On a recent visit to North Carolina I was eating a Detroit-style pizza with my parents when my father asked me, “So when you start to read a new book of poems, what is it that you are looking for?” This wasn’t the first time I’d received a question of this sort from him. Several others come to mind—What is writing a song like? What does success look like for a poet? What’s great about Kurt Vonnegut?
My father’s inquires can sound confrontational. But knowing him as I do, I believe they derive from a genuine curiosity. His years of work as a mechanical engineer seem to have instilled in him a fascination with how things he doesn’t understand function; this includes his son.
On my visit, I had been toting around Lori Jakiela’s new book of poems, The Things You Can’t Remember Become the Things You Can’t Forget. I think that’s what inspired his line of questioning. After some thought and some word-fumbling, I told him that what I was most looking for in reading a new book of poems was inspiration. Without much hesitation, my father asked if it was inspiration for my own writing or inspiration for living life. This question surprised me, but it wasn’t difficult to find that answer. Both.
For years now, I’ve considered powerhouse writers Lori Jakiela and Dave Newman to be inspirational and essential contributors to the literary landscape of Pittsburgh and beyond. The married couple—who live in Trafford, Pennsylvania (“the last town in The Electric Valley,” as Newman likes to say)—have both been cranking out books for the last 20 years. Jakiela has penned a couple essay collections, several poetry collections, and multiple memoirs. Newman has written a memoir, an essay collection, a short story collection, and numerous poetry collections and novels. In addition to their literary output, Newman and Jakiela have both been great facilitators for other writers in the Pittsburgh area. They have regularly given local and out-of-town readings, contributed to local magazines and anthologies, and have participated in countless conferences and workshops. For a good number of years, Jakiela has taught creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg. And after a decade of work as a social worker, Newman joined the Pitt-Greensburg faculty as well. The positive effects of the Jakiela-Newman one-two combo on the students at Pitt-Greensburg are evident to anyone who knows the literary scene of the greater Pittsburgh area. But these effects are felt as far out as Austin and Los Angeles, as editors of lit mags like Nerve Cowboy the Cultural Daily will no doubt attest.
Newman and Jakiela are also known to open their home in Trafford from time-to-time, to commune with all kinds of artistic types—writers, musicians, painters, actors. Creatives have been invited to their home, where the walls are lined with books (once caught on film by Rick Sebak in one of his PBS specials) to party, feast on grub, and socialize—sometimes until sunrise. I don’t know a lot of writers who are as welcoming and generous as Newman and Jakiela. I guess it’s not all that surprising that the generosity you encounter from them in person is reflected in their work on the page.
The new books from Jakiela and Newman come to us from Roadside Press (of Meredosia, Illinois). Roadside is still a fairly new press, having started in 2022. But, by my count, it has churned out up over 75 books in those four years—including one previous book by Jakiela and two by Newman. Though the number of books put out by Roadside is rather staggering, it’s not just about numbers—the quality of the work published by the press is impressive. Their roster includes such notable small-press writers as William Taylor Jr., Danny Shot, Kerry Trautman, James Duncan, and Catfish McDaris. Jakiela’s latest for the press is a memoir in verse, entitled The Things You Can’t Remember Become the Things You Can’t Forget. Newman’s is a novel, his fifth, called Dope and Vodka and Cigarettes, and Not Shaving Her Legs.
I started in on the Newman novel first. Dope and Vodka and Cigarettes, and Not Shaving Her Legs is the story of Harry, a western Pennsylvania native. The novel jumps around to different points in Harry’s life, but the main focus is his childhood and the struggles he faces due to his family’s financial hardships and his mother’s drug addiction. As with previous novels by Newman, western Pennsylvania itself feels like it’s a character in the book—most of the scenes taking place either in Trafford or Jeannette. For years now, Newman has been skilled at capturing just how bleak our Rust Belt towns can be, thanks to American greed and the loss of industry. Early on in the novel, Harry speaks with clarity about his hometown. “The factories in Trafford had closed years ago and stood around town like piles of rusted metal and broken glass, doors ripped off their hinges, roofs caving in like they’d been bombed during a war, but no one noticed or cared anymore.” And later, Harry says, “The smoke that had supported families had stopped. Now everyone had guns.”
Young Harry’s father works as a salesman on the road to provide for the family while Harry’s mother spirals into a severe addiction to alcohol and drugs. Much of the novel is Harry attempting to make sense of the world around him—the poor choices of his mother, the absence of his father. “Our family moved within chaos,” he says, “and called it love for as long as we could.” Though Harry is in a very rough situation, he is able to find some beauty, some light. In this way, Newman’s character of Harry reminds me of something out of a short story by Raymond Carver or Denis Johnson, or maybe a Willy Vlautin novel. Harry experiences the violence and confusion of his surroundings, but he also finds compassionate strangers who are kind and generous to him. And he also starts to roam the neighborhood and learns how to wander, which gives him “hope and a sense of control.” “If you struggle,” Harry tells the reader, “you believe in rivers. If you struggle, you believe in roads.”
Like most of Newman’s work, regardless of which genre he’s writing in, his voice is strong and there is humor in the work—typically the humor is found in the dialogue between Harry and the other characters. Newman’s love for poetry and the short form also comes through in this novel, as some of the chapters are only sentence or two long. Chapter 59, for example, is one sentence. “Everyone comes from behind and wins, even if for some of us, victory is death.” Or else, a short chapter will capture a brief moment (which poetry can be so perfect for) and end with an arresting image or poignant sentiment, the way chapter 36 does with Harry and his mother playing in a park. Harry says, “We ran and laughed about geese.” Some of these shorter chapters have a haiku-like feeling to them.
