Observational Anti-aphorisms: Island Weather

Review by Peter Burzyński

Chelsea Tadeyeske is the progenitor of a type of anti-aphoristic aphorisms that are at first glance disparate thoughts strung together, but ultimately are deep, cutting, and brilliant interconnected jibes that paralyze and, paradoxically, entice. The false randomness of these observational lines is a hallmark of her poetry, which now spans the breadth of several thematically and stylistically vibrant, unique chapbooks.

Tadeyeske also has a handful of coauthored chapbooks to her name. Many of these chapbooks are still in print; links can be found at the author’s website. Tadeyeske’s poetry is simultaneously an urgent ecopoetic treatment of so many crises, but also a dismantling of the boundaries between sacred and profane in a neo-baroque gesture of queer femme sexuality that is neither vulgar nor pornographic, but matter-of-fact, yet still vulnerable. In short, these are really good poems—poems that are easy to grasp on a surface level, but also fascinatingly rich; almost pensive; and overall, strikingly arresting underneath the deceptively quotidian wit of her observations and obsessions.

Ostensibly mundane investigations like those found in “I’M SORRY BUT” exemplify the ways in which the imagination of these poems captivates the reader:

a bunch of dull lives

aren’t suddenly interesting

just because they’re next

to one another

 

somehow you’ll know me better

once you realize i was born

on a tuesday

 

why am i always

the bug in the pool

 

sometimes in order to come

i reference the feeling one gets

while watching photos develop

 

i want to shove these clouds

down the hole that runs through me

instead—bandaids

 

it’s so american of me

i keep thinking the birds

are blowing pieces of trash

Tadeyeske explores the incidental thoughts and places them “next/ to one another” in a way that is anything but arbitrary or incidental. She begins by noting a general thought and then quickly shifts to a lyrical I. This poem does indeed do a bit of navel gazing, but somehow also feels conversational and familiar—a gregarious host of spare thoughts that are compelling, imperative, and critical. None of this is superfluous—every syllable is crucial to convey the melancholy and joy that coexist in some U.S. poetries and many Slavic ones.

“I’M SORRY BUT” also contains the frequent theme of a liberated, unabashed openness to sexual experiences that live in the space between “always just enough” and “never too much.” These moments are not jarring, but highly relatable. Other poems in this luminous collection recall memories of firsts in sexual experiences and some traumas: positive, negative, and neutral. These themes are constants throughout Tadeyeske’s elegant oeuvre despite the radically different forms of her chapbooks.

This poem also captures one of the poet’s most crucial anxieties—climate change and environmental collapse as a consistent constant: unacceptable, protracted, and lingering. There are some moments of resignation, but never apathy. The chronic health issues of our planet materialize occasionally and often leave the reader feeling hollow and helpless. This is the significant manner in which these poems critique how crucial and obsurd the self-imposed disaster of humanity is. The speaker of these poems is themself deceived by the terrible illusion of pulchritude in the struggling, ravaged state of our natural world. The turn here that is so stunning and shattering is the hopefulness that hides behind these tragic semblances.

A similar wistful grimness emerges in a slightly more masochistic way in “I AM ALIVE AS LONG AS / SAD THOUGHTS EXCITE ME”:

despite my best efforts

i can’t tell the difference

between friendship and love

 

most of the time my orgasms

are very bright and alone

 

whenever i daydream about strangers

i wonder what the weather was like

the day they were born

if they saw a floor first

or a ceiling or a wall

or a face

Beyond analogous themes this poem also exhibits the poet’s succinct and adroit artful use of line breaks and enjambment. I once took a class on a poetry fellowship at The Lighthouse Literary Festival in Denver with Ed Hirsch where the motif of our workshop’s constructive criticism became essentially a profound examination of whether or not we read the poems as we break them. The former is always the case with this writer’s work‑there are no misplaced rhythms or beats to be found. The deft poignancy of her poetry is further exemplified by how she performs it. If you have never seen this poet read, please do. Reels of her executing the day-dreamt rust of these poems can be found on Instagram on Tadeyeske’s incredible small chapbook press, pitymilk press (you can also find many other performances by other small miracles of poets there). The sometimes pejorative and patronizing distinctions between “poetry for the page” and “poetry for the stage” are fractured and dissolved.  The tragedy and terror of immutable of radiant gratification comes across with such profundity as Tadeyeske unspools these grave benedictions of bliss.

These poems do more than entertain, evoke emotion, and illicit charm—they also enchant while politely demanding that the reader pay attention to the anxieties of a world actively crumbling and burning around us. There are also brief moments of the helpless, yet hopeful anti-capitalism that most of us endure by dint of having no other choice but to engage in the cruel economies of our daily lives. This is a theme much more prevalent in Tadeyeske’s equally brilliant and enigmatic pity milk press partner Edie Roberts, but still an important piece of the tiny breathtaking puzzles Tadeyeske spins into poems. Furthermore, every one of the poems in Island Weather is necessary. Succinct and meaningful, it is difficult to find an extraneous word or image. Each of these carefully wrought and honed poems wreck the reader to their core in the best possible way.

Tadeyeske’s writing is at once sincere and breathtaking, improbably polite and inaggressively devastating, couth yet plain-spoken. One can be taken aback by the random wisdoms that pop up without frills or adornment but is also comforted by the shear unbridled beauty of these words. These paradoxes unsettle but are never there for cheap shock alone. Her poems are highly intentional and breathtaking. Neither author nor reader can escape the melancholic beauty of this work. Read these poems. Support small presses. If not today, then later today—read these poems.