Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era by Cheryl Caesar
Independent, 2020
Is it possible for a writer to articulate the disgust and detestation of a nation stirred by the unfortunate missteps taken by a narcissist who holds the position that was once referred to as leader of the free world? Cheryl Caesar utilizes what some may call the art of personal putdown, but with an elevated infusion of literary devices and varied forms, beginning with the very first piece in her new poetry collection, Flatman.
Like the White House resident who blasts tweets fraught with denigration, Caesar dismisses any human aspect of her subject as he disregards humanity: separating children from their parents at the border then imprisoning them, dismissing women as anything more than play things, firing whomever disagrees with him in his “demented playground,” as noted in “Press Conference in the Rose Garden.” Still, his claque is expected to applaud among the noisy decrees about which he knows nearly nothing. In “An Elegy for Music and Silence,” Caesar notes that “even music is corrupted.” Pandemonium prevails—the flatman has “robbed us of our rest.”
My personal favorite is “A Short History of Mirrors,” which mixes historical and literary references, including and especially Narcissus, who, in attempting to get the “unattainable image” of himself in a pool, leaned so far forward that he fell in and drowned. Like Narcissus, the image for the flatman is elusive, yet he continues to lean even as he “keeps receding.” Just when one feels he has gone too shamefully far, he somehow, sadly, outdoes himself then hangs on, propped up by the very claque his policies crush. No doubt, many readers wonder when he will finally be gone. But readers will not be disappointed with this collection, in which Caesar’s eloquence is truth, not merely jibe.
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Mary Anna Kruch is a career educator and writer whose recent poetry appears in Wayne Literary Review, Trinity Review, and many others, along with three anthologies. Her first poetry collection, We Draw Breath from the Same Sky, inspired by connection with her family in Italy, was published in 2019.