A Good Review

What follows is an awesome book review from writer and friend Westley Heine. The review means more to me, because it is from a writer that I admire and learn from, too.

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Dan Denton has done it again with How to Meditate in Hell, a tight chapbook full of brilliant turns of phrase. Over the last few years I have become steeped in the poetry scene in this country. I have read many great writers, but I cannot think of a more relevant poet than Dan Denton. With his background as a factory worker, as a Union Steward, as one who has lived on the skids, and a true witness to the front-lines of the Rustbelt, Dan is in a unique position to comment on this crumbling America and bridge the voice of the working class with the artistic intelligentsia.

Many fine poets write with their influences on their sleeves be it the Beats, Hip-hop, Slam etc. Dan Denton writes from the heart in %100 his own voice. The world doesn’t need another college boy pretending he’s still tough (I’m guilty), or another hard drinking cynic spitting into the abyss (also guilty). I feel strongly that if somehow working class people in this country could be exposed to Dan’s work many minds would be changed and fewer Americans would keep voting against their own interests. Yet most people are too busy trying to survive paycheck to paycheck to read poetry. At least more of us aging hipsters are reading Dan Denton and, despite being know-it-alls, see how a true street poet keeps it real and writes with compassion.

Few people write good political poetry. I have suffered many an open mic where poets put the news into a damn sonnet. However, Dan always writes about our times with a hot take. Poems like I Am Waiting, What Would They Have Without Us?, Lament for the American Worker, and Fight Song for The Underdog illustrate our world from a creative angle, always from the ground up, and with a fist in the air lyricism. I don’t mean dense flowery lyricism but the kind of straight to the gut wit of Johnny Cash saying what he means in a fashion everyday people can love.

I think of how James Joyce is the hailed artistic genius of the early twentieth century writers, but most of the population doesn’t know what he was trying to say. It was Hemingway who purposely wrote about deep feelings and ideas using simple language who broke through. Revolutions are made by winning the hearts of the people not preaching to the academic choir.

His poem When the Hours Are Good perfectly articulates how when the proletariat prospers everyone prospers. It makes me think of the ongoing debate that AI and automation will make workers obsolete. From a supply side that may be cost effective, but it fails to consider that if no one is working then there will be no one to buy the shit in the first place from the demand side.

This acid soaked art student has learned a lot from Dan Denton. Sure I have had my own struggles, but since 2015 I have conned my way into white collar work. I remember the town I’m from in Wisconsin and the strike at the Tyson factory, how in the summer the Friskies factory would make the whole town smell like cat food, or how my Dad would smuggle sausage out of the meat packing plant for us in the 80’s. Then thanks to student loan debt and my father’s sweat I was able to leave that town for college in Chicago. There, before I found my people, I discovered Bukowski who wrote about factory life. Buk reminded me of my uncles (a clan of other big Germanic Ogres), and I always remembered that this was what life was really like, and how lucky I was to have escaped the assembly line to chase my muse.

His personal poems must also be applauded from Snapping Out of It to the title poem How to Meditate in Hell where he explains struggling with stress and mental illness in a world that has itself gone mad. Last time I saw Dan I was excited to point out a poem of mine called Zen In Hell from my new collection, thinking we’ve tapped a common theme. Now having actually read his poem it has sent me back to the drawing board. In a recent review of my new book, author Ryan Mathews said he had to read my surreal poem Zen in Hell four times before he liked it. Surreal visions are simply how my own personal madness manifests. Yet, How to Meditate in Hell is immediately powerful, and vitally helpful to anyone struggling with the world being on fire. I treasure how his work inspires me and hope to continue this dialogue on how to get the word out.

Someone needs to edit a comprehensive collection of all of Dan’s best poems, and there are so many. Someone needs to record him reading at the top of his lungs for a spoken word record in the style of Rage Against the Machine meets Charlie Mingus. Someone needs to adapt his novels The Dead and the Desperate and $100 Motel into indie feature films. Someone needs to get his work in schools and on the street. I am waiting. As always, we'll likely have to do it ourselves.

To get a copy of the new chapbook $6:

PayPal @dandenton1978

CashApp $dandentonpoet

Venmo:@DanDenton78 last 4 of phone is 8060

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I do have copies available

Here are some of Wes’ books that you should check out. I love all of them.

this book is working class gold. It’s like the show Taxi but with a lot less laughter.

songs and stories and poems from his days of busking on the Chicago streets. Wes also performed at the Chicago Blues Festival.

Poetry that’s real, relevant and good.

a book that surprised me. It’s like a long dream sequence. It’s like something Jim Morrison would have written if he was a better writer.

His latest, Cloud Watching in the Inferno from Roadside Press, also surprised me. I was expecting poetry, and he delivers, but there’s also some pretty incredible short stories here, too.

That's all.

Love,

Dan