Review: A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex by Regie Cabico
For my first Fun Friday review, I’m going to share a delightful poetry collection. My aim on Fridays is to review collections and novels that will entertain you and keep you uplifted. I hope you find something to love.
A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex and Other Hyperboles, Mysteries, Parables & Fantasias by Regie Cabico is a wildly, fun ride. Readers entering this collection will be set off balance as the enter Cabico’s parables and surreal poetry-scapes. Cabico’s poetic energy vibrates off the page, and if you’ve never seen him perform, you need to. It’s a life changing experience and you’ll have one of the best times of your life at his poetry readings.
In the opening poem, Cabico is taking poetry to the lab, and readers will envision the mad genius at work in that lab, but what Cabico says is “They should have planted it/In a porcelain pot.” Indeed, poetry needs nurturing to grow. It needs audiences to tend to its works and lines, it needs poets to cajole and trim. “Poetry” is a slam-dunk opener.
The nudge and poke of the muse is with Cabico throughout the collection, and as a poet, I can understand this constant fiddling the mind does with ideas and moments. In “Peter Pan Bus Line,” a child gnaws on the narrator’s shoulder and the mother busily converses with the driver about movies, but the narrator later awakens to his old poems in a duffle bag. Is the child and mother real, were they manifestations of poems noodling around in the narrator’s mind on a long journey? The answers are left up to the reader, the other half of this exchange.
Cabico is an interactive poet. His poems beg readers to participate. His collection mirrors his performances. Imagine a “prescription ballet” in the poem “Metformin.” We are twirling witht he bottle’s contents, becoming ghosts and boneless people. It’s at once horrific and enchanting. Poem upon poem challenge readers with the reality of aging, the pressure of modern life, the sense that there is something better beyond, but Cabico brings us hope that we have what we need, if we have a little imagination.
Croissant I am a croissant in a rehab circle with other pasteries. The blueberry muffin discloses their toasted lifestyle. I get triggered by the doughnut exposing its jelly filling. I have a crush on a churro. Last night we knocked ourselves into a singular Cinnabon, rolling around in butter.
Jump into the “Wonderland” rabbit hole with Regie Cabico’s A Rabbit in Search of a Rolex, and you’ll find yourself enlivened and envigorated with imaginative places and dances to last a lifetime.
RATING: Cinquain
About the Author:
Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and later taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. Television credits include 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, NPR’s Snap Judgement & MTV’s Free Your Mind. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Literary journal publications include Poetry, Bellevue Literary Review, poets.org & Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Mr. Cabico received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital. As a theater artist he received three New York Innovative Theater Award Nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind with a win for Best Performance Art Production The Kenyon Review recently named Regie Cabico the “Lady Gaga of Poetry” and he has been listed in BUST magazine’s 100 Men We Love. His solo play Godiva Dates & One Night Stands received critical acclaim at the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival. Mr. Cabico has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and through Howard Zinn’s Portraits Project at NYU has performed with Stanley Tucci, Jesse Eisenberg & Lupe Fiasco. Mr. Cabico has received numerous fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and The DC Commission for the Arts & Humanities. Follow Cabico on Instagram.