Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver

John Yamrus, a renowned master of neo-noir and minimalist poetry, has a book out with Anxiety Press. The Street is a poetic memoir presented in a conversational tone. In fact, Yamrus told me it’s best I read the book as though I’m speaking it. Because his stanzas put me right on the street where he grew up, I felt like a friend visiting his neighborhood for the first time and listening to him tell these stories about his family and neighbors over a few cups of coffee.

The memoir has two parts. Each section puts the reader in specific places in the neighborhood with the people in his life. Although the pages in the book are not dense, I was immersed into Yamrus’ memories and was able to picture the scenes well. I imagined myself on a tour of his street.

The organization of each part is loose and dream-like. Memories are like dreams. Yamrus allows a stream-of-consciousness flow to the stories. The street is a geographic place, a stage, where many dramas unfold. But there are digressions that take the reader down alleys and then back to the main street. 

The organization of the topics in each part of the book appear random. I list some general topics here, but Yamrus treats memories as jazz. Also, when you read the book, think of a Picasso painting. The general topics are not strictly organized. Yamrus describes a family member, a place, or a neighbor, takes us somewhere else because other memories are called up, and returns to the prior stories. 

Memories are jumbled dreams.

Some selected topics are listed as examples below.

Part One: Memory Lane (7 sections)

This part recalls his earliest memories in the 50s, the environment of the neighborhood (an old oak tree), his uncle and cousins, pets (Tippy the dog), areas where he played (train tracks, tar pits), eccentric neighbors (Black Mary), sports, and the death of his father, his grandmother, sports, Greek neighbors.

Part Two: RMA (Remember me always.) (20 sections)

He relives his father’s death and brings up topics related to music, religion (churches and funerals), other eccentric neighbors (their home and twin daughters), a local bar and its owner and patrons, kite flying in a field, more on religions, philosophy and politics, his friend Willie, The Back Road, fishing with his dad, the laundromat, his friend Lenny.

The stories unfold to show that life isn’t fair. As Yamrus writes, “I read somewhere once that the dream is always killed by reality. well, our reality back then was the dream” (22).

A Noir Poetry Collection

Yamrus is known as a neo-noir poet. Noir poetry lacks sentimentality. Also, according to John Challis in “The Poem Noir”, “a noirish poem needn’t rely on the cliché furniture of detectives and femme fatales, but instead on an insistence on excavating a situation or location, or even the self, for memories or truths, and on holding whatever buried treasure that is found up to the light, regardless of what it revealed.” (https://poetryschool.com/new-courses/the-poem-noir/).

Challis’ description of noir poetry fit Yamrus’ book well. Yamrus’s descriptions are factual; the emotional impacts, understated and yet powerful.

To illustrate, a major focus in Part One is the sudden death of the author’s father. The scene of the discovery of his father’s deceased body is revealed in stark terms.

“and, then…just like that, he was gone.

45 years old and we found him dead in my room…blue in the face, eyes open and staring, with a line of spit running down his chin” (32-33).

While the description of his dead father is dispassionate, the author isn’t devoid of love for his father. He replays the death scene more than once in the memoir. This resurgence of this memory underscores the emotive value of the event. Because happier memories of his relationship with his father also come forth more than once in the memoir, I felt very moved by the stories about his father and his father’s unexpected death.

Ars Poetica

‘The Street’ is an “ars poetica” on writing a memoir. At the beginning of the book, Yamrus is consciously aware of his need to grab the reader’s attention. He considers other famous beginnings of poems and books. The choices are comical. “It was the best of times. it was the worst of times.” His musings create parody and set an unpretentious tone.

The following is just one example where he not only includes the reader in his writing process but he also sets the table for coffee and cookies. He has a story to tell, so pull up a chair.

“Bukowski was also no slouch when it came to knowing just how to grab a reader’s attention. the point is, i figured if i was gonna sit down and write my memoir, i’d better be able to begin it in a fashion that would grab the reader by the throat and (like the blurbs on the covers always say) “send them off on a whirlwind of an adventure.” so, this is the best i got…this is my beginning, and if it doesn’t grab you by the throat or by anything else you’ve got, then you’d better close this book right now, put it back on the shelf where you found it and walk away.

here’s my beginning:

i never was any good at anything but sitting down in front of a keyboard and talking about myself and i’m not really very good at that.

since memoirs deal with memory, the first real memory i have has to do with …..”

Other stanzas reveal self-reflection on the act of writing the memoir. He isn’t just telling the stories, but he’s explaining his method in more than one place as this example shows.

“let me back up a bit here…this isn’t going to be a strict memoir in the traditional sense…not by any means. my brain’s not wired that way. this is gonna be more like jazz…like a conversation between instruments…each going off on its own journey…each feeding into and onto the whole, so that i may skip around a bit (maybe even a whole lot) and i may not end up exactly where i wanted to end up, but the journey getting there will hopefully be worth the effort. at least, for me, it will” (14).

The story teller is saying, “Bear with me.” Yamrus is engaged in natural discourse about the people and places on his street. Memories are dreamlike, not pre-written dramas. His apologies are descriptive.

“(Note to self: This memoir is going to be difficult to keep straight…for the reader as well as the writer…because memories aren’t linear (anyone who’s read Proust knows that)…memories are like leaves on a tree…and they fall at different times, at different speeds, in different ways…eventually, no matter how they fall, they end up covering the ground.) (30)”

He also includes “notes to self” to reflect on his story as we can see in the following example, which, by the way, is the entirety of Section VII in Part One.

“(Note to self: Satchel Paige had it right…he once said “don’t look back…something might be gaining on you.”)” (48).

These diversions from the storyline serve a conversational purpose. Yamrus is at the head of the table having a chat with us. Conversations can be rambling, but a good conversationalist is in control of the dialogue. After a similar digression, Yamrus returns to the story, not giving the guest at his table time to ask questions.

“anyway, i was talking about this tree at my uncle’s…this was the ‘50s” (14)

Colloquial Style

As Yamrus said, The Street is meant to be spoken. As you can see from the passages above, the stanzas are written with run-on sentences, parentheses, ellipses, and lower-case i. He also contracts “going to” into “gonna”. Rules for proper sentence mechanics are not followed. 

The following example shows other assimilations of words. The phrase “Like it or not” becomes “likeitornot”, and the phrase “The people I knew as a kid” becomes “thepeopleiknewasakid”. 

“(Note to self: It takes a lot of nerve to write a memoir. Some people may even call it arrogance. I have neither. I’m writing this just to remember thepeopleIknewasakid. Likeitornot– whether they knew it or not – they helped make me into whatever kind of a man I am today” (34).

The story teller’s style of speech brings the accounts alive. 

The Street by John Yamrus is a unique and entertaining collection. Enjoy your coffee hour with Yamrus as he tells his colorful stories about his family, friends, and acquaintances in his eclectic neighborhood. Once you do, you’ll remember them always.