1-900-HANG-UPS - ROBERT REID DRAKE

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It was recently my birthday my buddy Spike sent me some books (including a gorgeous and enormous copy of Chris Ware’s BUILDING STORIES) including this slim chapbook. I don’t know the author, tho apparently they briefly lived in Asheville, but perhaps not when I was there. Or, perhaps we did meet and I’ve forgotten, I can never remember meeting anyone. It’s a very specific curse. Anyway, I don’t read as much modern poetry as I wish I did. I’ve been slowly reading through complete works of Keats and Rimbaud, mostly because it’s the quarantine and they’re all the non-Carson poetry in my house. Plus, I like the idea of someone’s complete life work in poetry fitting into a single volume. All that’s to say that I don’t have the deepest background in which to place 1-900-HOOKUPS. I will say I very much enjoyed it. It’s a dozen or so pages of prose-y poetry that, to my ear, mostly centers around hook-ups and casual sexual encounters. The vibe you get from the cover, an advertisement for a gay call in line, fulfilled in the verse, with the theme of technology and sex being updated from mid-90’s(?) chat lines to instagram posts and text messages and online art projects. At one point Drake describes reading a text message as, “the black skull whispers.” When he gets an elliptical response from a man he’s messaging he asks,“do all poets talk this way to strangers?” despite the fact that they’re texting, not talking. It not all modern technology and love and sex and strangers and excitement. Drake includes a wonderful short verse about a particularly saucy El Greco portrait, ending with the line, “Staunch Faggot standing tall, the kind of man only a brush can touch.” Plus, there’s a mention of Guilford County, shout out to NC, take your shirt off, etc. Overall, excellent. I should be reading more current chapbooks. 900 beautiful strangers.