Sinew: Muscle Poems & Mantras, Bar Rants & Bliss Paperback – November 4, 2015

Had I not known poet John Arends, I might not have purchased his debut chapbook "Sinew: Muscle Poems and Mantras, Bar Rants and Bliss," thinking the contents too machismo for my taste. The cover features a single arrowhead, bound in leather, undeniably phallic, and when paired with the title--But I had heard Arends read his work at Waterline Studios in Batavia, IL, and knew him to be a poet of substance and generosity. As I read his poetry in "Sinew," I noticed a focus on "skin," which, along with "sinew," rang a biblical bell. Turning to the Book of Job, I found mention of "sinew" in the tenth chapter: "Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh and hast fenced me with bones and sinew." (Note: A poetic description of God making a baby in the womb.) Had Arends's "Sinew" announced the birth of his love child--these poems, which I held in my hands? Perhaps!The landscape of "Sinew" seems to be connections. In a difficult world, man bonds with his mate, children, nature, and humanity. In the end, nothing lasts, a truth threading through the final poems as the poet contemplates aging. Mood and themes are varied, but Arends has a grip on what unites man and woman, keeps families together, and links strangers. Scattered throughout the chapbook are lonely musings of a traveling man, the poignant snap of memory, and concern for beasts of the world."Candlelight" is erotic with wonderful lines; among them, "...passion...comes undeniable upon you in this amber, salsa-fired light." "Moss Rose at Dawn" is lyrical, expressing wonder at "...your face in shape and promise, both flower and flight, moss rose and gull wing, alike in elegance..." Travel brings estrangement, as expressed in "Hard Glass, Hard Times": We are naked in our travels, all pretense exposed, all rudeness at the skin, all odorous attitudes tucked under the arms like the Times." "Dirty Socks," the first poem, pays tribute to a young daughter, acknowledging that he missed much of her life due to requirements of earning a living.Arends addresses the plight of a zoo inhabitant in "The Last Bear," which did not survive deprivations caused by the two-hundred-day siege of Sarajevo: "Everywhere the scum on the moat walls were shallow furrows scraped by tooth and claw." He writes of the brutalities of the Bosnian War in "In the Blood" where ethnic cleansing happens because it is what "blood" dictates. "Most of all the blood is in the words, ripe in the jaw..." "Feathers Lost" shows the poet giving way to aloneness: "I lock my wings to the wind and close my eyes to dream."Arends's poems demonstrate muscularity in their inexorable zest for life. If I were to guess some of the mantras by which the poet lives, I would say The Golden Rule and an open heart. Bar rants--okay, but they are quiet rants (no one throws a bottle at the mirror), and bliss--yes, he sometimes finds a calm bliss that comes as a result of caring. "Sinew" leaves the reader with an sense of eager anticipation. What can we expect from John Arends's next collection of poems?

"Sinew" is intense, powerful and moving. Arends' vivid imagery and compelling language make the reader truly feel the horror of the man dragged into the Bosnian woods with "no shoes, a torn shirt and his pants to his knees," and the grief of the "matrons of the maquiladoras: the mothers of the miscarried, the misshapen, the children born with fist-like feet." But his poems also reveal the beauty of daily family life and the joy of a man astonished by his luck in waking up every day next to the woman he loves.