The Silent Cull and other Mechanical Ideas

About the Book

THE SILENT CULL AND OTHER MECHANICAL IDEAS collects the bulk of long and short poems of Washington DC artist and poet Gabriel Thy, penned and published sparingly over the past twenty-five years into this single volume. Complex and often Beckettesque in his enfilading use of contemporary language, structure, and rhythm, these 166 poems track the “real and unused” experiences informing a rather bleak historical vision the author describes in the very first poem as “the battleground where art and politics beat each other up and few are they who seem the wiser.” Many of these poems offer revealing glimpses into the biographical nature of the works while others assert themselves into the earnest sensitivities and conflicts of the era with brilliant and scathing screeches of self-conscious but courageous wordplay.

THE VISUAL, ORACULAR LANDSCAPE described within these pages is a spiritual one, a rugged landscape which all humanity has struggled to tame. Disparate soft voices turn desperate. The proud fall victim to their own false shadows. Whether these poems attest to their own life and times or of future liasons now approaching, while often difficult to decipher, the reader is always assured of a cultivated argument.

THE VOLUME CONSISTS OF 166 POEMS which range in length of several pages to a dozen or so lines. The table of contents includes both the date and the residential location from which each work was created. The four major locations in chronological order are Lofton Creek, in Nassau County, FL (1980), Corpus Christi, TX (1980-1982), Atlanta, GA (1982-1983), and Washington, DC (1984-2005).

WHILE MANY OF THE WORKS included in this volume will no doubt baffle the reader, the many themes of the poet, including race, religion, riches, art, politics, and literature are threaded and woven in and out of various works. It would have been interesting to have been able to refer to a word index, for many phrases, characters, and historical figures make repeated appearances throughout the book. Many of the more memorable phrases turn up slightly altered, turned on their heads in different contexts, and contort into a diverging purpose.

AT FIRST GLANCE, ONE MIGHT surmise that this book of contemporary poetry might not interest the casual reader of light doggerel, but if any reader suffers even the slightest pretention as a “serious bibliophiliac," an occasional glance at a few pages should turn up a handful of linguistic gems that will have been well worth the spot effort. Rich in irony and irreverent humor, this collection will foster those truly interested in the dark captivity of a mind trying to claw its way out of the wretchedly polarizing culture the poet describes.

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About the Author

Washington, DC poet—Gabriel Thy—has published several out of circulation chapbooks, performing his work on radio and in local venues, and was included in the 1986 publication Semiotext (E),#13, the USA issue, which also featured infamous beat writers Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. He has also begun painting and showing in galleries around the world, including Washington, Los Angeles, and Cairo, Egypt. True to his multi-media roots, in addition to creating video shorts, he also runs an Internet punk rock station called Radio Scenewash.