Organic Hotels—A Review by Nora Gruenberg

When Alors, Et Toi? invited me to review Matthew Abuelo’s new collection of poetry, I was curious to see what the thirty-something writer and activist, once 86ed from a Long Island coffee shop for criticizing the war in Iraq, had to say about his impressions of the world today.

Van Gogh, Degas, William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson, are among some of the artists and literary heroes he refers to in his writing. Inspired to believe that “all artists are vessels whose purpose is to create art and fade away,” he hopes to rediscover what the “old artists already knew,” which is to look outside the writer’s world, and be “governed by that which is greater than ourselves.”

Abuelo’s cadence-rich free verse handles themes such as war, urban decay and the suburban abyss. He writes of apathy, crippling boredom, and unrealized potential against the backdrop of national greed, corruption and world-wide disorder. Contrasting the shallow materialism of suburbia to the corrupt pleasure-seeking denizens of his modern-day Babylon, he seems locked in a symbiotic relationship with society that fuels a sense of disillusionment and isolation.

In his first poem, Untitled, he describes the “core of western culture” as “death fermenting” which encourages the greed that has led to the conflict in the Middle East. Shifting to his impressions of the superficial existence of bored Long Islanders reacting to the decaying corruption-machine that is “Babylon,” he ties the two themes together by lamenting “the cancelled voice of art,” which he seems to attribute to a population doomed by distraction, self-medication, meaningless sex, pollution and “depression without an outlet.”

With frequent references to the hard edge of urban life, I found myself feeling like a witness to dark dreamscapes. While the emotion of his work is accessible, but the imagery is in turns esoteric, abstractly violent and macabre. His sometimes ambiguous sensory descriptions yet vivid emotional reactions seem to encode his impressions of an ugly world–perhaps in order to be able to better digest them himself.

The title poem, Organic Hotels, has a distinct sense of being in his stream of consciousness. Nebulous descriptions of isolation, tenuous sexual connections and hazy anger finish with a sense desperate urgency. Such characteristic emotional variation and enigmatic sensory grit lead seem to be deeply personal but abstract reactions to specific events and concepts.

I found Abuelo’s verse to be intense and emotionally impressionistic. Despite the grim interior of his world, I felt compelled to look into unfamiliar political, symbolic, cultural or religious references to get a better idea of Abuelo’s worldview. I felt drawn to the wretched underbelly he described and frequently felt compelled to draw my own conclusions about the meaning behind his poetry.

Ultimately, art is subjective. We should be free to draw our own conclusions, left alone to think about what we’ve experienced long after we’ve finished looking at it. Organic Hotels offers the reader just that opportunity—to garner an impression of Abuelo’s perspective on the world while being free to come to our own conclusions and make our own meaning out of his poetry.

Nora Gruenberg is a thirty year old wife and mother of one. She lives in Chicago’s southwest suburbs and writes as often as possible. She has been published by 34^th Parallel and is currently seeking publication to he first Novel “Dalia”

Press Release

For Immediate Release

  

            “Organic Hotels” the newest poetry collection by Matthew Abuelo is now available.  The work looks at modern day America through the eyes of a political activist and a maturing artist.  Enlarging on themes from his first book, “Last American Roar”, “Organic Hotels” moves away from youthful issues such as drug abuse, alienation and loss to focus on current events such as the war in Iraq, the sterilization of New York City and the author’s disenchantment with the US Government.   Thankfully, Mr. Abuelo avoids lamenting about the vagaries of his parents an all-too-common subject for young poets.

 

Heavily influenced by the “Beat” style of writing in his earlier work, “Organic Hotels” shows the author developing his own voice.  There is a music and cadence to his words reminiscent of the raw energy of the 1970s New York scene.

 

Organic Hotels is available for purchase on the website, lulu.com and will soon be listed on Amazon.com and on the websites of most major book stores.

Organic Hotels

After two and half years of working on my second book, Organic Hotels, it is finally ready for release. Unlike my first published work which made its debut in the summer of 2003, Organic Hotels is the first collection of work where the voice in each piece is completely mine. I don’t borrow anything from other writers in this book. I don’t pretend to have a huge love affair with New York, having seen its extreme limitations over the past few years. For those who think NYC is a raw place to live, forget it. It is just as shallow as any other big city you’ll find. The yuppies have moved in and have forced all the artists into the outer boroughs, which is why I write about being a poor writer who is forced to live in an SRO (single room occupancy.) under the reign of a hostile landlord.

The idea of war and its effect on the human psyche is also touched upon in the book as is the art of writing itself. There a few odes to some of my own heroes in the book like Hunter S Thompson and Paul Wellstone.

The book is set to be released Monday 21st. You will able able to purchase it atlulu.com or at ny major book store website.

Last American Roar

357463_cover1.pdf357463_cover1.pdfLast American Roar, published in 2003, is a collection of my works dating back to 1999. Most of the poems deal with the subjects of drug abuse, travel, politics and the old stand by of love lost. The classic Greenwhich Village style should appeal to both young and older readers alike.  It can be purchased on most major book store websites or you can find it at lulu.com