Samuel Strathman's "In Flocks of Three to Five": A review

“Those who hard-knuckle with their illnesses

face plant in the mare’s nest, ignored”

By now I’ve written a dozen or so reviews, have tried my hand at the objective; but what I personally crave in reviews myself is the roaring subjective. I can’t tell you which school of thought Samuel Strathman belongs to, which techniques are used in which stanzas and whatnot; but what I can tell you is that in the throes of a mental illness episode, reading the quote above was the much-needed balm to my own mental illness.

In his debut chapbook by Anstruther press, Samuel Strathman creates a pathology of survival. The poems themselves are named by day, month, year. days numbered to pass, days where the throes of mental illness made poetry a pathos, wakening the senses. “True eloquence is birdsong” the poet says, and leads us down the thoughtladder that extends from each word downwards into our emotions.

Strathman’s poems are densely populated, if not with peoples and creatures, then with the implements created by them. 

“I don’t know when,

but I’m going to vault this mess

of modern technology and lassitude

for the intrinsic”

Strathman makes wounds blossom into remedy, and paves a path for survival through the thickets of struggle. His poems are morbidly hopeful and beautifully grotesque. I found much needed companionship in his words and hopefully many others will do so as well.

the perfect end to this “Review” is perhaps the last few words of the chapbook itself:

“Inhale the smoke

that leaks from the gun—

it’s just like medicine

but heals faster”