Review: Sweetiebetter by Terry Minchow-Proffitt

In the broad and varied tradition of American poetry, there has always been room for aspirations right beside hard truths, for optimism and darkness. In Sweetiebetter, the latest collection of poetry from Terry Michow-Proffitt, this tradition is upheld in stark and surprising fashion, through simple language, deep cultural cuts, and simple themes that percolate into much larger ideas.

Like a mystical journalist, Minchow-Proffitt firmly grounds these poems in the tangible, but there is a surreal subtlety to certain selections, where his thoughts meander outside the real, into the shadowy realms of memory and belief. There are people and muscles and sweat and fists and pumping blood, but there are also hopes and visions, broken systems and forgotten towns, creating the sense of both fullness and isolation in these pieces.

These poems unfurl at gas stations and racetracks, in the eye of storms and the stormy mind’s eye, leaving readers hanging on every word, dangling over the precipice of imagination. As a starkly American collection, someone can walk down the anonymous avenues of unknown towns and still find sparks of recognition, points of connection and relativity to the underlying American essence we all understand, but can rarely pinpoint with words. Minchow-Proffitt has found the right words, bound them up in a nebulous zip code, and invited us all in to explore his discovery.

In “Good Friday,” banal scenes become stacked with existential weight, while “All This Apocalyptic Pandemonium” teases global crises through the lens of forgotten language, examining destruction and creation from an unexpectedly playful angle. These sudden emotional turns show the poet’s dexterity – the mental acrobatics of a lifelong observer. “A Good Man” is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and the exposure of such simple portraits happens throughout this collection, giving readers small breaths between the bigger notions. Some poems read slow, like thoughtful invocations, while others rush along, following the lead of American speed with grit and impatience.

The collection is reminiscent of different poets who have revolutionized the world of verse as we know it, and given new perspective on the US at a given time and place, while being in no way derivative. From Emerson to Whitman, Bukowski to William Carlos Williams, there is both complexity and beautiful simplicity in these lines, and in the spaces between, in the words left unsaid. Even with that honorable company, Minchow-Proffitt stands out with a distinctly different voice, touching on both obscure cultural references and unifying figures. A few poems stick out more than others, with awkward line breaks or unclear meanings, but there are no misplaced poems in the collection. Not every poem will be for every reader, but this is true of any collection worth its salt.

All told, these poems will satisfy the discerning palette, but also have enough edge, roughness and righteousness for new readers of the medium. Like the labyrinthine nature of America, the collection is both hard-hitting and open-armed, alternating between heaviness and subtlety, sometimes within the same line.