beat Break,” Wicker concludes,
Baby, when the break starts
knocking
everything you think turns to music.
And
dancing never felt so motherfucking right.
He reminds us of a beauty in the body's response to a rhythm
made hot by the history inhabited in that minute space of silence before it
drops again.