"Postcards from the Abyss" is a freewheeling collection of Philip Traum's finest writing spanning the last thirty years - essays, aphorisms, letters, rants, dramatic set pieces, memoir-like reminiscences, and a stunningly wide range of poetry - from rhyming poems in strict forms and meters, to the wildest, loopiest, and most surreal poetry one can imagine. It's shot through with moments of hilarious light, dark, and black comedy, wild flights of imagination, raw, visceral emotions, deep self-inquiry, joy, grief, regret, despair, and, ultimately, fervent hope and bravery. The multiplicity of Traum's various voices, concerns, and styles, and his relentless bravery in battering down his own and others' emotional fortresses in order to reveal and confront the vast, tumultuous, and sometimes terrifying terrains within, make it impossible to do this compilation any sort of justice in a simple blurb.
Here are a few of the uniformly five-star reviews of Traum's most recent book, "Fifty Poems of Love, Death, and Disdain", also available on Amazon.
"This is a painful book, both excruciating and, on occasion, bleakly funny. I was reminded of some other reliquaries of sorrow - 'The Inman Diary', Cyril Connolly's 'Unquiet Grave', and William Ellery Leonard's 'Two Lives'. Traum's voice is learned, musical, and various, but never less than distinctly his, whether in sonnets, free verse, or diary."
Tim Page - Pulitzer Prize Winner for Criticism; music writer and culture reporter at The NY Times, Newsday, The Washington Post, The New Yorker; Professor of Journalism and Music at USC, Oberlin; and author of "Parallel Play", "Dawn Powell: A Biography", et al.
"This incredible poetry and prose derives its power from the magma of the author's actual truth, actual suffering, and, beyond the pain, the artistic courage he summoned to transform that suffering into the unforgettable, blinding, gut-punch of this volume. He has clearly gripped his fury, his longing, his passion, and even his dark humor, and, rather than submit, gripped it all by the 'short hairs' and declared victory, or at least a stalemate, in life's greatest battle: to remain a thinking, feeling, awake individual in a world that, basically, has it in for him, as it does, to some degree, for all of us. I urge you, dare you, and challenge you to read Traum's 'Fifty Poems...'".
Manny Mendelson - world-renowned pianist, composer, and arranger
"In his naked vulnerability, Philip Traum guides his reader through a veritable Divine Comedy of agony and ecstasy. His poetry seems, at times, like a cross between Shakespeare and the Brownings, yet somehow the reader still comes away feeling that he or she has heard a strikingly original voice. Traum guides us on a wild plunge through longing, passion, angst, despair, death, and even suicidal tendencies. And yet his self-awareness and steadfast desire for redemption allow him to emerge triumphant. We see and feel our own reflections in his failings, pain, existential dread, and, ultimately, his courage and transcendence. Bravo to Traum for sharing his brilliance, sardonic wit, and big, big heart. Few writers dare to be so brave. And I (we all) are much the better for it."
Suki Rae - Award-winning flautist and songwriter
Here's a brief excerpt from the opening of the title piece -
"The mountain stood gentle against the sky, enveloped in wisps of cloud, like a fetus, peacefully strangled in its own placenta. There was a time when its hills and cliffs were vibrant with roads and the bustle of traffic - perfumed seductions from a warm future. Now they lie congealed - spidery varicose veins on a rotting woman's corpse, incubating a bustling, furry, pubic undergrowth in which I am quite lost - wandering, posthumous, invisible..."
I urge you to read the passionate, challenging, and wildly transformative ride that is "Postcards from the Abyss". You will not easily forget it.
