LOVE LETTERS FROM AN ARSONIST

Van den Berg’s debut poetry collection wrestles with themes of alienation and religion.

This group of poems, introducing a rogues’ gallery of outsiders, from itinerant blues musicians to train-hopping hobos, is divided into three “epistles”; the poems featured in the first epistle, “Salt River Blues,” are undiluted Southern gothic, describing bizarre characters such as “the witch-mama of nubbins slough” who “takes babies from girls / raises them on foxmilk.” The second epistle, “The Midnight Gospel,” addresses religion and the notion of an absent God: In “now am i become death,” the poet sneers: “god turned off the heat and locked hisself away ’cause the critics wrote / the universe is not your best work....” The final epistle, “Pinecone Son,” contains poems that are distinctly more intimate and confessional: “i’m not made of flesh and bone / but candle wax. / tell me, / does the wick not fear the match?” Van den Berg is a master of discomforting imagery. The opening to the title poem effortlessly captures the rage and weariness of lives lived in toil and torment: “daddy was a wildfire burned hisself inside out / spat out pinecone sons.” Such rawness is skillfully tempered elsewhere with delicate, painterly observation: “wrote a love note on the side of a freight train signed in / cigarette ash and montana black.” Poems like “Grandma Voodoo’s Motel Six” reflect van den Berg’s wry humor, smirking at the tourist who desires an “Authentik” experience “in a gen-u-ine replica of a Cracker shack….” The result is a satisfyingly textured collection that has the power to repulse, endear, and even make us question our relationship with God.

A weird, wild, and beautiful wail of emotion that seems to emanate from the very heart of the American South.