Poetry That Destroys, a review.

When Andy Mullenax asked me to review his book of poetry: The Destroyer, I didn’t quite know what to expect.  I first read some of his poems posted on his IG account to get an idea of what I was getting into.  I liked the lyrical nature of his style and this collection.  It reminded me of a lot of modern day rap songs.  He did warn me that the poems get pretty dark, exploring themes from his own addiction journey.  Alas, I am no stranger to reading work of a dark and transgressive nature.

He had originally self-published the poetry in a 600+ page volume.  It is now being republished by Anxiety Press books in two volumes to help break up the length.  He sent me a PDF of the first volume along with the cover art. 

The cover art is disturbing.  It has a yellow background with a drawing of a skeleton partially covered in muscle tissue.  The skeleton is half hanging from a rope at his neck that continues down wrapping around the arms.  It’s a visceral image evoking human suffering.  The title runs perpendicular along the left side. 

The book opens with a poem to a lost love. This lament is a peek under the rock of what is to come: self-inflicted delusions, a broken heart, losing one’s mind, thoughts of death, and the ever-present ghost of addiction.  The poems that follow become more disconcerting, evolving through reoccurring themes. Mullenax explores writing songs for popstars, trying to get rich, falling in and out of love, drug use, and the bipolar combination of self-hatred and feeling like being on top of the world.  This is a fever dream of emotion.  But the highest highs don’t last as long as the lowest lows.  I lost track of how many poems mentioned suicide.  Although there is no obvious narrative, it feels like watching someone spiraling out of control. 

This might be the most unrelenting poetry I have ever read.  It’s over 300 pages that evoke running through the mind of a young man having a very long series of frenzied episodes.  Imagine if Hubert Selby Jr. (Requiem For A Dream 1978) was a Gen Z poet.  These poems create a lyrical mania that makes me want to know what the soundtrack to this collection is.

Most of the poems are a page in length or more. Every so often there is a shorter poem that feels like a brief moment of clarity.  The poem “Midewiwin Man” is about finding out a girlfriend had an abortion, losing all hope, and attempting to commit suicide, only to survive and still have to deal with the grief. 

About halfway through the book, the stream of consciousness changes from lines about feeling like a failure and missing the love of their life, to wanting to kill the pop stars they can never be with.  Mullenax pulls the reader along with lines that jump around at a sporadic pace, making it feel like being in the vortex energy of a pop song. 

Mullenax will drop a line with no pretext and give you little to understand what he was writing about.  For instance, in several poems he mentions a vampire cult.  At some point this morphs into something that could be either a celebrity death cult or a celebrity sex cult.  All I can deduce is this was some idea born out of a drug fueled bender, one thought to be so great it lasted even once the drugs faded away.  Everything starts to blend into a surreal haze where you can’t tell what is metaphor and what is reality.  These poems are dense with imagery, offering many interpretations.  As his personal drug addiction peaks with heroin use, the poems get darker and The Destroyer emerges.  It ruins everything until the only way to stop it is to sober up.  The transition can be seen as the poems take on different tones and become shorter and more impactful.  This first volume ends with a poem called “Hive Mind” that is a great poem showing a moment of sobriety. 

Andy Mullenax is a song writer who has ghost written songs for some pop stars.  His songwriting capabilities are apparent in the word play and lyrical structure of this collection.  The narration of the poems leads me to believe these are all primarily autobiographical.  The repetition in themes creates a unique minimalist poetry collection.

Even with all the intensity, I enjoyed reading this poetry collection.  The descent into this depth of addiction is very raw and honest.  Having known friends and family who have wandered similar paths of addiction, I found there is the tiniest sliver of hope even at the darkest moments.  I look forward to the next volume of Andy's poetry.

The Destroyer Volume 1. will be available from Anxiety Press.