ARC review of History of Present Complaint by HLR

History of Present Complaint (2021)

By WordPress favorite HLR

Published by Close To The Bone Publishing

After a while, when you’ve spent a lot of time reading poetry online, it’s a damn challenge to find that which sticks. When it does, you know you’ve got a keeper.

Before 2019 and the events described therein, I had been exposed to HLR’s work via Hijacked Amygdala, a Writing Collective . All the miscreants of that collective had gone off the deep end in some form or fashion, and without exception, all of them were bloody good writers irrespective of mental status.

Maybe some wouldn’t find that impressive. I thought it was bloody spectacular.

Sure, it’s easy for some ‘nutter’ to write a bunch of crap on a loo roll and call it art, and who knows? They might win the Booker or the Turner, depending on whim.

But true ability isn’t as easily honed. When you’re plunging in the deep end, the last thing you’re usually able to do, is be a coherent human being.

And while many an artist has produced their finest works when stoned, smashed, mentally impaired, simply mad, it’s more common these days to find well-coiffed Indian youngsters with mesmerizing faces and rich parents, on the poetry best seller list.

HLR is none of the above. In a way it doesn’t matter who she is, except that it really does.

HLR is a mysterious, slightly gorgeous, utterly deviant and exceptionally talented writer and I’d bet my horse on her any day.

From my first encounter with her writing, I was addicted. It isn’t the lesbian in me either, before you ask, but her raw, guttural truth and the ability she has to write like nobody else I’ve read who is still living.

I could easily wax lyrical here, and compare HLR to Plath, Bukowski, Childish, Sexton, or a raft of other notable poets you’d know the names of, and nod approvingly. But that’s not going to cut it.

HLR isn’t a prescription bottle, you can’t take a little blue pill with a cold glass of water and understand her. You have to throw her out of the window, every little pill, and watch where she falls. It’s in her fall, you find her deepest truth.

This couldn’t be exemplified more so than in her debut collection of poetry, History of Present Complaint.

This book is horrifying. Nothing less. I read it in one sitting (perfect length for a kick you in the mouth kind of read that leaves you sweating). To say HLR doesn’t pull back almost makes me laugh maniacally. She doesn’t just not pull back, she’s the fucking ringmaster to this and she’s wields the whip very, very acutely.

So, if you’re faint of heart, naw, don’t go there. Put the dangerous book down and walk the hell away.

This isn’t a gentle read and nobody is apologizing for that. No chance mate.

Let’s get the basics over with:

This is a collection of guttural cries from the unraveling depths of a human being who I happen to know is a really, really good human being and it’s a wonder she’s still with us but a very, very good thing.

This is written by someone who is more naturally gifted at writing than 99.9 percent of poets out there today.

This isn’t something you can forget and you’d better not try.

Okay then.

I’ve worked on #metoo anthologies, and I can’t say I have ever been as disquieted, which I know is a funny old-fashioned term, but so apropos for an age-long disease of society – that is RAPE.

Maybe we need to take the uncomfortable and taboo or pushed under the sofa truths out of their jars now and wake people the fuck UP.

This isn’t the kind of review where you quote ‘clever’ lines and pat the invisible author on the head for accomplishing such great feats.

This author stands with you whilst you read, she’s looking you in the eye, you’re trying to read the book but you’re acutely aware of her staring. It’s a bit like being caught looking through family photos without permission. Yeah, maybe you don’t have the right. Except she’s written this and she’s put it out there, which takes some MONUMENTAL GUTS and you find yourself tongue tied (which you never get, because you’re a verbose so-and-so) in the presence of this. Because it isn’t okay and it isn’t fixed and it’s not safe, and it’s lying on your lap beating its life blood all the way down to the beige carpet.

Dare I be personal and say I can relate intensely to a lot of this. Having lived in the UK before, there are nuances and details that stand out like sign posts pointing to the uncanny ability HLR has for evoking a moment, an era, a time in a person’s life.

