Wednesday, 13 March 2024

A short review of Animal eyeball, by Stephen Michael Whitter

 

Cut-up poetry teamed with surreal collages.

Not everyone's cup of tea when you first think of it, not mine if I'm honest but I'd worked with Paul before on one of my books and so I was more than happy to give this 26-page book a try, and furthermore try and record what I thought.

Cut-up poetry, I am by no means an aficinado but I gave it a go and I feel it's a personal thing, each poem meaning something and that something I imagine [is] different for each reader.

In saying that, if the cut-up style is your thing, I think you'll love these seven pieces by Gary.

I found that it started to fall into place in my brain after two or three readings, my pick of the pieces [being] 'The Fluid Horse', the second poem.

Each poem is accompanied by a surreal collage from Paul Warren, 'She fails to follow through' accompanied my favourite poem and is my favourite image featuring a WW2 radar dish if I'm not mistaken!

As with cut-up, surrealism is there to be 'got', to make you think, but if like Paul's work it's easy on the eye it makes the 'getting' a pleasure.

And this is what this collaboration is a pleasure not a chore.

Stephen Michael Whitter on Facebook.

Animal eyeball by Gary Cummiskey and Paul Warren can can be read on Issiu as a flipbook or you can download a PDF.

No comments: