OBJECTION DENIED!: Hearsay is a collection of poems about a chaotic world we're all just trying to survive

 

Hearsay, Anecdotal Evidence in Our Societal Court: Poems

Andrew Buckner

Requiem Press, 2025

ISBN: 9798313679341

Ebook, 57 ppg.

Buy link 

  

 

It's always interesting to come across a collection of poetry with poems reflecting modern times. That’s exactly what I found when reading Hearsay, Anecdotal Evidence in Our Societal Court: Poems by Andrew Buckner. These poems do offer commentary on current political events, but they also reflect on issues we address in our lives as we live in the 21^st century.

 

I appreciated reading the poems about the current political climate. I agreed with all of them, as I do not support our current president or his policies.

 

I often wonder what future generations living in more civilized times (I hope!) would think about the time we are living in now, when we have a farce of a “president” who instead of leading the country, is terrorizing it, attacking it and trashing it. Not only this, but he is abusing his power as the president to either eliminate evidence of his crimes, exonerate himself of his crimes (not to mention escape imprisonment for his crimes!), and try to convince the country that he should not be held accountable for his crimes because he is the president. As I write these words in my review, he is currently trying to convince us all that there are no Epstein files, and that even if there was, he’s not involved in any of that. Because, you know, he’s the president.

 

But I wonder, too, how past generations would perceive our world as we live in it now.

 

I am well aware of MANY people who were critical of the president, such as Reagan, Nixon and Carter. But our contempt for our current president goes beyond his handling of foreign affairs (though we have that too) and his (mis)management of the American military forces.

 

No, our contempt for the president concerns how he wants to erase the transgender community. How he wants to get rid of every single Mexican AND Mexican-American in this country, here legally and illegally, because he hates Mexico so damn much. He also hates the Black and African-American community, as well as anyone with disabilities, since he’s eliminated DEI. There is more, so much more, here. And that’s for another piece. And as of now, he’s trying to convince everyone that he is innocent of ever committing sex crimes against children.

 

And all of these things are not going to pass us by without writers writing about it all. Here, in this book, Andrew Buckner writes about it.

 

And, in fact, he gives readers that glimpse of just how a certain past generation might see the current goings-on in our political sphere, when he writes in the poem “SQUEEZING WATER FROM THE SUN”:

 

“the screen, rocks before these

cave people,

become another propaganda-

-laden, time trap for the future eyes

more vividly realized

than cave paintings

that reiterate its addictive fictions,

some dressed-up as news and others

as ex-reality show hosts who

conned their way into a second

term in The White House” (page 2)

 

Just as I read stories from the past which eerily mimic the times we are living in now (maybe those writers thought writing about those terrible times would keep them from being repeated?), I shudder over how history keeps being repeated (hello, concentration camp in Florida!). In the poem “Dostoevsky 2025,” Buckner points this out with these words:

 

“reading Dostoevsky

i realize

how little has changed

in 150+ years time—

 

the poor are still treated

as if a lack of opulence

their mere existence is

a crime

 

and we’re hopelessly being

punished for the same

crimes

by the same

variations of the same

republican cycles of hate—” (page 4)

 

I also liked the poem “THE RABID FEVER DREAM, REALITY” in that it really captures how reality can be so horrifying. Perhaps this is why parents lie to their kids about good, saintly figures like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny that love them no matter what and will bring good things to them if they behave. But we grow up and turn to different lies – smoking, drugs, alcohol – for an escape from and comfort for the horrors we must contend with in the real world. Horrors which are not going to go away.

 

My favorite poem out of all of these in the book is this one: “UPON HEARING THAT TRUMP HAS BANNED THE TERM “FELON IN THE WHITE HOUSE””

 

Why this one? Because it repeats “felon in The White House” many times and it just goes to show that even if Trump tries to ban the term “Felon In the White House” (which is what he is), we are still going to say it and use it!

 

But these are not just poems critical of the 47^th president and his policies; there are poems also talking about life and survival. About just trying to make it through another day in this chaotic world. I enjoyed reading all of them.

 

Hearsay, Anecdotal Evidence in Our Societal Court is a collection of poems that reflect modern-day struggles and concerns. They speak out against tyranny, capture the ordinary moments of life we so rarely take the time to appreciate, and shine light on important issues. These poems leave readers with much to think about, with various ideas and reflections to show many what they choose not to see.

 

 

Five stars.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A voice for the voiceless: a shelf of my ancestors is a cry of injustice against the dead

 

a shelf of my ancestors

By Kate Pashby

Wrong Publishing, 2023

29 pages, Ebook

Link

 

One may look at the title of this book and wonder, why are one’s ancestors on a shelf? As though they are on display? But a shelf of my ancestors by Kate Pashby shows just how their ancestors ended up on a shelf. And in drawers. And on display in museums.

 

For, you see, their ancestors were what we call today “Native American,” though theirs was a tribe in Mexico. The author uses the word “Indians,” adopting the colonial name for the natives the settlers slaughtered and stole land from. 

 

As someone with Native American heritage, words from these poems resonated with me. Like this stanza here, from the first poem:

 

“patrimony—heritage

national patrimony—the nation’s heritage

which is to say

it belongs to the nation

it belongs to the government

which is to say

not you”

 

And this line here, in another stanza: “How can a government claim the remains of the dead?”

 

Within these poems, you can feel the author’s anger towards the government for seizing, keeping and basically taking ownership up the remains of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the tribal members who died on their own land. Land that the government took away from them. Land that they lived on, grew up on and hunted on then lost their lives fighting for. There is also a bit of sarcasm as they rephrase colonial beliefs over having the right to take possession of something that is not theirs.

 

As a student of anthropological research, Pashby is aware of how the bones of their ancestors are used as instructional tools for studying the tribes that once populated so much of this country many years ago. They had to watch, without comment, as a skull was removed from a drawer and held up for all to see. Their classmates saw it as an object to study, they saw it as an affront to their ancestors yelling “give me back my fucking bones!” and an insult to their legacy.

 

Pashby also shares stories portraying the lives of their people in verse. They try to put a human face to the bones on display “like trophies in a case” so that readers can see that the bones are more than just bones. They are more than skulls. They were once real people with real lives whose bones must now be scattered throughout the confines of academic institutions curious about who they were. Instead of looking to the stories, they look to the bones. We would not be so bereft of their history if the settlers had not been so busy slaughtering them all.

 

Readers who pick up a shelf of my ancestors by Kate Pashby are in for some hard truths. This is a person descended from those natives saying “this needs to stop” and sharing how they are fighting to have the bones returned to their rightful place. This book acts as a “mission statement” of sorts sharing how the author believes that a wrong has been done and offering reasons why theirs is a mission that should not be ignored. We may have ignored the cries of the natives who were slaughtered but we cannot ignore the cries of their ghosts who want nothing more but to finally rest in peace in one piece, and in the ground of their native soil.

 

Five stars

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.