Ben Bonkoske

Poet Without a Pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Explain music to me

    I’d like to hear her try
    Not to cry
    She listens to only herself think
    So I put my ear up to her heartbeat
    Anxious child, forgotten and misused
    Painful as a bird in a rainstorm
    Acting stupid
    Dancing naked, just for you
    I see you blush in the sun
    Kiss me but don’t miss me when I’m gone
    -B.B
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  • Grace see

    There are a bunch of bugs biting at my neck and crawling up my leg hairs. I should let them be. They deserve it for how much insect blood is on my hands. They are in a spider psychopath’s domain, little do they know it. I’m scared senseless of all the things I reminisce about. It’s worse than having a Kinks song stuck in your head for four days straight or not running for a whole week. It’s been pretty bleak. I also pronounce things incorrectly regardless of their meaning. Like Acquiesce, which I thought was pronounced aquise and I said it that way after I was thrown a mock graduation in front of everybody who was celebrating. See what I mean? I don’t have to go far to be red in the cheeks. I am a walking disaster with inner peace. Life perpetually gets more and more complicated even in a period of doing absolutely nothing. Or so it seems to me. We all want to go back, but being in the midst of certain things at “the time being” is a hassle that allows us to never achieve anything. I have lived a full life and can get away with saying I’m 240 pounds so people think I’m underweight (more like 180). I don’t know if I’ll ever find meaning, but all sympathy is appreciated. I am shaving and saving a few dollars here and there so I can afford Christmas gifts after this endless summer. Avoiding the right things and people so we don’t look foolish is hard to do. I’m good at it because I am basically on a deserted island where all I’m allowed to do is read and send out my resume. I’m happy but not where I want to be. How many others are there like me? I just want to be a writer. Freelance is so romantic but I can’t ever try long enough at doing something hard where I might be successful without being discarded as irrational. If you think I have any skill at all, let me know. I’d be happy to share more than a poem.

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  • Gratitude

    Friday. I’m in love. A new day for broken heartstrings and dead lovebirds on the sidewalk. As soon as I write about how good everything is, it hits the fan. It is a common solution to sabotage any progress and roll down a hill back to the start. Cuts, bruises, heavy breathing, the whole nine yards. I have read the first page of the bible probably a thousand times in my life and have never made it to the second chapter. It is a flawed happiness to be comfortable. People will never convince themselves that joy’s fleeting good humor will suffice for the rest of their lives. I’d rather be sad, clever, and ugly than laugh at my own stupidity for a lifetime. It has been a cynical week, and I’m sorry. Laughter is the highest form of intelligence. Why can we laugh so often and yet be so sad? Friday. I’m in love.

  • free giving tree

    It is a confusing thing to try so hard and accept failure so graciously. I am above the method of beating myself up like a bad cat who went to the bathroom wherever he felt like today. I don’t believe punishment is necessary to instill a fresh new perspective but there is a long list of things I still need to fix about myself, and day by day, I am no better off (or in some cases worse off) than I was when this quarantine started. Some things that are going well are sobriety, no Netflix, no youtube, daily reading, and writing. Things that are not so good: Waking up, diet, actively looking for a job. And things that are in the middle are running and meditation. I had a small revelation that instead of trying to make small incremental changes, it is best to just rip the band-aid off and do the whole thing in one go. However, what happens when you want to make a change (no matter how big or how small) every time you just end up with bupkiss. It is not a good feeling, but my bed is so cooommmfforrtable in the morning (or early afternoon). Another good point is, what if I try to fix everything at once; my rip the band-aid off method, and slowly I fall back into old habits because it is too much to handle. This, is hot and dangerous!
    There is more than one way to solve a problem. Some people give up before it is fixed. Often times, that is when they are closest to a breakthrough. It’s a shame when people give up but what is even sadder is people who never change. Lists are helpful. Thanks for letting me clear out the cobwebs.

