Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

The alphabet soup that flows from a writer?s veins, through the pen and out on paper is as magical a process as the delivery of a really good joke. Prime Time Apparitions is really just that?a collection of journalistic prose and poetry with great delivery which offers readers a delightful joyride on the bouncy road of life.

Born in the Philippines and raised in Hawaii, R. Zamora Linmark?s new work in Prime Time Apparition is upfront and honest. From the confessional to homoeroticism, Linmark lifts the rug under which life?s ills have been swept, turns this dust into art, and points out the world the way a curator guides a group through a museum. Linmark seems to address The Ugly Truth by saying if you don?t like what you see, well, too bad, here it is.

It was an absolute treat to see this book open up with ?A Letter to Claire Danes from a Fan in Manila? (see excerpt) which addresses actress Claire Danes? disdain for the Philippines upon filming Brokedown Palace (1999) which ultimately led to the unofficial ban of all her films in Manila.

Dear Claire?
It is ghastly indeed: this city
Crowded with cockroaches and people
who walk without legs, drive long
chrome-plated coffins without arms,
and stare imperiously at you
without eyes. Not to mention
squatters sleeping on stilts,
island panhandlers, again without arms
and legs, highway beggars,
again without eyes and hair,
and sidewalk dwellers whose walls
are painted with huge signs
reminding people not to dump trash,
piss, shit. By the way,
how was San Francisco? Are you now
back in the East, Boston or Manhattan,
that is?

The surreality of Prime Time Apparitions is that you can chuckle with a certain heaviness in your gut knowing that the absurdities Linmark describes are truly laughable, but the subject matter is also an assessment of years of underlying injustices. Read backwards or forwards, Prime Time Apparitions was enjoyable from end to end. Other books by Linmark include Rolling the R?s, which he has also adapted for the stage. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies such as Bamboo Ridge, Zyzzva, Charlie Chan is Dead 1 and 2, and Hanging Loose. Prime Time Apparitions is his first collection of poems.

Be Sociable, Share!

•