Poetry WTF?! #2 Presents Howie Good and Dale Wisely
Poems by Howie Good, Illustrations by  Dale Wisely
Editor – Maartens Lourens
Published January 2017 by Sampson Low
ISBN  978-1-910578-37-7
A6 Size, 16 printed pages, Color, Limited print run of 100
 
Rather wonderfully,... this pamphlet’s authors are named Good and Wisely. They must have sensed a need to work together! And work together they do: the whole thing is rather like a pleasing CD sleeve (do CDs have sleeves?). The words and images sit well together and the poems – which are actually compiled from titles of films and artworks (details provided in ‘Credits’ at the back) – to me, resemble song lyrics. I’m reminded of Bowie, cutting up and collaging lines. That seems to be what’s happened here: ‘orange sunshine, silent holy stones / making sense of nonsense’ (‘Love and Carnage’).
 
The pictures are annotated with words that also appear in the poems: ‘use bombs wisely’, ‘network of stoppages’, ‘sad young man’. Each is linked by a line to a part in the picture – like an authoritative ‘fig.’ in a textbook. I buy it. Also love the style of the pictures and accompanying texts: a slight smudging effect makes them radiate and draw me in. Perhaps my favourite is ‘the gods are wringing / their great worn hands’, which looks like a flower or insect, framed by a kind of dial. I’m not sure what it means, but it has a ‘pop’ authority that’s aesthetically reassuring.
 
--Charlotte Gann, Sphinx: Poetry Pamphlet Reviews & Features