One of the more interesting aspects of Newman’s novel is when, multiple times throughout the novel, Harry, our first-person narrator, breaks the fourth wall in a way. I think the first instance of this is at the beginning of chapter 16, which opens with, “I don’t mean to be a lazy writer but…” This meta kind of moment surfaces again less than 10 pages later with a chapter that begins, “I could have also written…” This playfulness—I almost want to say capriciousness—is very Dave Newman. I think it feels very Newman to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it feels like this move is a bit of the breaking of an unwritten rule. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone say that you’re not supposed to do it, but it seems like the kind of thing that might get criticized in a workshop setting. And I’ve noticed a rebelliousness in Newman’s works—as if he is regularly challenging himself to pull off things he’s been told not to do. The other reason these moments feel very Newman to me is what they imply about our narrator, our main character. The fact that Harry is referencing himself as a writer means that he was able to break free from the bleak circumstances of his childhood and write a novel—the one we are reading. And this kind of story, where a poor but thoughtful young western Pennsylvanian finds art and creates his own art is very much a Newman type of tale.
The publication of a new book by Lori Jakiela is always cause for celebration. I know others who are big Jakiela fans, so I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. The Things You Can’t Remember Become the Things You Can’t Forget fuses together poetry and memoir to create a memoir in verse, a new form for Jakiela. But here is the Jakiela that her readers have loved since her first memoir from 2006, Miss New York Has Everything. As with Newman’s work, Jakiela’s hometown of Pittsburgh is ever-present—it shows up in the third sentence of the book’s prologue. “Redding up, we say in Pittsburgh,” Jakiela says, while sorting through her belongings. In the prologue and first poem of the book, Jakiela begins a sort of imagined dialogue with Netflix star Marie Kondo, a tumultuous relationship that will not end well.
As always, Jakiela’s work is a pleasure to read—even when she is writing about death and mortality, which is very much the main subject of this book. Jakiela is able to infuse her writing with her imaginative sense of humor so that her own existential dread is side-by-side with a punchline, or else a moment of revelation, or else a humorous moment of revelation. When talking about playing Tom Waits songs on her piano, she mentions having a Tom Waits songbook, saying, “The songbook’s worn and well-loved / and missing a few pages. / When I say songbook, / I mean my life.” Almost like the ending of a James Wright poem there, the way she ends discovering a truth or coming to a new understanding. But, in typical Jakiela fashion, there is a wry sense of humor to help ease the grim subject matter.
I’ve already noted Jakiela’s references to Marie Kondo and Tom Waits. Pop culture and literary references abound in this book—which shouldn’t be surprising to folks who have spent time with other Jakiela works. There are appearances by Kurt Vonnegut (of course), musician Johnny Thunders, William Shakespeare, George Romero, T.S. Eliot, the musical Cats, Hunter S. Thompson, and Allen Ginsberg. Often the references to writers and musicians are occasioned by quotations. “So it goes,” from Vonnegut, “You can’t put your arms around a memory” from Johnny Thunders, “The mind remembers that which is vivid. The mind remembers that which is good,” from Ginsberg. It’s not surprising to me to see these nods in Jakiela’s poems. Having witnessed Jakiela in the classroom, I’ve noticed how she carries quotes around in her head and has them at the ready for appropriate moments, as if she has an encyclopedia stashed in her brain. It’s a memorable aspect of Jakiela’s work. I feel her reference to other artists speaks of her love of others’ works of and her passion for literature and music. She’s such a lover of books and songs, of writing, that she holds quotations near to her, in her head, so she always has her beloved Vonnegut or Fante, Waits or Thunders, Bukowksi or Carver, nearby.
In this new work, Jakiela skillfully weaves together seemingly unrelated subjects and aforementioned references to state hard truths. She does this in a way that is accessible and pleasing for her reader. She is able to articulate the frustration and exhaustion that many of us feel, living here in the late-stage capitalist horror show that is America in the 2020s. “Who has time to wait / for anything now?” the end of one poem asks. Jakiela also offers us joy, hope, and light, insisting that, as one of her previous book titles claims, “belief is its own kind of truth, maybe.”
Multiple times in the collection/memoir, Jakiela retracts something she stated in a previous poem or apologizes for it. My favorite Jakiela move is when she calls Hunter S. Thompson an asshole, but then quickly calls herself an asshole. It’s refreshing to read these poems with a voice that is so flexible in its opinions of others and itself—in this time when we are flooded with so many loud staunch opinions that divide us.
Late in the book, a lobster appears. Jakiela takes us back to her mid-20s where, at a fancy restaurant in Toronto, she ordered her first lobster. In the scene, a young 20-something Jakiela wants to be confident and show how adult she is, so she does what adults do and orders a lobster. Over multiple poems, Jakiela grapples with what she remembers of the experience and what she forgets. She grapples with her current knowledge of how cruel it is to eat lobster. “What I remember: / the waiter, the lobster,” Jakiela writes, “The way it looked at me. So / vulnerable.”
Vulnerability is another theme running through this book. “I’ve been married for over 25 years / and counting to a man I love / so much it hurts to admit how much. / How vulnerable that is. / How terrifying,” Jakiela says in the poem “Decades Later.”
Now I know how to answer that question from my father. I go to literature for that kind of understanding and articulateness about what it is to be a human being. It’s the very thing that I am looking for when I pick up a book.
