Author Spotlight
SAFE TOILET SYNDROME by Prathna Lor
[SAFE TOILET SYNDROME has been published by bearcreekfeed.]
If there is such a thing as ‘deadpan surrealism’ or ‘ironic sci-fi,’ then the elusive Prathna Lor may be their frontman. His poems summon strange kinds of unexpected prosaic epiphany — where the known world is plainly spoke, yet told from an entirely foreign, somewhat extraterrestrial angle; case in point, from “Vulcan”:
A fried spider rubs its body against the inside of my mouth.
It makes me want to crack open the shell of a dehydrated crustacean
and whisper into a ligament that is still sensitive to light.
With Lor’s lush minutiae, one needs a ‘mind microscope’ to venture the terrain. This collection of short, sparse, and piercing poems toggle wonderfully between morbid hilarity, scientific curiosity, existential dread, and reserved quietude. Lor’s preoccupation and/or precedence with classical music may explain his timely cadence:
The television is turned on
so I feel just as lonely as I did when I lived
with my mother and her two sons,
a dog maybe.
The alliteration of ‘as I did’ and ‘when I lived,’ ‘on’ and ‘sons,’ and the syncopated ‘a dog maybe’ make for subtle music, though it’s only a vehicle for what these poems are about, the mental vertigo that comes with having your perspective completely inverted:
I don’t believe you when you say you want to live
in a house with furniture
Per his scattered bios here and there, Prathna is a guy, though he refers to his vagina in “Folding Boards.” The second person pronoun lingers as the object of Lor’s affection, which I assumed was a girl (being traditional n’ shit). Things seem clarified with “Don’t touch my penis,” wherein the bed buddies are both male. Whether this straight-bi-homosexual triad is a device or ‘real’ demonstrates the complexity of not so much the narrator, but the narrative. Lor’s writing is laced with contradiction, allusions, minor violence, and the strange wonder of seeing through the eyes of an extremely sober insane person.
The last poem “Water” suggests what a ‘safe [sans flushing] toilet’ is. Lor’s affliction, or ‘syndrome’ may be ours as well:
If I could fit inside my washing machine
I would set the spin cycle to forever.
Forever is a long time to wait for life to end, which I think is what Lor’s been doing lately. I am glad that Prathna Lor exists, even if he doesn’t. What I mean is, Canada is pretty far away, and even if there’s a reading there, he probably won’t show. With intuitive refreshing drawings by Jeffrey Heart and Colin Bassett’s bubble gum design, Safe Toilet Syndrome is a place to unlearn yourself again.
Tags: bearcreekfeed, Prathna Lor
extremely sober insane person. nice. i think a lot of people would be envious of that, that would be a title people would vie for. and some washing machines, you know, you can’t set them until after the door is already closed.
extremely sober insane person. nice. i think a lot of people would be envious of that, that would be a title people would vie for. and some washing machines, you know, you can’t set them until after the door is already closed.
prathna lor is a dude. he lives in canada. he plays the cello. he frequently delets his blog. he runs pineapple war, which is pretty great.
prathna lor is a dude. he lives in canada. he plays the cello. he frequently delets his blog. he runs pineapple war, which is pretty great.
“deletes”
“deletes”
I began to read this collection and got hung up on the Emo-ness of it. Nine out of ten poems contain the word “feel” as in “I feel…” or “…makes me feel…” And even the ones that don’t explicitly contain the word “feel” contain some overt reference to emotion.
I have noticed this trend among certain other contemporary poets and have been wondering if it could be indicative of something like a New Confessionalism?
I began to read this collection and got hung up on the Emo-ness of it. Nine out of ten poems contain the word “feel” as in “I feel…” or “…makes me feel…” And even the ones that don’t explicitly contain the word “feel” contain some overt reference to emotion.
I have noticed this trend among certain other contemporary poets and have been wondering if it could be indicative of something like a New Confessionalism?
I still have his first poem he ever let me read secreted away. He wrote it at least four years ago and it remains not only one of my favourites pieces, but is light-years beyond the ability of most. Prathna’s writing is always exciting, relentlessly intriguing, and completely true.