And I’ve been her age, I’ve experienced some of the same things, but could I have succinctly and with eloquence and grit, put something like this together? Not in this life time.

HLR is an old soul for every one of her youthful years. She’s actually completely hilarious too, as all very, very clever people tend to be, she’s got that sardonic wit down to a tee and it serves its bilious undertone very well against the horror of the psych ward.

I’m not going to take a quote and put it in isolation to the rest, because this creature she’s whole and she deserves to stay that way. Read all of her or just go away. But don’t, whatever you do, be vanilla.

HLR could possibly be one of the most exciting poets of her generation, and yeah that sounds hackneyed but it’s so close it burns.

She’s not a squeaky clean, healthy, well adjusted young woman. Her dad died. She was really young and she lost her dad. Anyone who says that’s not a huge thing, gets the first kick in the face from me. She’s bipolar, although that’s just an outdated, generalized description that’s overused, but it causes her some massive trouble when awful things happen and she’s trying to cope. She’s an old soul with yellowed finger tips from chain smoking who does her bloody best in a dysfunctional world with a really heavy dose of horror thrown in, just because it can. She’s seen your labels and she’s raised you.

I have read quite a few collections of ‘my time spent in a Psych unit’ and this doesn’t evoke any of them. It’s a story written in blood, with very little distance between the actual moment of it happening and you reading the recollecting. If that doesn’t make the hairs on the back of your neck rise, very little is going to. But like any macabre rendition, it’s also desperately funny and horrifically detailed, guaranteed to dispel any notions of safety.

At times I felt I was reading inside HLR’s brain, the popcorn seizures of her descent and rise, like I inherited the mad vibe and lost my footing. It is this nearness of experience that makes HLR’s writing so genius, yeah, I said it, and I mean it. She’s got ‘that’ ability to crawl into your amygdala and take up residence. It’s pretty disturbing and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Maybe I will quote:

“I will never come back from this

Don’t say that

It’s true. I will never come back from this. If, with the benefit of hindsight, I had the choice between dying in the street and hypothermia and poisoning and those 12 hours in hospital, I’d choose the former, without a doubt. They really hurt me.”

I feel bad for quoting. I feel like I’m wearing a severed piece of a soul on my arm as a handbag by quoting. And yet, it might help you understand the method here. There is no method. You are free of method. This is real writing. It doesn’t need a fucking method. Look around. Use your words. Now THAT’S something.

We lament that art in its myriad of forms, is stale, lacking, aloof. And the purity of this collection is its lack of pretention, self-consciousness and formula. As if you had been there yourself. And there’s a bloody lake of value to that because it’s real, and it pulls you by the throat into the vortex that is trauma and refuses to politely lead you by the hand.

If we are ever going to change, if we are ever going to understand and stop not really giving a shit about sexual violence and mental health and other really important things, then we have to be like this. We have to.

As long as we hide behind formula, ego, methodology, then we may as well keep the same manuscript and just keep changing the name.

“It was real. It was real. It was real to you.”

Should poetry be this visceral? Absolutely.

Should women expose their experiences this blatantly? God yes.

“North London. Edmonton. On a Tuesday afternoon, you are sixteen and psychotic and should be at school.”

All that and more. All that and MORE.

I want something real, don’t you?

History of Present Complaint is real. I wish it weren’t. I really do. Because HLR went through this and that bothers me, a lot. But she got up and she wrote this and that’s what she did then and that’s not all she is by any measure, and you’re going to see that in the coming years, I’m damn certain of it.

Sometimes the ones who wanted to die the most, are the ones who can describe living the best.

In fact, I think I should say … I told you so.

They were the liars.

Get your copy here.

