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(Paris Morning Publications)
Is this poetry
I wondered reading Hitman-Baker-Casketmaker
The first full-length collection from celebrity baker
Klecko, born Danny McGleno
The so-called poems
Read like autobiography
Presented with line breaks, reminiscent of a baker
Used to making heavy loaves of whole wheat bread
Dabbing icing on a cake:
I’ll never forget the time my grandfather
Stopped by my apartment
How his eyes sparkled when he spotted
My Craftsman toolbox on the kitchen table
He opened it without permission
But just as the examination started
His enthusiasm waned
When he noticed the contents were
Fondant molds and pastry tips
To Klecko’s credit
He is never dull, and though the mainstream media
Has fixated on how St. Agnes, his baking company
And official bread provider for Super Bowl LII
Failed an ICE audit and closed
Just days before the big game
This takes up only a baker’s dozen of pages
And the rest of the collection ranges widely
Traveling from San Francisco to New York
With a stop at Buddy Holly’s crash site
Whiskey Willie, a boyfriend of Klecko’s mother’s
Who once brought actual hitman acquaintances
Into their kitchen, figures largely
As does poet Mike Finley and
A mostly absent father:
After a 15-year absence, it was brought to my attention
Father was working a mile from my apartment
In a factory, building caskets
A poem entitled “Mexicans in the Parking Lot”
Appears multiple times and you begin to think
It must be some crazy printer’s mistake
Until the ubiquitous poem
Shows up with only a title, the lines erased
And you realize Klecko is making a statement here
Though being partial to birds I must admit
My favorite poem in the whole collection
Has the poet helping his mother
Dismantle hummingbird feeders:
Then she kissed me and went inside
Leaving me to watch nuthatches and chickadees
Nuthatches eat upside down
And I would have liked to watch them longer
But I didn’t have my mittens and went inside
This is a memorable collection
These are Henry Miller poems
In a rough language that makes even Frank O’Hara
Seem delicate and lyrical
They are certainly not
The finely crafted personal ruminations
Turned out by MFA grads these days
Perhaps they are not poetry at all
But I would prefer to rather broaden poetry
To include Klecko and all baker poets
After all in the Middle Ages
Plays, romances, letters
Even bee-keeping treatises and technical manuals
On warfare were written in verse
Not to mention book reviews
And maybe it is time to bring poetry
Out of its little broom closet
Into the great castle it once inhabited
- Joel Van Valin 