Inside, there are many, many nights of consumption–music and alcohol, laughter and greasy food. But also deeply personal reminiscences on childhood, past loves, missed opportunities, anecdotes of the day-to-day, awkward conversations. Yes, you’ll also find that great mother of all poetic downers–mortality.

Muskrat Friday Dinner, Scott Silsbe‘s just-released third collection of writing, contains all of these.

Some things are difficult. Some things we have to whisper.
Some things we don’t say at all. We have to keep it down.
Even if the laughter is all that’s keeping us alive or sane.

“Three Fragments” (excerpt)

A dirty secret: when poetry is recited at Chez Orbit, it generally involves both super-sized anatomy and the island of Nantucket–so we don’t have a lot of experience in the world of deep verse. Why? A prejudice, for sure: it feels like work in the same way some think about watching foreign films, or listening to twelve-tone music, or flossing. But it needn’t be that way.

Silsbe, who came to Pittsburgh at the turn-of-the-millenia to pursue an MFA in poetry from Pitt, expressly wants to get away from that kind of foo-foo academic writing and create work that’s direct, narrative, accessible, and decidedly not difficult. Muskrat Friday Dinner–from its title poem of a Downriver Detroit saloon staple to the rat-on-a-dinner-plate illustrations–delivers.

“Poetry can be fun”, says Silsbe, “I wanted a book of good-time, drinkin’ poems that people will enjoy reading or hearing”.

Arty or arch, these short poems ain’t. That said, fun may depend on one’s sense of humor. But yeah, if you don’t get too worried about the condition of Silsbe’s over-worked liver, you can hopefully enjoy the vicarious thrill of waking up on the living room floor or arriving home with the dawn all from the comfort of your chaise lounge.

The book is so, uh, human-readable in fact, as to sometimes feel like a collection of journal entries, day-after tall tale-telling, or (very) short fiction–narrative, in plain English, and real. “I want to document the world around me,” Silsbe says, “The poetry should be personal so that it can be universal.”

If there’s
enough
money
get me
pork rib.

“Found Poem–Express Lane, Giant Eagle”

Silsbe’s experiences may or may not be truly universal, but they’re sure close. We’ve ridden in that car, ate that midnight meal, ended up in that tavern and didn’t know how or why. You’ve heard a record that felt like it was written just for you, longed for a person behind a second-story window light, seen the beauty in a perfect new snowfall…and then ruined it with your own need to slog through and get home to bed. Everyone past a certain age has received a phone call where he or she ended up needing a black suit.

Silsbe talks about individual pieces taking days–weeks, even–to get right. But the poems have an immediacy that feel like they were inked right then when the memory was still fresh–at the end of the night, or first thing the next morning–his head still throbbing and ears still buzzing.

It’d be nice to get some down so we don’t lose them. Stories grow soft with time. Though sometimes we fill in the gaps with juicier details to make the story better, making the story our own, with the hope we don’t lose the best parts, we don’t sacrifice the real story. As if we really know or care what that is.

“Old Writers Talking About Old Writers” (excerpt)

Us, we’re still buzzing too. Silsbe is right: it is fun to read a book of poetry (twice, even–we had to take notes!) and we’ll do again. Also interesting is getting inside the life of a person we kind of know [full disclosure: Silsbe was an acquaintance prior to the book’s release] vis-à-vis this tightly-edited, metered take on real experiences, Pittsburgh places we know, and people around town.

“There’s something in our makeup that craves to create a beautiful object”, Silsbe says in the poem “Ceremony”, “Essential to that is the knowledge that no thing we create can ever be without defects.” Defects? Yeah, well, maybe–sure. But hat’s off, Mr. Silsbe, you created some real nice stuff here. Thanks for letting us in to have a look.

My God, how I loved living on the earth.
There were those things that sustained me
all those years–the names of the clouds,
the vesper sparrows lined up on a branch,
her bedroom light on behind a red curtain.
I would circle the block just to see that–
knowing it meant she was in there, alive.
perhaps waiting for me, and perhaps not.
But there. And that presence was enough.

“Searchlight”

Muskrat Friday Dinner is Scott Silsbe’s third collection of poems. All three are available locally from Caliban Books in Oakland as well as “other fine booksellers”.  Those either preferring or requiring the magic of The Internet can achieve the same from Amazon.

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Quoted poems taken from Muskrat Friday Dinner, White Gorilla Press, Belford, NJ ©2017 Scott Silsbe and used with permission of the author.