The Devil's Garden

by Adrian Matejka

Overview

Using musical allusion and metaphor, juxtaposing history and autobiography, Matejka navigates a triracial identity. In these poems, having too many heritages means having no heritage at all. As a result, cultural identifiers—be they afros, war paint, or William Shatner—take the place of identity. Vibrant narrative lyrics use image as riff, syllable as note, to improvise on a personal history severed from tradition.

Betwixt and Between

Miscegenation’s capitol is the mule. Not quite horse,
almost donkey. No useful erection to speak of.
In any unnatural concoction,
somebody’s got to take the blame. Freud would say credit the mother if props are necessary.
Mulattos
are human mules—half black, most times more than half white—misogynous
on a good day. All the while,
impotent between tribes.
Blame: gift of the exotic,
like Hendrix opening for the Monkees, or Othello key holed by Iago. Blessed be he with the hybrid vigor of melanin, arrested between
the sun and the sun.

"Reading Adrian Matejka’s amazing debut, I was left with the feeling that American Poetry was at last beginning to catch up with early twenty-first century American life. He has written the first serious songs from a world that’s about to make itself felt and known."—Cornelius Eady

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781882295418
Publisher:	Alice James Books
Publication date:	10/01/2003
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d)

Table of Contents

1.
	Autobiography as Language	3
	English B	5
	Want	6
	Crap Shoot	8
	Paris, Texas (1954)	9
	To Have This	11
	The History of Bad Luck	13
	The Devil's Garden	14
	The Meaning of Rpms	15
	Ode to Eddie Hazel	16
	Obligatory Mingus	18
	Earth Will Seduce You	19
	Her Gardens	21
2.
	Pigment	25
	Conjugating Opposites	28
	The Official Story	29
	Me in The Garden of Music	30
	Ankle-Deep in Ocean	32
	Home Remedies	33
	What He Wanted to Say	34
	Preacher (1942)	35
	Genealogy of Insomnia	37
	For What It's Worth	39
	Integration	41
	Eight Positions Mistaken as Love	43
3.
	Understanding Al Green	47
	Contrafact (of an Ars Poetica)	49
	Betwixt and Between	51
	To the Miscarried Child	52
	Con Leche	53
	Miles Runs the Voodoo Down	54
	Insect Precipitate and Saltwater	56
	Klimt in Chicago	57
	Government Magic	61
	Memento	62
	White Pages	63
	Peace and Soul	64
	Vinyl	66
	Visions of Max Roach	67
	Postlude	69
	Notes	70

Editorial Reviews

Using jazz and blues rhythms with telling allusions to Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Billie Holiday, Matejka fashions a powerful autobiography in verse in this debut collection. Matejka's theme is the devilish perversity of a white society that leaves him anguished to the point of crying in his "own vomit." He is victimized because of his biracial background: by a white man with a shotgun, a Puerto Rican playmate with a lethal fist, and a man who wants to hang him with a rope. He is further damaged by the acrimonious separation of his black father and white mother and by the abortion of his own child, "a cataract/ of misplaced blood." What redeems Matejka are visionary moments when a jazz trumpeter becomes a "fist of glitter punched up/ through the stage," or when common crows appear to "tap-dance landscapes." Highly recommended for all larger collections.-Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, IL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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