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Mary
Mackey’s “Sugar Zone” offers us "the
land of sugar and bad dreams," terra
do açúcar e maus sonhos. And, at
first, the reader might assume this land
Brazil, for many of these poems are set
in that country which Mary Mackey
frequently visits. But, don't be
mistaken. These poems travel beyond
South America to a region south of the
mind's equator, the subconscious.
As a result, the sugar provided
in these pages is not a product that
sweetens but rather one that causes the
body and mind to function on its edge,
over stimulated, experiencing violence,
love, fear and beauty uniquely mixed.
These are mature poems, and therein lies
the depth, the intrigue and the beauty
of this collection.
Mackey's poem, "Roadkill," for example,
provides us with an image, not of an
animal, but a dismembered human being.
Masterfully, the poem is both figurative
and literal.
Roadkill
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I avert my eyes from the
tortured metal
and burned plastic of your
life
at the end a
single
white foot, bare
another in a red
sock
the indignity
the rotten joke
of death |
Some of these poems are starkly honest.
Real. Conflicting. They serve up death
and life, suffering and joy all at once.
For instance, "Cali" presents a picture
of lovers, escaping from
machinegun fire, crawling on the floor
to take refuge in a shower.
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we rolled
to the floor
crawled
to the bathroom
took refuge
in the shower
turned on the water
and held each other laughing
as if being together made us
immortal |
Other poems in the collection are
surreal. For example, a woman
named Solange, who appears to be a
psychological manifestation of freedom,
surfaces in several poems. At the
beginning of the book the narrator asks
why Solange left and where she has gone.
The ultimate phrase in the last poem of
the collection, "How we lost Solange,"
answers the question:
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in the note we found
tied to the thumb of your
hammock
you told us we would
never find you
you wrote that you had taken
a jaguar for a lover
sifted your flesh
into the great oxbow lakes
where it rains black mud
cast off the flowered
husk of your body
and become a white orchid
floating on dark water. |
Certain lines appear in more than one
poem. For instance, near the beginning
of the collection, in a poem titled
“Dreaming of the Bullet-Proof Cars of
Maceio" reference is made to the land of
sugar and bad dreams.
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This is the terra do acucar e
maus sonhos
the land of sugar and bad dreams
infinite darkness without
borders
where birds passing overhead
smell like biscoitos molhodos/wet
crackers
sour milk and the sweat of sex
aqui/here in the night
room doorknobs turn
your hands mirrors reflect
receding galaxies
and the clown who lies on his
back beside you
twitching and suffering is
your soul |
In
Part III, most of these words are
repeated in another poem titled, "This
is the Land of Bad Dreams." Notice
how the figure of the clown has changed
in the last line. Notice, too, that
Portuguese is not used in this version.
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This is the Land of bad dreams
where birds passing overhead
smell like wet crackers and
blood
sour milk and the sweat of sex
the night room where doorknobs
turn your hands and mirrors
reflect
the clown that lies on his back
beside you twitching
suffering
reincarnated as a castrated fool
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Poems in this
collection frequently contain common
Portuguese words and phrases,
contributing a foreignness, a wildness,
a sense of mystery to the poems, adding
to their subconscious flavor. But the
poems are written to function without
consideration of the Portuguese words if
a reader wishes to gloss over them.
Interestingly, some of the poems that
don't use Portuguese, such as "This is
the Land of Bad Dreams," signal a land
of nightmares closer to home, a land of
bad dreams from childhood where monsters
lurk in closets and hide under the bed.
Fears wait behind a door, the knob of
which is turning.
This book is rich in
symbolism. It is chock full of
poetry at its best. Take up this
collection and travel to the Sugar
Zone, a land that resides south of
the human equator, deep in the mind of
the reader.
—Reviewed by Mary Ann Sullivan
January 2013 |
