The Hogbutcher Poems reviewed by Mike Begnal

Mike Begnal reviewed The Hogbutcher Poems by David Stone:

Review:

Following on from David Stone’s previous chapbook The Bloodhound Works of last fall, Propaganda Press/Alternating Current has released his newest installment, The Hogbutcher Poems.  Though Stone is based in Baltimore, both of these collections are set in Chicago where he has spent time, and the title of this latest must certainly be in part a reference to Chicago poet Carl Sandburg, who famously described the city as “Hog Butcher for the World.”

That said, the term “Hogbutcher” here can have other resonances.  Where Stone’s previous chapbook dealt with our present economic upheaval, this new one seems to focus on the environment, the food industry, and our alienation from the processes by which we glean our own sustenance, all of it poisoned and redolent of death.  In one poem, 

The

incandescent DEAD

[...]

[...] splash

& crispen

on the oily griddle.

In another, the water supply is full of sulphur, benzene, radioactive waste.  In “In Hogbutcher City,” 

Odors

of death

[...]

[...] prepare carcasses

with seasonings

for family picnics

[...]

“Production Scheduling” is perhaps a comment on the factory farming system — baby piglets are slaughtered according to a production model, and, 

[...]

Wait, one is alive

and blinking.

OK, I can fix that

with my tire iron.

Stone’s vision is often violent and apocalyptic, but it is little details such as these that make us see the connection between the horror and our daily lives.  These are not poems for the faint-hearted, but both subject and form (often clipped, prose-like, philosophical iterations of ideas and images) force us to reexamine contemporary society and the wider world in which we live.  Stone’s work is highly recommended.