Country: USA
Genre: Poetry/Microfiction/Narrative Non-Fiction
Pages: 254
Art To Choke Hearts & Pissing In The Gene Pool are two anthologies of niblets and paragraphs he wrote during and after the Black Flag days. Often when doing spoken word shows, he refers to his early stuff as "really shitty poetry", so I had interest in seeing how I would react since I'm in the same age bracket he was when he wrote those two short anthologies (24 and 26 years old).
You can separate his production in four different categories. Poems, Prose, Endings and memories. The latter two conquered me. The endings are his own, random people's and sometimes the humanity (apocalypse). Alienation causes isolation, which itself causes frustration and violence. Rollins let it all out on the pages of his books, but if this had been caught in due time, it would have scared a lot of people. The visions described by Rollins are those of a violent psychotic man. They read like the nightmares and hypnotic uncontrolled thoughts you have before going to bed. It's similar to the first half of Black Coffee Blues where people are dying and having their lives ruined. The accuracy of Rollins' visions will strike you down with fear and discomfort.
The reason why Rollins' nightmarish sights have so much strength is that they are put in perspective with his own memories in one seamless dreamscape. Memories of his childhood and from the day before mix up together with his description of endings in an unique portrait of a tormented man's mind. It's a rather eclectic compilation of microfiction(and non-fiction), but it's holding up and offers a clearer picture of the human mind than most fiction writers can attempt to give (oh yeah I'm looking at you James Joyce...yeah I went there. I compared James Joyce & Henry Rollins). This book would have ended up being a cold hard truth if it wasn't...
For those love poem moments. Rollins' attempts at traditional poetry fail something fierce. Also, every time a woman gets in the portrait, things take a cheesy turn. I guess that's what he disliked so much in his early stuff. Rollins wrote some great stuff about women. Notably "Invisible Woman Blues", which was my favorite text in Black Coffee Blues. Here, it's not the case. Young Henry's hormones talk louder than his literary talent. I skipped over most of those, which gave me a rather short read. Fans of Rollins will appreciate this small tome, which I heard comes with three other texts in the present edition. If you're interested in knowing more of Henry Rollins' inner self, you want to check out Get In The Van beforehand.
