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Biblical allusions mix it up with the pathological forensics of turbulent dreamscapes and decompressed nightmares in Chris Mansel's collection of poems The Ashes of Thoreau. The acute and unsettling juxtapositions of persons and places surface in the process of an anquished poesis, where disjunctive amalgamations reflect the historic & mythic images within the cocoon of quotidian daylight.

One perhaps may be struck by a thought-image of Arthur Rimbaud in a street brawl with Lautremont and Artaud, the knives flashing as decoy while the kicks aim for the pricks. Throughout these pages, there are recurring references to Conrad's Kurtz; to the agonies of the Christ; and to some very concrete... More > echoes of Dada also, flavoring much of the scattershot imagery laid bare in these lines.

Boschian evocations lurk within and through these poems, while the sexual/excremental anguishes of Artaud are re-heard in the daily asylum we traverse via our sensory apparatus. The poet's own torments and challenges weave throughout, with many questions, so many questions. The heavy burden of inhabiting the body, the dream baggage of too many restless nights ... these subjects are the content of much of these poems.

In counterbalance however, the title poem is the most upbeat - nature as a writing-trigger; nature as salvage AND salvation for the jaded and weary mind; nature as antidote to the very psychopathologies of too much Modern Life. These poetic offerings by Chris Mansel show us the value of suffering as it becomes transformed into the ignition of a creative fire - the poesis of gestated darkness. < Less

These poems are a broad collection of the kinds of sorcery Chris Mansel performs with words. From tenderness to terror they are evidence not of a mind unhinged, but a mind without doors or walls. No inhibitions here. If Antonin Artaud were alive to read this he'd kiss Chris Mansel with poison lips, out of admiration and envy.

Chris Mansel conjures up unforgettable and haunting images in "The Ashes of Thoreau." His poetry is word magic at its most fascinating!