There are some books that you will read that will shake you to your core and remind you what real writing and art is all about in Ari Whipple’s hybrid collection of poetry and art.
These are some of the most courageous page ever to go into print from Dumpster Fire Press and it’s an honor to present the work of such a noble talent who was willing to forsake the thought of rapid-fire judgement and scoffing brutalization to chronicle their trials and explorations.
There’s cruelty in these pages
There’s hope and magic along with a healthy love for David Lynch but who doesn’t have that and if you don’t you are a fool but what the hell…
I first came across Ari Whipple’s work via submission for VOICES FROM THE FIRE, like the biggest nerd, I jumped all over it and even offered to place some of it in the upcoming anthology WORLD ON FIRE.
I was astounded by how someone who practically lived in the same area as I did in West Michigan had a perfect pulse on world in which we live.
Whipple (and I hope they forgive me for referring to them by their last name, it just seems a tad intimate to otherwise in a book intro) takes you on a personal journey of their own chamber of horrors and dare I say, Zen revelations into a hopeful enlightenment giving a voice where usually these voices are anything but voiceless but tend to be shut out, locked out and beaten down.
Exposed Thinking
How am I ever to escape?
Asked plainly, I have faulty thinking
what a fool I am
to be made flesh
and not a ball of light
set loose on the world
I wish I were free
frankly, I wish I were
the sunrise or the wind
again
It’s so hard to stay together
my very atoms
wish to disperse
I am left in a pile of
experience made human
but I am not you
sometimes I have a hard time
conceiving of you
the whole of you
still trying though
as I get locked away from my
chimes of conspiracy
exposed thinking
I’ve been here long enough
they remember my name.
The Find
You said
“You can’t lie, baby,
I see the butterflies
in your eyes,”
and despite myself
I smiled
because
damn it
it was true
I can’t get over you
this feeling
causing me to rise up
after dark
to find myself again.
The Truth of My Reality
Loping like a dog, rabid
or like a lion just raised from sleep
I wish I had control
of my faculties
or my present
But it is controlled for me
I can’t sleep anymore
It has controlled me
I slept six and half hours
isn’t that enough?
They only count four and a half
since they start at midnight
robbing me of my time
robbing me of my freedom
I wish I were a bird
set loose in this place
flying to the highest corner
reality is so surreal
but not so much
that I can’t find it
he asked, “why do you even
play the game?”
and, at the time, I said I don’t know
but I really do
because it’s like an unscratched itch
I am a slave to finding a truth
The Lonely Gods
I am leaving
I think
I hope it’s true
there’s not much
to do except wait
and talk and sleep
and eat
I’ve waited for my number
to come up
I’ve waited for my time
to start again
living in a temporal distortion
it never quite matches up
to what is
gossip from above
it sets my teeth on edge
chattering like I’m sitting on the pier again
here it is
I’m the singing bluebird
flying high on the breeze
where all the gods
find themselves
in lonely places
tonight.
Ari Whipple is a writer and a poet from Muskegon, Michigan. They have lived in several places over the years including Iowa, Grand Canyon Village, Death Valley, and Seattle. They are 36 years old and have a love of the Great Lakes surrounding Michigan. They struggle with bipolar, which has affected them for the past four years as of this publication. They have two books out: Full of Now, a poetry book about bipolar and David Lynch is After Me, a memoir about their first manic episode.
Dumpster Fire Press 