Review of Joshua Michael Stewart’s THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF DHARMA BUMS BY Heidi Blakeslee

This book is delightfully twofold.  The first section is 34 pgs of what Stewart calls “sculpted poems.”  The words from each poem are taken from different chapters of Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums.”  The effort used to extract the beautiful and interesting words from each page is well spent.  The project is a literary experiment that makes me want to try one of my own.  The tone throughout this section is at times disjointed with odd abutments and at other times karmic and smooth.  

8.

Trackless snow along a white farmhouse,

dogs bark through the void.

Li Po getting drunk on God— drinking

a whole new way of living.

I’m sick of civilization.

We can’t drive back home.

Maybe it won’t be so cold tonight.

I’ll light a bonfire by nightfall.

Past adventures bless my boyhood.

Grave eyes cry like birds.

The second part of the work is poetry with subjects pertaining to the hermit life.  Some lines are a mutation of Buddhist nature fantasy; others are lovingly devoted to talking about cats.  Still others speak to a personal history of healing from a difficult childhood.  Each poem is rich, a feast for the mind.

 Something must also be said about the strength of the nature imagery in here.  As a perpetual woods-wanderer growing up in rural western Pa, I can attest to the magic of trees.  To me Stewart’s work came off as an autoethnography of self-isolation and the healing powers of meditation.  Throughout this section Stewart expands upon his style of flash-memoir, (as opposed to flash fiction,) writing paragraphs about his experiences in nature. These paragraphs are juxtaposed next to 3-5 short lines of poetry, some of which are Tanka and haiku.  The combination of those two forms drew me further into the book.  

Above all, every poem is meticulously and tenderly worded.  This isn’t a stream of consciousness writer who goes all willy-nilly in this book.  The Dharma here is the truth of Stewart’s soul laid bare.  Some of the poems, like “To life,” add a layer of depth to the work that feels welcome amidst the other themes.  Hell, if I can spend time reading poems that other people have written about cats, then I will do so.

To Life

To the cat, I’m no more than a stepladder-- a tool for look-

ing out the window. From here on the bed, I see a scribble 

of branches, the occasional flash of bird, and the dusty

underside of drawn-up blinds.  The cat reports on the ground 

activity. His chatters indicate the robin’s return.  His yowls

announce that the calico next-door is all belly and paws in a 

patch of sun. Today, there are no big questions I’ll ask or try 

to answer. Instead, I’ll fold my hands on my chest, and tap a

finger along to my neighbor’s hammer as he pounds some-

thing beautiful and strong to life.

                                             sundown

                                             sunrise

                                             a butterfly

                                             opens and closes

                                             its wings”

In short, Joshua Michael Stewart’s The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums from Human Error Publishing is an exquisite read.  I’m really glad I read it during the first week of spring.

Joshua Michael Stewart has had poems published in the Massachusetts Review, Louisville Review, Rattle, Night Train, Evansville Review, Cold Mountain Review, and many others. His first full-length collection of poems, Break Every String, was published by Hedgerow Books in April 2016. He received his BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and lives in Ware, Massachusetts. He’s employed as a Teacher/Counselor, working with individuals with special needs.