Book Review: RADIO SILENCE by Philip Schaefer and Jeff Whitney
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Radio Silence Poems by Philip Schaefer & Jeff Whitney |
| Black Lawrence Press, 2016 $8.95 |
Winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition, Philip Schaefer and Jeff Whitney’s collaborative effort, Radio Silence, is as much an urgent call to arms against cyber immersion as it is a nostalgic ode to human connectivity and curiosity. The voices of Schaefer and Whitney intricately—and intimately—entwine as one in their fearless exploration of our world. Navigating us away from the noise and the chaos, Radio Silence urges us to see, hear, and smell the things that are happening right in front of us.
So as to sever the connection to our ubiquitous devices, Schaefer and Whitney draw us back into an era before widespread internet or instant communication. “Imagine this is still the late nineties,” they write. “We’re still young. / Shaped by summer and its legions.” They harken back to the simplicity of their own childhoods, painting a portrait of innocence and make-believe:
Children holding nothing but the burnt ends
of their kites. Old Folgers, rusted through,
cupped string conversations. Winds inside
these winds spiral cigarette butts around
the yard. Fool’s gold. In the forgetting
dark, we take off our names.
In these precious moments, Schaefer and Whitney gift the reader with the ability to see through a child’s eyes; they allow us to relive a time when the world was misunderstood and magical.
Schaefer and Whitney twist and turn their words to draw soft eloquence from sharp observation. Not unlike a surrealist collage, the power of their work stems from startling juxtapositions: “There is the robe / his mother wore, pink with one yellow flower, / ribboning like the flag of a ruined country.” They layer the benign and familiar beside the unexpected and peculiar to create stunning and dynamic imagery. Some of these unconventional matches help us to deconstruct the tragedy and the chaos that we have come to expect from everyday life: “A man shoots through / another man, his chest / a black sky of star holes.” Others capture singular moments of childlike power and awe: “I took a mason jar of fireflies / and shook them / like a snow globe. So much death / Lighting up. / Manhattan / in my hands.” In this world of overstimulation, it’s clear that Schaefer and Whitney impose radio silence not for our safety or security, but for our sanity and, perhaps, our very humanity.