What image does your mind conjure for the word “poet?” Personally, I flip between a love-struck Victorian, quill in hand, sighing as he contemplates his muse and a hemp-sandaled, beret-wearing beatnik whose only regret in life is not being born soon enough to read “On the Road” before it was mainstream.
Whatever your mental image of someone who publishes a book of poetry, it probably doesn’t look like Brian Baumann, a Catholic former arborist and engineer who joined the military, only to struggle with PTSD and alcoholism after the war.
“Sarcastic Hope” is a collection of 50 of Brian’s poems written over a period of 30 years, starting in his teens. This, in itself, is brave. I’m sure I wrote some poems as a teen, and I’m even more sure I don’t want anyone, including myself, to ever see them. It isn’t for nothing that, in the preface to this section, he describes these poems as being the product “of hormones, naiveté, and ignorant honesty.”
The rhyming and verse of the poems of his youth are rigid. All but one of them are ballad stanzas (ABCB) and most all of them have the same skipping meter. While this form is revisited in some later poems, his style evolves as he ages. Most rhyme, most have a discernible rhythm, but their forms and styles loosen up as the author becomes more comfortable with branching out.
One poem I particularly like is entitled “Peace as You Go.” Brian mentions at the start of his book that the poems are best read aloud, and this poem is a good example of one that definitely is. It is a litany of life’s common complaints put into paired rhyming lines that roll quickly off the tongue. After each pair there is a line break and the words “Peace as you go.”
These cause the reader to pause and break the rhythm of negativity and make it a litany to be repeated when you feel agitated. It acknowledges that, yes, there’s a lot in a day that can suck, but walking in peace is a choice you can make in the midst of it.
This peace is rooted within the author’s faith as shown by the final lines which begin,
“Quiet dear one
Gaze on the Son”
The poems in “Sarcastic Hope” range in topics from family to war, love, faith, wood cutting, childhood and more. There’s even a Jabberwocky-type nonsense poem called “Dilly of the Grump.” Many were written by the author as a way to cope with life, especially his post-war poems when his fight with PTSD and depression were the fiercest. They often try more to give voice to a desperate cry for help than to wow an audience with clever word play. “Battle Cry” simply ends with “HELP ME!”
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most qualified person to review a book of poetry. An English degree will only take you so far, and I don’t have the breadth of knowledge of modern poetry which would enable me to compare “Sarcastic Hope” to other contemporary works. I can say who would benefit most from this book though.
First and foremost, this book may benefit people who know others who suffer from PTSD. Not all the poems are about it but the PTSD poems are the most viscerally felt ones which may enable those who don’t suffer from it to see better through the lens of their friends or family members who do. The second major group I’d recommend it for are the people who intentionally seek out local authors as Brian lives here in Manhattan. Of course, if you already like poetry books then there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it as well, but you probably already knew that.
“Sarcastic Hope” is self-published but is available in print on Amazon or as an eBook through the Kindle or Nook store.
