All of This Candy Belongs to Me by Rich Boucher
“I’ve paid attention to Rich Boucher’s smart, plucky poems for a long time now. He’ll gladly cop to any need, bust open the edges until “all the clocks stop what they are doing, in shock…” You think you know where a poem will go; you think it’s silly or wild, but then, somewhere in the path of stacked words, it loops into the philosophical. He’s not at all afraid to house the monsters of his mind—regret, loss, fear and pleasure. From desperation to joy, these poems radiate. Boucher will pull at every particle of your mind while he inches closer. Wherever he wants to go, he wants you with him: “Please come back / so we can fight again…” Lauren Camp, author of Turquoise Door, the Dorset Prize-winning One Hundred Hungers, and two earlier collections.
To categorize Rich Boucher’s poetry as surreal, brutalist, confessional, dystopian, absurdist, etc.would by no means be inaccurate, but it would certainly be banal. I would prefer to say that hehas mastered his native tongue to the extent that he can subvert English and its rules of grammar and syntax to his every poetic purpose, and that he is a dogged and savage critic of the deranged commercialism that menaces our very civilization – but although he frequently finds himself engulfed by the vile smoke of corporatist delusion, he can still hold up an undefiled vision of the joy – and the redemption – that beauty and love may bring to even the most warped and jaded victims of our horrid version of “the great society”. Arabella Bianco
Poetry Playhouse Publications
Cover design by Denise Weaver Ross
Paperback, 6 x 9
202 pages
All of This Candy Belongs to Me by Rich Boucher
All of this candy belongs to me, child.
Look at all these hard, hot cinnamon pinwheels
and the sticks of chewy caramel in my hand;
you may have none of it, not even one piece,
not the lemon gum nor the raspberry nougats either
and making your eyes get wider won't change my mind.
This banana-flavored lollipop tastes amazing,
a joy your tongue will never know, little child.
You can whimper; piteously plead all you like
and I’ll meet your eyes with mine while I lick this licorice whip.
Has it begun to rain, or are those tears on your cheeks?
There's plenty of this blue cotton candy to go around,
but I'm not going to let it go around to you, child.
Stamping your feet and crying won't work with me;
I will bite the head off this chocolate bunny and then
I’ll tell you all about how good and chocolatey his life was
while you lick your jealous lips in the rain.
Why am I being like this?
Because you still have the sweetness of your childhood to savor,
while I must suck on this cherry cane and try to remember mine.