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Burning without fire — @ hijacked amygdala

Last night I scalded myself Mama and as the boiling water ran down my arm I saw you through the pain and you were smiling and everything was wrong how you are alive and yet gone, how you exist and yet don’t, how I was never right and somehow always mistaken If I don’t come […]

via Burning without fire — hijacked amygdala

This IS What Love Looks Like: Poetry by Women Smitten With Women

SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN; This IS What Love Looks Like: Poetry by Women Smitten With Women. Latest Indie Blu(e) Anthology is now accepting up to 5 poems/artwork per author.

 

Artwork must be B/W compatible on the subject of the unique love shared between women. Emphasis of Anthology is celebrating same-sex love of women, lesbian or similar deep attachments, in appreciation of this unique and beautiful connection through poetry and art (no prose).

 

All submissions please send to ‘editorial team’ at candicedaquin@gmail.com, likewise with queries. Share this in groups and with those you think may be interested. DEADLINE for all submissions JUNE 16, 2019.

Christine – an honoring

You don’t know this

But if there is a warrior

That warrior is you

If anyone blazes the way and holds the torch for the light to get through

That woman is you

Because you feel the fear and do it anyway

You set fire to yourself and offer your ashes to the Phoenix

You are unstoppable even as they come at you with everything and more

You’re the wind in the willows, the avalanche, the fucking heartbeat of ten thousand voices

You are Boudicca

Riding your chariot through the Roman siege

You are the woman in ten-year old sweat pants making me laugh until I weeze

Who can smell an idea and rip the world in half with your passion

And when you think you’re just some old bird biding her days

We’re here to remind you of the shine you’ve bequeathed so many

Before you, those things weren’t the same

They were easily passed by, easily put aside

And you said, hell no, and picked them up and gave them value

You galvanized the lost and herded them into something strong

We exist as we do BECAUSE OF YOU

You mock yourself because it’s what you know, but if you could see

The places you touch with your dreams and how they leave us

Better than we were

You’d be finally proud of your legacy thus far

And damn if nothing will ever stop you

Because if it hasn’t by now, then nothing will

Even on your dark days remember, you lit the way girl, it was you

It was you we owe so much to

And you who conjured the dawn.

For Christine E. Ray on her last day at SD and the first day of the rest of her life. We love you woman.

Last call to Submit Writing and/or Art for “We Will Not Be Silenced” Anthology

Midnight, Monday 15^th October is the deadline for submitting art/writing/poetry, this is an important, very timely project at a critical stage in history, your voices need to be heard!

Bruised But Not Broken, Whisper and the Roar, Indie Blu(e), and Blood Into Ink are joining forces to publish an anthology about the lived experience of sexual harassment and assault. We believe that it is more important than ever before that more voices speak out and reclaim their strength by owning their survival stories. All contributors, female and male, can submit up to three pieces of creative work- these can include; Poetry, Prose, Essay, Short Fiction, Prose, or original Artwork, but should be limited in length (under 1,000 words) considering that this is an anthology. You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider nonacceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.

• Submission of previously published pieces is acceptable if you still own the rights to your work.
• Artwork can be submitted in black and white OR color but all artwork should be black and white compatible.
• Using a pen name or publishing anonymously is acceptable.
• All submissions should be sent to bloodintoink2017@gmail.com by midnight, Monday, October 15, 2018.

Writers and artists will retain the publishing rights to their individual submitted pieces. Indie Blu(e) will retain the rights to the collection We Will Not Be Silenced.

Pieces accepted for the Anthology may be used in whole or in part to promote the Anthology. All writers and artists will be appropriately credited in all promotional materials.

