Altered States of the Unflinching Souls
RaVenGhost Press
60 pages
New and selected poems by J.J. Campbell and Casey Renee Kiser with stunning cover artwork by Jasmyn Taylor Givens. Hitch a ride on this sick spectrum of realities and weave through the obstacle course of dull life contradictions with two bitch’n indie poets.
C. Renee’s poetry is often a bewildered camp of bi-polaring over-share bares declaring their angst from waiting too long for a glacier or heart to melt, while auditioning for a g-spot in her wordplay. Often lyrical but always confessional, her work here rides the waves of triggered emotions, attempting to master the art of {girl overboard} and make any island her home. She prefers crashing when it comes to ships passing in the night, as she refuses to pass up a chance to face anything in her ocean head-on. Her killer backstroke keeps her alive and she washes ashore here, a crispy crab from the sun, sidestepping sharks but balancing out J.J.’s subtle hollowed-out style.
Campbell is all truth and bones rubbing together just enough to produce a campfire for one, except when hot legs invite themselves in for a little boom in the confession room where stripped down is an understatement. Always exposing the violent blur of day-to-day grind, he challenges daily horrors and the merry-go-round playback of dysfunction with swing-out spurts of lucid luck and fantasy. His poems reveal life’s absurd complications with slaying simplicity and a humor that sneaks up on you, even quite skull-driving, like distant static from the basement television you left on for the chained-up ghost of your childhood fuckery. Somebody get that bitch a Baby Ruth.
In this collection, two restless souls lose and laugh while it all goes up in flames, as the beautiful ones scramble to stay in the fakery-bakery on the corner of Suburbia. Relatable as a distant cousin-kiss in a dirty Sunday dress, you’re encouraged to turn on a sad song with the happy hour light, buy a stranger a beer and confess something they’ll never forget. Cheers to dark clouds, rainbows and all the misfits.
Horror Sleaze Trash 