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2 Poetry Books

An Acknowledgement of Teatar Panicke
(Zenica Press, Sarajevo, BOSNIA, 2004)
by Patrick Woodcock

A review and selections from:Controlling Mastema
(NewPess, Smederevo, Prvo Izdanje, BELGRADE, 2005)
by Patrick Woodcock

"Funny, Sad, Sex and Drink laced. The good stuff. "

When I first received a small shiny red pamphlet called Teatar Panike (Zenica Press, Sarajevo, Bosnia, 2004) I was a little confused. Although I could distinguish some of the poems contained within the pages I could not read the language - Bosnian. I remembered my last encounter with a Mr. Patrick Woodcock in Toronto lying in a prone state in an empty room pissed to the gills. How can I add to that? I know of his battle with the bottle - I lived with him. Rather I should say he paid me rent for three or four months while showing up periodically to service a girlfriend or to throw a party in honour of himself. However I am a forgetful sort: I lose books, keys, glasses, phone numbers regularly. And so I can be mistaken for forgetting that ol lemonhead had been working on a ms. called The Challenged One and that it, and other poems from other books, have been published in this (selected?) volume TeatarPanike in Sarajevo in Bosnian. How fucking cool is that?

There`s more to the story, involving a three-piece Irish suit, a bottle of red wine, a shaky camera, a Montreal Nursing Home and a 90ish Irving Layton (Still Alive!!) There are more stories involving an infamous CIUT radio show which wasn`t properly taped, a casual U of T soccer game with a certain reviewed poet dressed in the full complement, a cow which started to mate another cow whilst a certain P.V. read his poetry to a field and a last chance swim in Lake Ontario with various bits and pieces on display.

I won`t go into reminiscing other that to say Pat is funny and funny-looking too. And he is an accomplished poet with several titles under his belt including: The Six O`Clock Club (1995), AThElia (1996), Scarring Endymion (1999) all with Mosaic Press, (Canada).

So if you are Bosnian or can read Bosnian please pick up Teatar Panike and review it for: How Yah Doon? or elsewhere if you see fit. I am interested to know what this young man, the former poetry editor of The Literary Review of Canada and sometime contributor to travel anthologies, i.e. AWOL (Random House, Canada) has been up to and what his poems from The Challenged One are like.

Good News! A Review:

If you are Bosnian AND/OR can read English then I`m pleased to include some passages from Patrick's newest volume, Controlling Mastema (Newpress, Belgrade, 2005) written in anglais.

Almost all the
TREES are gone

Almost all the trees are gone. Tired,
the mountain cowers like an old,
balding businessman
with an unfortunate cowlick
at a party before his dismissal.

From my balcony, I watch the wind yank
at every hair...

(Ed comment: Good. Funny.)

Another poem

a DRUNK
old MAN
WANTED
an audience AND
FOUND
me

Yelling:
Who will pay for this theft? And why this time of year? I
thought I`d seen it all but....twenty five heads! They were mine, I`ll say to
the judge...(spits)

I can roll a cigarrette out of thin air, but look into my eyes, they are not
fathomless, there is no majic...

(Ed. Read This funny WoodCock.)

Funny, Sad, Sex and Drink laced. The good stuff.

John Stiles

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