Today I’m here with a candid poetic observation (as I want to term it). It is Elliot M Rubin’s “Poems Momma Never Read Me”. I have already familiarised you with Rubin’s other poetry collection, “Side Street Poems”. Rubin likes to capture glimpses of reality, life’s little fragments, and everyday snapshots with more vividness, expression, and honesty, making his poems more acceptable to his readers. More than that the style of direct communication over literary artifice appears captivating. In Elliot’s poems, one will find the perfect melange of Wordsworthian observation and simplicity of language (as the poet has claimed, poetry must be enjoyed by all without consulting a dictionary). Again, the mad rage and feel-free style of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg as well as the nonchalant demeanour of Charles Bukoski are reflected here. Rubin has the power to strip naked the gift wrapper under which the society is rotting.
“brag about jobs, police still did not solve
with bail, someday, they’ll be out and revolve back to old habits with crime waves to earn
till locked up for good, seems they’ll never learn” (Clubhouse stories -3)
I feel Rubin’s poems are the vignettes of the lives we live, we feel, we struggle with but cannot express in words. Sometimes he shares simple joy with a barefoot child jumping and running in mud puddles. Sometimes he shows his extreme frustration and anger at the inhuman homicide of little children by the gunmen. His pen takes him to his high school days, and he enjoys a chitchat with memory sitting on the sofa. He describes the aches of old age as well as the pain of infidelity and heartbreak.
Drawing inspiration from Frank O’Hara and the Beat movement, Rubin’s style is conversational and straightforward. He has experimented with traditional punctuation and capitalization to give his poems a touch of unconventionality. He acknowledges the influence of Charles Bukowski, and Emily Dickinson in moulding his style and thought. This humbleness on the part of the poet touches my heart.
The collection serves as both a contemporary urban chronicle and a commentary on modern society where contradiction becomes the backbone of existence. This poetry collection primarily explores life in Manhattan, painting vivid scenes of urban landscapes from luxury shopping at Bergdorf’s to midnight encounters on sketchy streets. Manhattan City attracts readers with its penury as well as luxury, with its allure as well as destruction. Here for Rubin, the city itself becomes a character that witnesses human dramas unfolding on its streets.
