rat drinking from Starbucks cup

I’m picky about reading poetry. Novelists and nonfiction writers can sometimes get away with sloppy writing, boring passages, even entire incomprehensible pages, if their book overall has a great plot and fascinating characters (for novels) or new findings and insightfulness (for nonfiction). But in poetry, the artistry of language and meaning isn’t a cherry on top. It’s the whole deal.

In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I’ve previewed only one book of poetry on this blog before today. That was a book of poems by Hafiz, a Sufi Persian who lived in the 14th century, long before novels and creative nonfiction were invented.

Today, I’m pleased to preview and recommend a book of modern poetry. (No, silly, not my own!) Today, let’s peek inside Disease of Kings, by Anders Carlson-Wee.

I found these poems extraordinarily moving. The two main characters are also movingโ€”or at least they claim to be. Here’s a passage from the prose poem “Cora”:

“We’re not actually moving, but we throw a moving sale every couple months. [F*ck] a yard sale. A moving sale makes people hungry.”

The two friends are poor but resourceful and living somewhere in the icy cold Midwest. Their city feels like Chicago to me, but the text mentions Butte, Montana, so maybe they live there, or somewhere in between.

In any case, in “Cora,” the friends have a running dispute over whether the rats who share their home should be allowed to do so unmolested. At their quote-unquote moving sales, they sell stuff they found on the street or in dumpsters or scavenged from elsewhere in the city. They even sell their own useful stuff, the implication being that they can always find more useful stuff if they poke around in their city’s trash bins and junk heaps long enough, or else do without.

I like all the poems in Disease of Kings, but one of my favorites is the very short “Blizzard.” I am tempted to quote the whole thing for your pleasure, but I won’t out of respect for the author. Here’s how the poem begins:

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“I wake so full of silence / I know it snowed all night. / Make coffee, toast. Scratch / tic-tac-toe in the windowpane’s / frost and beat myself.”

This adult is living like a kid. He’s more or less jobless, though he does have ways of scrounging up money. This poem is touching in showing the tremendous upsides of being kidlike. Oh, the wonder of a snow dayโ€”even when you don’t have anyplace in particular you’re supposed to be. Oh, the joy of playing a two-player game by yourself, so you’re guaranteed to win. And the last line of “Blizzard” is funny and lovely all at once.

I especially love Disease of Kingsโ€™ title. Isn’t it great when a title has a deep and humorous meaning? The protagonist’s friend gets gout, a disease known for historically plaguing rich people who ate too much meat. These characters aren’t rich. But they eat a lot of meat. Why? Because they get their food from dumpster diving. There’s plenty of meat to be had in this Midwestern city, if you know where to look, and don’t care if it’s a little spoiled or nibbled on.

And the characters seem rich as kings not just in their diet, but also in their emotional color and range. Reading the book made me want to live with them, amidst all the glory of their rats and garbage and dumpster meals and snow and friendship.

What do you love about being alive?