  • First Novel by John Irving: Setting Free The Bears – Review

    I hate that I loved it. However, I’m happy that I finished it. It was not very good. John Irving was 25 when he wrote this novel as a master thesis while being a student of Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa between 1965 and 1967. Both of them wrote about the Second World War as if they were there, although only one of them actually was. The detail and storyline of German and Russian occupation is a beautifully depicted chaos in Irving’s Setting Free The Bears, however, that is the word I would use to describe Mr.Irving’s first novel: chaotic.
    The novel is broken down into three parts. Unlike the rest of John Irving’s novels that I’ve read, the chapters in this book are usually only one to five pages. This can be a good thing and can make it easy for central ideas to move a story along quickly, but the problem is, the first part is what I would describe as ‘over-edited.’ I am certain that in his head, the first 100 pages of this book sung to John Irving. However, that is not the case with the average reader. The main problem with this book is that the language is confusing, not-straightforward, complicated for no reason, and oftentimes hyper-intellectual. It’s as if a British person was writing in English as a second language (Not to point out that it takes place in Vienna where I don’t think they speak English). I don’t feel like I’m reading a book but instead an over recited encyclopedia of types of animals, fragmented thoughts and actions, and the occasional glimpse at a concrete story. There are plenty of anecdotes that are worthy of reciting, such as, ” Good habits are worth being fanatical about”, poetry and even moments that will relish the reader, however, this has to be sought after and often time re-read in order to enjoy.
    The first chapter is effective at making you want to read on, describing the one character that is not generically bland, Siggy. The story is about two young men (Siggy and Graff) who decide to ‘leave it all behind’ on a motorcycle but get sidetracked by visiting a zoo. It’s enjoyable but he makes such a simple storyline complicated. It’s just overwritten. There is a major plot point that happens that I didn’t digest until a hundred pages later. The depictions of women are chauvinistic but are passable for the time period it was written. I have a rule with writers, especially first novels, that the beginning of any book is where the writer is worst. You gain experience through writing a novel, and by the end, you are 300 pages better than you were when you started. This book is a perfect example of that theory. It gets better. Often times I didn’t know what was happening in part one and I don’t think it’s because I’m stupid.
    The second Act is about Siggy’s notebook in which he depicts scouting out the zoo to release all the animals and a recount of his family’s biography during the war. It sometimes feels like two books squeezed into one. A war novel and heist, but then again, Vonnegut managed to make a war novel and a science fiction work seamlessly, so it’s not unforgivable. The characters are questionable, but a few of them break the ice enough to be remembered. It is John Irving’s storytelling that rises above and is able to convey intimate moments that leave the reader a better person. I had no idea what was going on during the war and it was an intrusive backdrop. If I had a better grasp of the occupations I might have had a better experience, but the story of Siggy’s past is commendably said. It could be written better, but sometimes things don’t need to be written perfectly to convey human flaws and choices. He does a great job of observing a character degrade into madness. This part is occasionally fun and I did enjoy reading it even though I don’t feel like I got half of it.
    The final part was the opposite of the first, rushed. There is a lot of ‘action’ during this part but it often falls flat. I was able to close the book in the middle of the climax and go to bed. It never gets simpler to read, and he had not grasped the ability to write action yet. The book is not boring. As he wrote, “detail is the difference” I again think he could picture it in his head, but I had no idea what 9/10 of the animals he wrote about were. What is wrong with Monkey, Bear, Chicken, Snake, Elephant? I do not have time to look up an animal that will be mentioned once and I will never hear about it again for as long as I live. The romance in this story is good, he is always very good at that and its G-rated nature only adds to the imagination (Not a single frotting swear in the whole book).
    I heard one review calling Irving ‘a master storyteller’ from the start, but I am honestly surprised that he wrote such compelling stories such as The Cider House Rules and A Prayer For Owen Meany by what he started with. We all have to start somewhere, and it gives me hope that his next novel will show improvement. I am trying to understand his process of growth as a writer and it appears that there is a lot of room for that in his first book.
    A quote from the book to sum it up, How incomplete. How funny. How simple. And also, a great pity.
    59/100
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Ben Bonkoske is the author of two novels, Spoon in the Road, and Carolina, Colorado, California. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Ten Zen by Ben, and Eleven Stories for 11:11. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.

B. A, M.A.T.