(there’s a secret heart that still daydreams of you)
-A.
I still have his first poem he ever let me read secreted away. He wrote it at least four years ago and it remains not only one of my favourites pieces, but is light-years beyond the ability of most. Prathna’s writing is always exciting, relentlessly intriguing, and completely true.
(there’s a secret heart that still daydreams of you)
-A.
i’ve always considered the “i feel” as concessions to an inherent subjectivity one cannot transcend, thus more modest in approach. but yes, the aesthetic is very saturated.
i’ve always considered the “i feel” as concessions to an inherent subjectivity one cannot transcend, thus more modest in approach. but yes, the aesthetic is very saturated.
i’ve been thinking the same thing, christopher.
i’ve been thinking the same thing, christopher.
i get that emo is short for emotional, but i always sort of associated the term emo with some sort of pathetic way of using a play at emotion in order to represent some sort of depth. i personally don’t find prathna’s poems to be pretending in any sort of emotion, i don’t feel that they are fake or there to dupe us into some sort of false sincerity, but i could be reading into this wrong, both emo and prathna’s poetry, maybe i’m really emo, howlin wolf was probably pretty emo, all of the blues is probably really emo since it’s all about women leaving and then how you didn’t really know you loved her til after you buried her, not that that’s sort of pussy of them, but, i think, probably, that i took this too far, this whatever i typed just now, and quite frankly we are all entitled to our own opinions, and it’s poetry, which is real easy to get all uppity about anyway, and chris i’m just glad you took the time to read it, as i like the book and am glad when people can at least take the time to look at something i care about, regardless of their opinions, alright, ok. i’m not sure that saying “i feel” is necessarily indicative of a new confessionalism, as that implies that the “i” is the author speaking and not simply the narrator of the poem, which does not need to be the author, but again, i’m essentially just. whatever. i have no business typing this right now, i’m only barely aware of what i’m saying, i hope everyone here is well.
i get that emo is short for emotional, but i always sort of associated the term emo with some sort of pathetic way of using a play at emotion in order to represent some sort of depth. i personally don’t find prathna’s poems to be pretending in any sort of emotion, i don’t feel that they are fake or there to dupe us into some sort of false sincerity, but i could be reading into this wrong, both emo and prathna’s poetry, maybe i’m really emo, howlin wolf was probably pretty emo, all of the blues is probably really emo since it’s all about women leaving and then how you didn’t really know you loved her til after you buried her, not that that’s sort of pussy of them, but, i think, probably, that i took this too far, this whatever i typed just now, and quite frankly we are all entitled to our own opinions, and it’s poetry, which is real easy to get all uppity about anyway, and chris i’m just glad you took the time to read it, as i like the book and am glad when people can at least take the time to look at something i care about, regardless of their opinions, alright, ok. i’m not sure that saying “i feel” is necessarily indicative of a new confessionalism, as that implies that the “i” is the author speaking and not simply the narrator of the poem, which does not need to be the author, but again, i’m essentially just. whatever. i have no business typing this right now, i’m only barely aware of what i’m saying, i hope everyone here is well.
i think these are valid comments. and i think you should say what you want to say. i don’t have anything to add to this right now–going to think about it for a while. but this got my mind going.
i think these are valid comments. and i think you should say what you want to say. i don’t have anything to add to this right now–going to think about it for a while. but this got my mind going.
i have no doubt i probably said what i wanted to say. it was late. i’d been drinking. i’d biked from one end of philly to another. i think what chris said was valid, i just didn’t feel the same way, and also didn’t fully understand the new confessionalism thing. but i don’t know much about poetry or its history. anyway. so. yeah. i’m tired. i wish house was on instead of law and order, but it isn’t, but jeff goldblum’s there, so i mean, at least that’s something.
i have no doubt i probably said what i wanted to say. it was late. i’d been drinking. i’d biked from one end of philly to another. i think what chris said was valid, i just didn’t feel the same way, and also didn’t fully understand the new confessionalism thing. but i don’t know much about poetry or its history. anyway. so. yeah. i’m tired. i wish house was on instead of law and order, but it isn’t, but jeff goldblum’s there, so i mean, at least that’s something.
