Title: Final NotesAuthor: JP Reese
Publisher: Naked Mannekin
Format: 7.5 x 5" Chapbook
ISBN: 1-933126-09-4
List Price: $10.00
Inquiries: nakedmannekin@gmail.com
Too many times, the idea of a “chapbook” substantiates the claim that poetry has little, if anything, left to say. In JP Reese’s Final Notes, nothing could be farther from the truth. We get snuck up on with lines like “Danger rests in believing the honest blue of the sky.” Remarkably understated, it becomes a sort of poetic fortune cookie, not to be tossed aside, but held on to as our journeys progress.
Another example is the stunning poem “Evanescence,” where we come away feeling the addictive nature of commingling in darkness. There is joy in this knowledge that warmth, however it is made aware to us, is momentary in its dynamic, but worth taking. The poem “2008, What I Wanted” offers wisdom beyond anything that might be stated here about it. This is a manifesto to the world on how not to treat those left breathing.
JP Reese has the skill of an artist and the soul of a survivor. The proof is compiled in a perfectly lean volume that needs to be read with admiration for years to come. Those looking to find that most rarified of beings, a genuine poet, need look no further.
© 2012 Sam Pereira