Should the royalties from sales of the Anthology exceed the costs of publishing and promoting the Collection, 70% of the royalties above these costs will be donated to organizations that support survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

 

Blossom and Bone – an Advanced Review by Candice Louisa Daquin

Blossom and Bone / by Nicole Lyons
Reviewed by Candice Louisa Daquin

Blossom and Bone (Sudden Denouement Press, 2018) is Lyons’ third collection of poetry and even with the title Lyons has already said a myriad of things which is one of her signature qualities as an author, she can truly ‘say it’ often using very few words thus having a greater impact. By the juxtaposition of blossom (something soft, vulnerable, beautiful, fleeting, fragile) with bone (something more permanent, harder, stronger) as well as the concept of regrowth (bone continues to grow but can be broken, blossoms that die, can return) the title speaks to the endurance and transformation of this author and her understanding of those who experience similar emotions/experiences.
I dislike encapsulating the tenor of an author as most shift in their address to the author but Lyons has an incredible energy in her salutation; she gets to the point, with each and every poem. I would imagine it’s the difference between someone who beats around the bush and someone who is a straight shooter. That lends her work this hypnotic immediacy, you almost feel she is in the room with you, standing there, saying; “I am standing here screaming / I live, I live, I love.” It’s the way she gets to the point immediately, she doesn’t preamble or slowly ease you in, she’s not afraid in other words to just SAY IT and that’s definitely one of her strengths and the reason you will immediately pick out her work from others and know it.

Another quality, Lyons makes me laugh, as much as she makes me cry as much as she hurts she brings humor. The reason for this is her subjects are often hard, she doesn’t shy away from that, and perhaps as solace, she blends a really good balance of beautifully written poetry with the occasional curse word and I love the balance she uses intuitively because it wakes you up and reminds you of the gravity of the subject whilst allowing you to smile at her brazen unapologetic femininity and continue reading. “It never heard the way I hated myself / when dawn hit my window and sliced / its way through the mountains of maybe” (It Never Heard That)

Some poets are scared to write truth, they stick to affirmations, positive vibes, they don’t ‘go there’ and talk about the ugly underbelly of existence and the undeniable pain of existence. Whilst there is far more to Lyons work than sadness, she’s again unafraid to bear her soul and paint universal truths about how we really feel. I find that honesty compelling and addictive in that so often you sense a writer can only be putting their best foot forward, whilst a truly gut-wrenching author will go much, much further and tattoo those truths onto your skin. “This place that once / felt the fire of falling stars / is now cold in my fading light. / So I shall invite you in / and ask you to bring your wishes,” (Bring Your Wishes)

Most of us have mood swings, but how often can we capture that fleeting or mercurial shift in temperament? I for one have never achieved it, whilst Lyons work seems to naturally describe emotions many of us can relate to throughout our lives. And despite her proclaiming that; “I have always loved the cold / dark places where feelings go / to hide, as I have loved something / about the easy way my heart / shatters the second it rubs / up against something warm” (My Easy Heart) there is a genuine awareness that she needs to push past that tendency to hide and not admit how she is feeling and offer it up to the reader as realistically as possible. She does this far more than she may even realize she’s doing it, through sheer guts. But unlike other confessional poets, she doesn’t lament or labor the point, she’s very succinct and sharp in her use of words, she knows exactly how many she needs to make a point and doesn’t use a single unnecessary word, that in of itself is a rare ability as a writer.

I get a sense when I read Nicole Lyons that she inhabits a secret world. I know she is married with children but there’s an entire other universe to her writing, it is surely her very essence and all the history and scars that brought her to this point, and she opens the gates and lets us in, enough that we can hear her thoughts but not fathom all that creates them. This leaves a wonderful teasing, the mystery behind the author, the unknown mind, the commonalities we can relate to, and those things we shall never know. “but the ones who never loved me / have made their home inside my veins.” (Lifetime Lease) Again, it takes a master of words to know how to wield and parlay so deftly with your use of language that you can tempt the reader and draw them in, only to give them what you decide to offer, and absolutely no more. With confessional style poets, the temptation is to say too much, Lyons is a very unique voice in that she has absolute control over what is and is not revealed. It only leaves you wanting more which is surely the greatest lure an author can possess.