i don’t think christopher meant that emo business or the idea of a new confessionalism in a negative way. emo was not really doing anything new. there’s a reason people respond to and enjoy expressing ‘feelings’ i think. confessionalism was a big hit for a reason and so is the recent wave of this kind of poetry in the last, say, five years or so. although it is becoming much more widespread. i dunno why i’m talking about this. i think house is on hulu, btw.
i don’t think christopher meant that emo business or the idea of a new confessionalism in a negative way. emo was not really doing anything new. there’s a reason people respond to and enjoy expressing ‘feelings’ i think. confessionalism was a big hit for a reason and so is the recent wave of this kind of poetry in the last, say, five years or so. although it is becoming much more widespread. i dunno why i’m talking about this. i think house is on hulu, btw.
Sasha,
As Alfred Jarry speculated, I did not mean any of my comments to be negative. And I certainly didn’t intend to imply that the emotions conveyed in the text were pretend. My point was to share what I noticed, and then speculate about the possible ramifications of my findings.
You raise an interesting point when you say that the “I” in Lor’s poetry does not necessarily imply the author personally, but could in fact be a narrator. This is an obvious distinction one makes when talking about fiction, but when discussing poetry I’m not sure I would automatically make that leap.
I tend to read poetry as nonfiction rather than fiction. (If that makes sense.) In other words, I tend to go into the act of reading a poem with an “I” narrator under the assumption that what I am reading is a personal articulation, unless, of course, the poem makes a strong enough gesture toward indicating itself to be a persona poem. This is not something we talk about when we talk about fiction: the persona fiction. It is typically just assumed with fiction that the narrator is not the author, that all acts of fiction are some kind of persona. I don’t think this is the case with poetry.
In terms of my raising the idea of a New Confessionalism, I am referring to a seeming connection with (or contrariness to) the tropes typically associated with Confessionalism or Confessional Poetry, as it has come to be know in literary history.
One example would be M.L. Rosenthal using the term “poetry of confession” to describe a movement or trend in poetry in the the late 50s-early 60s that tried to pull the mask off the poet and expose his/her vulnerability.
Ultimately, the question I wanted to raise was this: does Lor’s poetry expose the poet (as it would if it were what Rosenthal called confessional) or does Lor’s poetry attempt subterfuge? Furthermore, could subterfuge actually be the new form of Confessionalism?
Sasha,
As Alfred Jarry speculated, I did not mean any of my comments to be negative. And I certainly didn’t intend to imply that the emotions conveyed in the text were pretend. My point was to share what I noticed, and then speculate about the possible ramifications of my findings.
You raise an interesting point when you say that the “I” in Lor’s poetry does not necessarily imply the author personally, but could in fact be a narrator. This is an obvious distinction one makes when talking about fiction, but when discussing poetry I’m not sure I would automatically make that leap.
I tend to read poetry as nonfiction rather than fiction. (If that makes sense.) In other words, I tend to go into the act of reading a poem with an “I” narrator under the assumption that what I am reading is a personal articulation, unless, of course, the poem makes a strong enough gesture toward indicating itself to be a persona poem. This is not something we talk about when we talk about fiction: the persona fiction. It is typically just assumed with fiction that the narrator is not the author, that all acts of fiction are some kind of persona. I don’t think this is the case with poetry.
In terms of my raising the idea of a New Confessionalism, I am referring to a seeming connection with (or contrariness to) the tropes typically associated with Confessionalism or Confessional Poetry, as it has come to be know in literary history.
One example would be M.L. Rosenthal using the term “poetry of confession” to describe a movement or trend in poetry in the the late 50s-early 60s that tried to pull the mask off the poet and expose his/her vulnerability.
Ultimately, the question I wanted to raise was this: does Lor’s poetry expose the poet (as it would if it were what Rosenthal called confessional) or does Lor’s poetry attempt subterfuge? Furthermore, could subterfuge actually be the new form of Confessionalism?