In Zen Baby’s review of David Pointer’s Wheelchair Dancer: “socially conscious, cut throat clever, and intelligent. He is one of the few voices making poetry dangerous.”
DAVID POINTER'S WHEELCHAIR DANCER
David's book has been widely reviewed in the small press, just as his poetry is widely published there. Here are only the notes and reviews sent to Hoe N Tell.
review by Laurel Johnson
Wheelchair Dancer
by David Pointer
no ISBN
28 page chapbook - $5 + $2 s & h
Time Barn Books
529 Barrywood Drive
Nashville TN 37220-1636
www.thetimegarden.com
I first read David Pointer's work at The Time Garden online. Since then, his work has
appeared in many journals and e-zines. Wheelchair Dancer is his second book of
poetry. The glossy metaphorical cover is an intriguing introduction to the poems
inside, where Pointer ambushes our sense of modern superiority and wrings the truth
out of it But he also harvests hope and beauty out of chaos.
Our outward appearance is not always what we are as people. "Rising" makes that point
in ways both sad and amusing:
At the fifth floor
aboard
came a woman
and as we were thrust upward
in an erection of air
maybe
I looked like a born loser
from a Billy Jack flick
for her eyebrows arched
and her body became
rigid as a razor.
The door finally opened
and her fear disembarked
first.
Pointer plumbs the unusual in sometimes-unexpected ways by examining obscure events
under his microscope. This excerpt from "After the Shootings" is one example, but the
poem must be read in its entirety for its shocking impact:
The sexy police
sketch artist
& county coroner
dined on braised
rabbit and
Chinese broccoli
in smoked
tomato sauce
and discussed
the day's events:
I was happy to see Pointer classics, "Poetry Grants the Exclusive" and "Poetrygate"
included in this chapbook. Both are scathing commentaries on modern life and culture
as we know it. The way this poet uses words and sounds to glean truth out of modern
chaos is no accident. Consider this excerpt from "Relocation Specialist" for example:
….soon spilling
fitfully forward
into a hellish
private prone
scraping grafted
skin from
decimated bone….
As I said at the beginning of this review, David Pointer harvests hope and beauty out
of life's chaos. "Remnants" is a hopeful poem where the fragmented sentences of
children are "refired in the kiln of good company and consistent belief." And in the
delightful "First Will and Word Testament" Pointer's dowry to his children includes
inner spirit and wishful words.
This little chapbook is packed full of acerbic wit and thoughtful wisdom, written with
clarity from Pointer's point of view. Pointer fans will thoroughly enjoy this book.
Those unfamiliar with his work should start by reading Wheelchair Dancer.
review by Laurel Johnson for Midwest Book Review
Mike Panasuk weighs in on Wheelchair Dancer
David Pointer is a true poet in every sense of the word. This son of a bank robber will steal his way into your soul with his poignant word paintings. His heart bleeds and weeps for the needy and the meek who bend and break from the crack of the whip of the high and the mighty who step down hard on the downtrodden and use them for fodder to feed their endless greed. David's poems are seeds among the weeds of an overgrown garden, living, breathing, growing, blossoming into fragrant, intimate dreams.
I've had the great pleasure of knowing David for some time now, and I've produced a few Cds for him; and I can say in all certain terms: If you've ever heard him laugh, you would truly understand the essence of this genuinely sincere individual.
Wheelchair Dancer is a wonderful collection of language sculptures. It belongs in a very special place next to everyone's reading lamp.
Michael Panasuk
note by Jan Fiering
Klyd—congratulations on David Pointer’s book. It’s a little gem. I love it when he mentions Keats in “Consuela,” for the whole book is a sort of argument with Keats, and it is sweet that Keats is used in a favorable context there. The anger in Wheelchair Dancer is a wonderful energy. It is a righteous anger truly. But the deepest feeling in the book is the sorrow from beauty withheld. The child that becomes “a little Lucretius” in “Consuela” has happily had a reprieve—the beautiful is present. As it is in the wonderful title poem. The triumph of “Wheelchair Dancer,” the poem and the book, is the triumph of the capture of beauty by those whom the industries of beauty—the industry of bloodless poetry included—bypass or consume. I wish I had time to develop the ideas in this little gloss into an essay. The poet deserves it. I know you are proud to have published it.
Janice Faye Fiering.
Time Barn Books is damned proud to announce the publication of David Pointer's Wheelchair Dancer!
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time gardener's note
more and Moira on David Pointer
The poem "Wheelchair Dancer" [title poem of David's chap--see below] was published in an anthology by New Dawn Unlimited/Alternative Harmonies. In that collection it received the editor's choice award.