The Devil’s Garden

Using musical allusion and metaphor, juxtaposing history and autobiography, Matejka navigates a triracial identity. In these poems, having too many heritages means having no heritage at all. As a result, cultural identifiers–be they afros, war paint, or William Shatner–take the place of identity. Vibrant narrative lyrics use image as riff, syllable as note, to improvise on a personal history severed from tradition.

Betwixt and Between

Miscegenation’s capitol is the mule. Not quite horse,
almost donkey. No useful erection to speak of. In any unnatural concoction,
somebody’s got to take the blame. Freud would say credit the mother if props are necessary. Mulattos are human mules–half black, most times more than half white–misogynous on a good day. All the while,
impotent between tribes. Blame: gift of the exotic,
like Hendrix opening for the Monkees, or Othello key holed by Iago. Blessed be he with the hybrid vigor of melanin, arrested between the sun and the sun.

Reading Adrian Matejka’s amazing debut, I was left with the feeling that American Poetry was at last beginning to catch up with early twenty-first century American life. He has written the first serious songs from a world that’s about to make itself felt and known.–Cornelius Eady