The
Damage Done by
Susana H. Case is an accomplished novella in verse that is partly murder
mystery, partly political intrigue involving local and federal agencies of the
American criminal justice system, and snapshots of American pop culture in the
1960s and part of the 1970s. The Dresser read it straight through in a sitting
and then started over again to see what made it such a page turner.
Initially,
the murder mystery seems to be what drove the Dresser to read feverishly
without pause. A fictitious fashion model named Janey is found dead in a sports
car. Did she die because she has an eating disorder, was she a suicide, or was
there foul play—the car keys are missing. In the second poem of the book, we
encounter her dead body from the observations of a tow truck operator who plays
the Bob Dylan album Blond on Blond while waiting for the police:
2.
Woman Recumbent in Car (excerpt)
A car
sits in violation
of
parking rules, the only car
on the
street. In it,
blond
hair peeks out
from a
blanket on the seat
…
In the
seventh poem of the book (all the poems are consecutively numbered), detectives
identify Janey as they disparage her body and lifestyle.
7.
Woman identified
(excerpt)
A Tootsie
Roll with arms,
the
detectives calls Janey
now
that they’ve ID’d her.
She’s
skinny with a single name,
like
Twiggy, a Vogue spread
and
being dead warrant
consideration
by the tabloids,
…
In the
eighth poem, the medical examiner tells the detectives that the dead woman’s
body was abused from years of starvation and vomiting, that she was probably
high from drugs, but had bruises on her mouth and arm not consistent with
suicide. The cops then discover, the dead woman appears on an FBI list. The
surprising element continues to be that the keys to the car are missing.
8.
Secret Life (excerpt)
…A cop
notes
the
stiff’s on the Security Index,
Priority
3, the Feds’ list—potential
pinko,
free-love hippie.
The
boyfriend in the Panthers
was
what helped her make the list,
and the
cops have fun with that,
talk
slave names
versus
names they can’t spell,
how
they hate that interracial shit,
but
worse she funneled money,
maybe
guns…
Forty-three
poems comprise the entirety of The Damage Done. The who, what, and how
of Janey’s death are revealed in a flashback told from the murderer’s point of
view. It is Janey’s killer who forgets to “unpocket” the keys to her car.
38.
Flashback: Snap Decisions
(excerpts)
Because
a man on the street looks
familiar,
that Jimi Hendrix style
everyone
loves, when he raps on the glass,
while
she’s stopped at a light,
Janey
roles down her window,
and
he’s quick to unlock the door,
…
Janey’s
story is complicated by multiple men who speak in their own voices—her husband
who knows she is sick and makes her go to rehab which she runs from, her Black
Panther boyfriend who causes her to be listed with the FBI, the man who kills
her and who, turns out, is an FBI informant, the federal agent whose informant
kills Janey, and the local detective who is stymied about how the Feds are
involved with Janey’s death.
Now add to
that cacophony of voices, the seven poem letters of Susana Case published in this collection. Two of these
epistolary poems deal with pop culture—“3. Dear Ghia” (call this one ode to
a defunct sports car) and “22. Dear Jimi Hendrix (Cento)” (a poem
constructed from lyrics borrowed from Hendrix). Three of the letter poems
concern political positions—“5. Dear Carol” (a poem that reveals a lost
friendship because the friend marries a cop), “14. Dear So-Called Bad Apples” (poem
dealing with police misconduct), and “39. Dear Disorder” (poem dealing with FBI
misconduct). The last two of the Susana-signed poems reference pop culture and
political issues—“26. Dear Detective” (in his neglected garden, the Detective
broods about a crime coverup while his son announces joyfully that the song
“Aquarius” has won a Grammy) and “32. Flashback: Dear Janey” (Janey is
photographed in popular name-brand clothing while growing more paranoid about
her safety).
A quote
from the Feminist poet Adrienne Rich opens The Damage Done: “I came to
see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail.” The Dresser sees
this quote in tandem with the epistolary poems signed “Susana” as a framework for
bearing witness. This bearing witness is in keeping with what we are
experiencing today, where propaganda and adverse actions attack justice, truth,
and American democracy such that what “treasures prevail”
come into question. Indeed, this seems to be part of the damage done to America
and the people like Janey who live there.
For the
Dresser, what makes this an accomplished novella in verse is the craft of
poetry experienced in Case’s writing. The opening poem sets the standard and
should be read aloud to get the full enjoyment of the assonance, rhyme, and
cadence created by many monosyllabic words of strong beats:
1.
Woman
Speaking Distinctly
If
you’re flame-licked,
chain-nicked,
does
it mean you like
playing
with fire?
All
kind of things
spin
out of control;
pyres
end in burned
torsos.
If you think
it’s
enough
to
be the country’s
sweetheart,
you
might be
surprised
when
you’re suddenly
not.
In
that turnaround,
you
could make book
on
being watched.
And
make your plan—
the
only way
to
avoid the stake
on
which you die—
the
way to rise
above
the blaze.
While
Janey doesn’t die burnt at the stake, she was playing with fire. Here’s what
she says about her husband as she flees a rehab clinic: “She knows he would tie
her to a cliff/ face just to try to appease his gods (36. Flashback: Clinic).”
In this metaphor, Janey seems to be equating herself to the Greek god
Prometheus who gave fire to mankind. The funny thing is in this same poem, she
calls the doctors she is subjected to “deranged plumbers,” which conjures for
the Dresser a reference to Richard Nixon’s covert special investigation unit
known as The Plumbers who were tasked to stop news leaks.
There is
much to admire and discover in The Damage Done by Susana H. Case
published by Broadstone Books.
