To the Editors:
Reviewing Nothing
Plain & simple. I am reviewing nothing. ¿Me oyes? Absolutely nada, nada – nada. Obama is reviewing Libya. Libya is reviewing the CIA on their property. The CIA is reviewing the new Arab Spring but it’s almost Summer. WikiLeaks is reviewing ____ ___ ____ can’t reveal it but it’s happening. Pudgy nukes are being reviewed by pudgy dignitaries. The Governator is being reviewed by Twitter. TSA just reviewed Jojo Dooby-Lopez en route to Newark not to mention all algae-based liquids & gels & facial pomades & the epithelium of your local elite mercado veggies. So what does that leave me? Well – there’s stuff. It is probably being reviewed at this very minute by Rubén Martínez. He reviews everything. So I sit back. Reviewing nothing. Poets don’t review anyway. We just wander thrift stores peeling away coats in search of one that resembles Mayakovsky’s wool jacket. Especially the one with a snarl – with the impatience of a machine gun, with a presidential weave, with two or three romantic, secretive, vicious buttons, open at the top, smoldering at the neck – you could almost say global, yet off-axis, post-earthquake & warring unending slaughter & yet still imbued with stillness & awakening. Now, if you happen to have something on that or with that, well, just maybe we got something. Maybe. For the moment – I am reviewing nothing. Plain & simple – nadaah. Oye, wait a minute, ever heard of_____ ___?
Johnny Cilantro (aka Juan Felipe Herrera)
From the Los Angeles Review of Books