I find it hard to explain just how she does this. I imagine it is her ability to self-edit and write as one would speak, with control over the impact that has on the reader. She is clearly aware of her readership, her words are speaking to us, they are definitely not words put underneath a bed and hidden away, they are not shyly proffered, they are bold, unafraid, certain words; “but each time I twist / I come up empty-handed, / and wiping your light / from the corners of my mouth. “ (Wiping Your Light) Something about Lyons endings leaves me breathless, it seems she has just abruptly finished half-way through, you have questions, and yet it’s the perfect closure. I think of Film Noir and how what is not said, and goes unfinished, often leaves the greater impact. In that sense, Lyons work echoes the apparently sparse but really specific dialogue you may think of in classic movies, and it’s that edgy level of suspense and almost quick-tongued drama that I find so compelling, think Barbara Stanwick as a poet.

I mentioned once to Lyon that until I’d read her work I hadn’t been a fan of shorter poetry, the first book I read of Lyons was HUSH which blew me away, for its fierceness and femininity and unapologizing riot of emotion and control, it was like taking a drug and entering another universe, no wonder her books become Amazon Best Sellers she has that draw, it’s the magnetism only truly memorable writers with true craft possess, which is that wonder you find so rarely. “You with the goddess heart / and that cemetery soul, / of course, you are a dragon now.” (Mostly Dead Ones) Not everyone can pull it off, writing with brief intensity the way she does, in some ways she’s capable of creating symbols with her words, slogans, sayings, they’re more than poems, they’re things to live by, to follow, to adhere to, to consider when you can’t sleep at night. They are at the same time blunt and gorgeous, which I find an oxymoron that I cannot readily explain.

In I Won’t Always Be Me, Lyons writes; “I won’t always speak kindly. / Sometimes I will spit, / and I will scream, / and the venom from my tongue / will poison the oceans of love” She possesses an immediacy of intoxicate boldness and it is this I believe is the core reason she has such a following because it’s at once incredibly feminine but also quite unlike what you think of when you consider what is traditionally feminine. She is a writer of the now. She is a woman of the now. Her pulse can be heard in every syllable. In Chicken Dinner Lyons captures the muted grief of childhood so precisely it made the hair on my neck stand up; “next to an alcoholic / control freak who called me stepdaughter / and walked upon me to seal it / like the gummy flap of an envelope / stuffed with unloved letters, / and a mother who wore exhaustion / hidden inside her navy pumps.” There is a kindling rage in her words, a don’t-you-dare-turn-away quality to the exorcism of her truths, she stares into places others skip over, she disgorges the dirt like an excavator of pain, and presents it as you would a film, blinking in front of you, refusing to let you ignore it.

We can point to many poets who are courageous and brave to share their suffering with us, bring some wisdom and truth to a sometimes artificial stage but the voice behind the words doesn’t always stay long afterward, it doesn’t infuse us with a disquieting sense of wanting to reveal the spite beneath our veneer, the cruelty humans are capable of, the quixotic humor of childhood that is both tragic and hilarious, Lyons balances that picture in our heads perfectly. “I taste shame when I look / upon this table of cheaters / and whores, no better than me. / But I am the sheep / that wears the dirtiest cloak.” (Twisted Sins)

In Robbing Air Lyons describes dissatisfaction uncannily; “You are deep hues and an ugly reminder / of small towns and smaller minds, / stroked once and cut twice / from a life, we are all running from.” For so many, there will be a nodding even if their experience differed (small town/big city/male/female) she has a universal whisper, a place at the table, where she provides us with knowledge we have turned away from, perhaps thinking ourselves ‘over it’ and at the same time, reenacting our scars. There are gut-punching reminders of this in poems like I Told Him No, which simply take your breath away in their visceral confession and horror. What I adore is how no matter how badly damaged, the female survivor, her voice is never extinguished, if anything after such evil, she comes back stronger, and that is as redemptive and real as it gets.

