This is a short chapbook by George Bilgere who was a recent winner of a Rattle Chapbook contest Bilgere has previously published several full length poetry collections Bilgere has an amazing facility to capture life in contemporary America for the middle aged and middle class His work is imaginative emotional and humorous A great delight to read My husband who doesn t generally read poetry has now and then settled down in his chair to read a few Bilgere poems and I m always amused and pleased to hear his appreciative chuckles. com Paperback 25 March 2024I picked up this book excited to hate it because you see it was a winner in a contest that I also entered but it won and I didn t and one of life s simple little joys is reading the things that you lost and somebody else won and to understand the true merits that it wasn t because you were lacking but because the people in charge as they so often do have no taste. This book was to that end an absolute disappointment masterfully crafted a twenty minute read you couldn t even cook dinner in the time it takes to get from one end to the other and so small a packaging of the entirety of a life that it might as well be the contents of an urn upturned usefully into the hydrangeas It s clever without being pointedly so reminiscent without being either wistful or wishful and full of pieces tied with bows so tidy you d think he d sent it out to be professionally gift wrapped It seems alas that the satisfaction of others errors will have to wait for another day Paperback I like this chapbook I like these poems Many of them made me smile a few brought a tear and all of them took me back to earlier times when life seemed so much simpler Bilgere has published eight poetry collections so far and his poems show the skilled hand of a pro The cheap motel he describes in Cheap Motels of My Youth where he stayed while interviewing for a job in the middle of nowhere brings me back to some less than stellar lodgings I have occupied Chance of getting the job one in a hundred Lip sticked cigarette butt under the bed Toilet seat with its paper band Sanitized for Your Protection dead roach floating in the bowl Now I need to go find those other eight collections Paperback This chapbook is a delight from start to finish From the pitch perfect gem Nine which opens it George Bilgere s subject is time and he approaches it with clearly eyed deftness in poems that are unsentimental but deeply moving Paperback I thoroughly enjoyed reading Cheap Motels of My Youth Bilgere s poems are multi dimensional funny even profound They remind me of small sci fi stories in which the main character acts out commands built into his genes his ancestors live so closely within him There I am for a flash an instant and there is my grandfather my great great grandfather Dreamer This was my introduction to Bilgere it won t be my last meeting with him Paperback In Cheap Motels of My Youth George Bilgere continues his explorations both funny and poignant of modern life in America The collection deals loosely with the subjects of divorce sexuality and American culture from the 1950s to today The poems vary in tone from the fairly serious to the reflective and meditative to the wryly comic Bilgere is a writer who will risk wild laughter in poems that are totally heartfelt that delight in the twists and turns of the glorious American language Cheap Motels of My YouthHere is my favorite AvocadosMy son comes into the kitchenand asks if he can have an avocado. Avocados represent an immense stepfor him an evolutionary leapfar beyond the narrow confinesof cornflakes whereinhe has dwelt for so long The breastthe cornflake the avocado such has been his journey thus far. Want some cornflakes instead No thanks he says and wanders backinto the world of being five while I I m doing the dishes at this point I start thinking about ripeningand how glad I am that it takes timeand his own ripeningwill be years in the making YearsI say aloud enjoying that longluxurious syllable like a catstretching out on my tongueas Michael comes in againit s been five minutesand asks Are they ripe yet No not quite yet. Want some cornflakes in the meantime That s OK he says I ll wait from Cheap Motels of My Youth Paperback I knew when I saw George Bilgere announced as a Rattle chapbook winner that this was going to be good And it is George writes with grace precision and humor I have dog eared many pages and I would pull some grand quotes if I could find where I stashed the book But I didn t want to hesitate to get this review up and encourage y all to dive in Highly recommend Paperback This book was a gift The giver has my undying love From the first poem Nine which begins I am standing by the pop machine at the gas station drinking a root beer I was pulled in I was nine once and loved root beer I relate to this kid who brought back happy childhood memories Daddy really grabbed me It begins Pallas Athena took my poetry course one summer a few years back gave me chuckles As a veteran of the Women s Army Corps I was somewhat familiar with Pallas Athena and the mental image of her taking a poetry course under an alias well it was a chuckle out loud moment. His poem Insult to Injury has one of my favorite lines ever Holding a pistol is like shaking hands with death His description farther down the poem of shooting a book brought another laugh out loud. This book holds many insights into how Bilgere saw his youth into adulthood which he brings full circle with the last poem Salad It begins describing his parents in their back yard before he was born and ends with him repeating the scene in his own life. These poems are accessible No deep hidden meaning at least I didn t see any the language is understandable the poems are easy to read and I dare say most if not all readers will find poems they connect with that will bring long lost and possibly forgotten happy childhood memories in their lives to the fore Paperback The second last poem in this collection ends as the day dwindles and their cigarettes flare like stars it looks as if happiness can start a small fire anywhere Many of these poems spark small fires Bilgere knows backyards and the sounds and smells of a summer spent grilling This is a celebration of happiness in changing a morning routine to the train station watching a pregnant woman multitasking and using the misting setting on the garden hose Many of the poems take one step back into the past and then step forward his parents in 1948 in Salad become the present as he grills hamburgers and his wife makes a salad in Front Page his grandparents purchase the tablewhere his family is now reading the newspaper and enjoying pancakes and syrup and in I Heard a Fly Buzz he recounts misreading the clock by an hour and how he has saved this hour for the future. The poems like avocados in the poem by the same name ripen slowly with each reading Paperback This is my seventh book by George Bilgere what can I possibly say My friends already know he s my favorite poet and it s not an insult to them since I have a long list of poets I regard as 5 star If the hotel stays of his youth had been 5 star I dare say hewouldn t be half as good He carries his wounds proudly and can juggle nostalgia worry tenderness and laugh out loud moments in a single poem I began my Bilgere readings before he had two little boys who have made his writing tender and him worried about age. How am I supposed to knowthat an old white haired guya grown up is watching mefrom his desk in the future Paperback

Cheap Motels of My Youth By George Bilgere

1931307563

9781931307567

English

40

Paperback

Billy Collins once commented that poet George Bilgere has shown that imaginative wonders and deep emotional truths can be achieved with plain colloquial American speech Bilgere has done so in his six collections of poetry most recently Imperial Pitt Poetry Series His numerous awards include the May Swenson Poetry Award and a Pushcart Prize A professor of English at John Carroll University in Cleveland he is also host of the public radio program WORDPLAY an offbeat mix of poetry and comedy Billy Collins once commented that poet George Bilgere has shown that imaginative wonders and deep emotional truths can be achieved with plain colloquial American speech Bilgere has done so in his six collections of poetry most recently Imperial Pitt Poetry Series His numerous awards include the May Swenson Poetry Award and a Pushcart Prize A professor of English at John Carroll University in Cleveland he is also host of the public radio program WORDPLAY an offbeat mix of poetry and comedy site_link.

, A vo ca do he says loving the weightof each green syllable on his tongue. I never quote much from a chapbook but the first poem Nine is the perfect set upfor all that follows He is hanging out by the pop machine at a gas station and thinks, Actually I feel sorryfor grown ups with their necktiestheir dark jackets and serious talk.The chapbook is available directly from Rattle.You ll have to waituntil they re ripe I tell him