Lipstick Bruise review
Review by: justin barrett
Info: justin barrett is the editor of the online magazine remark
Magazine: remark magazine
Originally Appeared: Issue #15 Sept. 2002
Lipstick Bruise by RC Edrington * 10 pgs * $2.00 * from Spent Angel Press
Lipstick Bruise is a small (10-poems), downloadable e-Chapbook which was originally published as a conventional print chapbook. Edrington's own Spent Angel Press has been experimenting with 'virtually' releasing his previously hardcopied chapbooks. Spent Angel is also beginning to release e-Chapbooks of other poets as well.
The poems in Lipstick Bruise are raw, gritty and tangible. They are about loneliness, booze, dope, sex, women and other great topics that the best of poetry is about. The leadoff poem, which lends the collection it's name, hints at a long-ago love affair. "Perhaps she touched me / in places / I never wanted her / to touch, places / no one's touched before." The imagery in RC's poetry stands him apart from the majority of most small press poets, who mainly recite dead, flat narrative. These poems deal with the basest of human interactions and emotions but are not base in their treatment.
In "Communion" RC melds the losing of a girl's virginity and her religion. The symbolism is thick, but not overdone, and the poem ends with a great image: "Her rosary gets caught / in peculiar crawl spaces." A perfect metaphor for what else is happening in the back seat of that '67 Chevy.
The final poem in Lipstick Bruise is "Spring Cleaning" and RC, taking a nod from PT Barnum, saves his best for last. A poem about a lonely poet (we don't know any of them, do we?) who is saving, under his bed, the words his ex spat at him as she walked out the door. "Like a fool I waited for you / to return and retrieve them / along with the box of tampons". The lonely poet then threatens to sweep them away tomorrow, but for now he'll remove "broken sonnets / and worn metaphors / I have tossed there / like cigarette butts since you left." The religious symbolism pops up once again as the lonely poet thinks about stringing the words "together / to drape around my neck / as a rosary".
Lipstick Bruise is very short, but RC gets the most out of each poem. Plus, for $2, it is a major steal.