CLOWN STAR, by Marshall Woodward (PRINT)
$17.50
GUTSLUT PRESS PRESENTS…
CLOWN STAR, AN ORIGINAL POETRY COLLECTION
BY MARSHALL WOODWARD
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C L O W N : Have you ever wondered where the body starts and heaven begins? CLOWN STAR, the left kidney of modern poetics, is a gutty exploration of how poetry can be deconstructed in a hopeful body of work to save our dying planet. It is a plea for resuscitation, leaning on fractured forms of familiar structures like the Villanelle, Sestina, and The Ode in order to turn time forward, backward, and forward again. It is a body of work that asks you to reconsider your own armpits, stenches, and the halo around your head. It is memento mori, tattooed on your Achilles heel.
S T A R : CLOWN STAR is a chapbook about the disintegration of both the male and heavenly bodies — the end of earth as we will it closer with every self-destructive act. This collection of poems circles the rot of earth, celebrating a sublime landscape filled with fading treasures in our shared toxic cadaver. It is made of exuberant decay, bodily distortions, heavenly cries, and comical cosmic eulogies. Language is deconstructed, destroyed, and rebuilt into a broken but hopeful lyric.
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Release Date: February 27th, 2022
Page Count: 38 Pages
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© 2022 CLOWN STAR.
by Marshall Woodward and Gutslut Press.
ISBN: 978-1-716-05944-5
Poems by Marshall Woodward.
Interior Design by Ami J. Sanghvi.
Cover Art and Design by Ami J. Sanghvi.
First edition: February 2022.
Published in the United States by Gutslut Press.
{gutslutpress.com}
Description
ORGANS I WANT
Poem from CLOWN STAR, by Marshall Woodward
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look around
see what you are made of
this is the exercise
of life
the heart bursts the lungs
collapse when you find out
you want to be gagged
and go on a vacation
to near-death experiences
and the pressure point between
the back and your left shoulder
is the center of all the universe’s
nervous energy
thank you
god, dylan
for getting dragged
erasing just the part
of the man
that stinks
i pretend to be a scientist
even though i’m bad at math and cried
when i shot a deer through the liver at eleven
it was not biology
when some dads poured the deer’s blood
on my head
from a styrofoam cup
it is important to confess
most of the bad stuff
like the moment you killed
and couldn’t kill again
but not confess too much of the bad stuff
by that i mean
you don’t stay up at night worrying
about the big one killing everyone you know in california
because you sense earth’s mantle is already shattering
i shaped that tremor
deep in the upper crust of another pre-teen
and trauma
given, forced on my mother
like a seismograph
sensed only after the incident
has passed
i feel so free
pouring my own blood
on my own head
Adrian Elise, author of SHIVA –
Marshall Woodward’s poetry collection CLOWN STAR is both the heat of your identity dissipating into the air and the very experiences that shape who you are. Paternal and maternal ties, personal tides, and resurrection of self ride into the reader’s soft tissue hidden within the trojan horse of familiar form; sestina, odes. These pieces will hold a mirror to your face and your relative connections, then force you to dissect the nature of your synergy with earth & creation.
“I am not the cocoon or its caterpillar or the dewy mirror of the sun… I am not the object approaching in the rear view.” The themes and spectrum of feeling explored within CLOWN STAR were captivating to me. Marshall works to delicately craft an underlying narrative brought forth in a mastery of imagery. Observations on loss, evolution, masculine/feminine influences, and finding our footing throughout the seasons of life resonated with me on a personal level. You will love this read!