Horror, Sleaze and Trash.

This is Rob Plath’s second collection of poetry published by Epic Rites Press. It is tightly edited and reveals a more sensitive and vulnerable side to Plath. Gone is the defiant poet/ warrior of a bellyful of anarchy raising his middle finger to American society and its empty values. Instead we witness Plath on a more personal journey dismantling his ego, stripping his soul to the bone, baring his emotional guts for all to see. In the most memorable poems in this collection Plath explores the concept of love, in particular, the harrowing, self destructive effects of its loss. He authentically documents the betrayal of his love, his feelings of numbness and grief, his rage and the process towards acceptance and personal renewal. This review will focus on Plath’s complex representation of love and of loss in this important groundbreaking book.

Plath doesn’t make shit up. He writes narrative poems based on his own experiences. In the interview with Plath which follows he explains why he has adopted this approach, ‘I prefer to risk it all by putting myself out there-as stripped down as possible…I've written this way most of my life. Before that I was mainly writing bullshit-detached stuff.’ His poem ‘the faith healers’ explicitly points to the method and subject matter of his work. While conventional poets play it safe and reassure their readers ‘there’s only beauty/ in the world’ Plath is intent on exploring the rot within, the secretly mushrooming ‘tumors of disillusionment’. He occasionally expresses a nostalgic desire to return to the ‘candy-apple’ innocence of his childhood, but characteristically, his poetry is a broken bottle of fucked-up feelings and memories poised to irrationally slash out in any direction.

the interview and review . com