Gold Wake Press, 2019.
63 pages
ISBN: 978-1-64467-223-5
When sitting down to read Sweatpants Paradise, it is advisable to leave our world and instead read it on another planet, maybe Mercury. Kyle Flak writes in a style that is uniquely personal, blending dry wit with the sadness of everyday life. Flak uses absurdity in his poetry the same way a chef might use salt and pepper —often and with intention. Flak’s poems ask us to reevaluate ourselves and our place in the world. When we look to the author for answers, he has almost certainly moved onto another tumbleweed of the mind. Every poem feels like a conversation one might have in a fever dream. As if to pull the rug out from under you, Flak often uses his voice to first make you chuckle and then to make you cry. Flak opens his poem “My Version of Awesome Karate is Just Eating Popcorn Alone in a Sewer With My Dad’s Old Catchers Mitt For a Bowl” with lines that evoke hilarity and then punch you right in the gut.
i think this summer
will be really really really
something to write home about.
maybe i’ll wear some purple sweatpants or win a can of baked beans
for guessing correctly
about just how miserable i am.
Flak pulls no punches when transitioning between hilarious images to downright depressing metaphors. His poems often feature incredible emotional highs, as well as somber self reflections. The author comes to mind-bending realizations about life seemingly in the middle of a poem — some highly existential, others pondering on dreams that never came to be. Flak shows us one such reflection in the poem titled, “It is Definitely Good Fun To Put On A Weird Smock and Pretend to Be An Old Sea Captain But I Bet Actual Sea Captains Have To Endure Some Pretty Terrible Stuff”. He opens the poem:
I love when drunk Steve Buscemi in a tuxedo says “I'm the best guitar player in the world!!!!!!!!” in the movie The Wedding Singer
I remember when I first saw The Wedding Singer
I was in eighth grade and I still believed in love…
then we saw the movie and I thought, “I’m going to meet Billy Idol on an airplane too someday!!!!!!!!
and I’m going to teach an old lady to sing ‘till there was you even though she only pays me in meatballs
actually none of those things have ever happened to me
and I’m not still in eighth grade either
I’m in, like, old guy grade
Flak constantly walks the line between genius and the absurd, often making you wonder if they are not the same thing. He presents ideas so preposterous that you can’t help but both laugh and cry. This poignant ridiculousness is presented in the poem, “Essay On Walt Whitman.” Two excerpts showcasing this talent are as follows:
Walt Whitman invented the wheel in 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia, but at first he mainly only used it to make dumb pottery. It was at least a good 300 years later in Ancient Greece that he finally began using his wheel to totally kick major ass at chariot racing…
Walt Whitman was World War I, World War II, the sack of Babylon by the Hittities, the second Persian invasion of Greece, the Portuguese-Malik navel war, The War of the Quadruple Alliance, the Franco-Trarzan War of 1825, and pretty much every other stupid war that has ever existed for any stupid reason.
In this poem, Flak ups the ante on ridiculousness as the poem goes on. In the fourth stanza, Whitman is said to be the star Methuselah. Whitman is subsequently said to be “the best damn slice of pumpkin pie Yanton, South Dakota has to offer.” Flak closes the poem with a stanza of what Whitman likes, saying he likes “any movie with Barbara Streisand” and “anything else that has ever existed or ever will.” There is seemingly no end to the possibilities of Whitman in Flak’s mind. He sees Whitman as something beyond being a person, poet, legend.
Flak’s creativity seemingly knows no end. He writes without being constrained to truth, reality, or physics. Flak’s poeticism extends beyond the senses, and his wordplay and delivery delight the mind. He will rip your heart to pieces and rebuild it using a mixture of gumbo, moonlight, and Elmer’s glue. Kyle Flak will make you want to put on a comfortable pair of sweatpants and never take them off.