Here we are—so disillusioned of government, organized religion, and McMindfulness that we’ve freely arrived at the cult of personality, desperate to find a chair that secures our belonging before the music stops. Through these sooner-shoot-you-than-lend-a-seat times, our collective losses feel unprecedented. ‘A Monk with No Religion’ sits with all of it while avoiding any fixation on destructional identities that divide us. Instead, this is a tour of gut-punch heaving, coming back to the breath with setback after setback, and a lose-your-shit series of losses. These poems cut right to the throat of it and do not seek escapism. They can’t anymore, the poet (James Norman) has tried all that and you’ll kneejerk-wish he would reconsider as you read through them. The good news is the poet survives, putting it all down for you, Dear Reader, at great personal cost. He does not offer a new name for god, a guide to a recently unearthed scripture (provided you are a subscriber) nor any hammer swinging mantras that will humble your ass into a seated position. This is even better news. To barroom paraphrase J. Krishnamurti: “That shit don’t work.” What works is this level of heart to heart, and I believe it is the only way we will make it. ‘A Monk with No Religion’ is pithy but admits humility, where well-warranted frustration at the unanswered opens from folded arms into a compassion which hasn’t been this radical since Jesus Christ.
What we can find while viewing another’s path is not a way to follow, but a better way to navigate our own.
Review by @downcharleston