Lyons work won’t lull you to sleep at night or fill you with peace, it’ll actually do the opposite and that’s no bad thing; “When I told you that / I had been broken / before; it wasn’t / a fucking challenge.” (Misunderstood) Women’s voices are stronger than ever, but we still have a long way to go, the only way to achieve a lasting voice of equality is to force through the barrier both of ourselves and our histories. Lyons voice is especially potent, she literally takes no prisoners, she won’t back down, she can be caustic, in-your-face and aggressive and those aren’t negatives, because she’s pushing back, against the cacophony of violence and oppression committed against herself and women en mass, who inherit the grief of their forbearers. She does so in such a poignant way I feel she has a lot in common with African American authors like Toni Morrison for their uncanny handling of the extreme ugliness of life and what people are capable of, with an undiminished candor and survival instinct. “I have never felt a smooth landing / beneath my feet, nor have I ever / been lucky enough to tuck one under / my wing and breathe great gusts / of relief as if I had been saved.” (Under My Wing)

Nicole Lyons is already an undeniable force, and I predict she will only grow in strength and those who appreciate her increase. In her words, she evokes a woman whom many of us can relate to in one form or another, a woman who we can share parts of, who doesn’t shun us or other women. Surely this is why we read certain types of poetry where the author can reveal to us our own feelings in their reflections and from this, evoke responses we didn’t think we needed to have (but did). Surely such poetry has a lasting place in our lives and for those who have experienced mental illness or abuse, there is an especial value in Lyons willingness to reach out and share her own; “You call me crazy / because I feel everything, / but I feel sorry for you / because you don’t.” (Of Maniacs and Manics) As a voice for those who cannot put words to what they endure, Lyons stands out with compassion and insight and best of all, an awareness you need not be diminished by any label.

To say of another writer, they are almost uncannily clever, may sound overdone or insincere, but it’s absolutely my final word on Nicole Lyons. “Don’t tell them how I lived / between the darkness and the light, / just tell them I lived with poetry / tucked beneath my skin.” (It’s Only Poetry) It’s always those who can state it succinctly with the foresight few of us possess that hold us in their thrall. Nicole Lyons has long enthralled me, both as a lover of poetry, and because I find her achingly necessary in this world, and she never lets me down, she only frustrates me because so often I don’t know how the hell she does it so well. This is an exquisite collection of writings from an indescribably talented woman; the best you can do is buy everything she’s written and turn your phone off.

“She is but once in a lifetime / and far too many times before. / She is something that just happens, / and she is everything worth waiting for.” (Luna’s Daughter)

Visit Nicole at THE LITHIUM CHRONICLES and look for Blossom and Bone on Sept 9th.

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Previous book I Am-World-Uncertainties-Disguised-Girl

Facebook Page www.facebook.com/TheLithiumChronicles.

Find more of Candice and her stunning work on The Feathered Sleep and on Indie Blu(e)

Her gorgeous book of poetry, Pinch The Lock is available for purchase here

Coming Soon from Sudden Denouement Publishing- Pantheon by Eric Syrdal

THIS is a book I was delighted to review and I highly encourage everyone to buy a copy when it’s published it’s going to be dynamite! My full review of this novel should be out soon, well done to Sudden Denouement, for once more supporting and producing the highest quality and original work out there today!

Sudden Denouement Collective

“I won’t spoil the brilliant conclusion of this novel, suffice to say, if it is your desire to read something astoundingly original, from a writer who is not only a truly breathtaking author, deft with supernatural words and ideas, but a dreamer of worlds, who will blow any preconceived notions you have away and leave you shell shocked by the sheer power of his mind, then I cannot recommend Eric Syrdal and his novel Pantheon more highly. “I built this beach / and the stars / and the moon …. I turn back the wheels of heaven / and make time stop and rewind / over and over ….. Because I don’t know how to tell him / A machine had a wish.”

Candice Louisa Daquin, Pinch the Lock

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