{"id":692,"date":"2024-02-15T11:42:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T17:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=692"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:49:21","slug":"rooks","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/rooks","title":{"rendered":"Rooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by\u00a0Gil Fagiani<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_691 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_691 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_691 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_691 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_691 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_691 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_691 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; 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The reader follows the poet through freshman year at Pennsylvania Military College, Class of 1967, where the spotlight is on the time-honored discipline that transforms young men into warriors. We sit with him on the third floor of Howell Hall \u201czipped up in his cadet blouse\/ hair cut back to the bone.\u201d In \u201cSpit Shines,\u201d the poet teases beauty from the soft rag buffing of shoes,\u201d a Lincoln penny\/in black wax.\u201d PMC is located in the heart of the decaying city of Chester, Pennsylvania. Fagiani sets these vastly different worlds into a brilliant counterpoint: one is antiseptic and ordered, the other, shabby and chaotic. In \u201cLocal Girls\u201d the daughters of immigrant Ukrainians and Poles \u201cwho pull double shifts\/in front of the blast furnaces\/ of Penn State Casting\u201d speed past the cadets, a cloud of locusts, in banged up Chevies.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">While organized violence is bred at PMC, the violence that spills from the town is fitful and random. We visit \u201cUkrainian Hall\u201d where \u201csomebody smashes a glass pitcher\/and waves the bloody handle.\u201d And \u201cThe Chester Arms,\u201d is the bar where cadets and locals collide, and the \u201cIsley Brothers preach\/the gospel of pussy\u201d while customers slug it out. An aura of presentiment hovers over Rooks: military escalation in Vietnam, political assassinations, burning cities, the larger social conflagration about to engulf America. The imagery of these poems is full of shit-on-a-shingle, grenade throws, latrines, swagger sticks, but there are also \u201cgolden-yellow\/daisy faces\/crushed in the imprints\/of tank treads\u201d Fagiani\u2019s language, sometimes gritty and humorous, is always energized and passionate. He suspends his poems often in midair, shocking them into silence.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong>Gil Fagiani<\/strong> attended Pennsylvania Military College from 1963 to 1967. He is a poet, short story writer, essayist and translator. His poetry has appeared in such anthologies as\u00a0<em>Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and about the Police<\/em>, edited by Jackie Sheeler, and\u00a0<em>Sweet Lemons: Writings With a Sicilian Accent<\/em>, edited by Venera Fazio and Delia De Santis. In 2004 a collection of his poetry set in East Harlem in the 1960\u2019s:\u00a0<em>Crossing 116th Street: A Blanquito in El Barrio<\/em>, was published in the literary journal\u00a0<em>Skidrow Penthouse<\/em>. In 2005, he won an \u201cHonorable Mention\u201d for both the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, and the Bordighera Prize.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Fagiani co-hosts the monthly open reading of the Italian American Writers\u2019 Association at the Cornelia Street Caf\u00e9, in New York City. His translations of nine poems from Abruzzese dialect to English were published last year in\u00a0<em>The Journal of Italian Translation<\/em>\u00a0edited by Luigi Bonaffini.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_691_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<P><STRONG>The Chester Arms<\/STRONG><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nA hot spring night in the Chester Arms.<BR>\r\nSomebody jacks up the volume of the jukebox<BR>\r\nand the room rocks to the sounds of<BR>\r\nthe Isley Brothers preaching<BR>\r\nthe gospel of pussy,<BR>\r\nChuck Jackson's \"Beg Me.\"<BR>\r\nI unbutton the collar of my uniform.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nJoyce, slim, dark and doe-eyed sits across from me,<BR>\r\nI can't keep my legs still.<BR>\r\nShe argues with one of her johns,<BR>\r\nan Italian construction worker<BR>\r\ncovered with dirt and curly black hair.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nThe john pulls on her arm<BR>\r\nspilling her Cutty Sark and milk<BR>\r\nand she bounces a shot glass off his chest.<BR>\r\nMike, the bartender, takes his baseball bat<BR>\r\ncomes from behind the counter<BR>\r\nand pushes them both out the door.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAvoiding the stares<BR>\r\nof two brawny transvestites,<BR>\r\nI listen to Ernest, a regular, boast<BR>\r\nabout his college days<BR>\r\nwhen he drove a Porsche<BR>\r\nand styled himself the Prince of Poon Tang.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI feed the juke box quarters<BR>\r\nand down balls and beers<BR>\r\nErnest insists on paying for.<BR>\r\nOut of the corner of my eye<BR>\r\nI watch his wife,<BR>\r\na grizzly bear in a blonde wig,<BR>\r\nhitting on every stud at the bar<BR>\r\nwondering when Ernest is going to snap<BR>\r\nand go upside her head.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nLeaving to piss,<BR>\r\nI return to Otis Redding's<BR>\r\n\"...gotta, gotta have it...\"<BR>\r\nthe bass so loud the bar glasses rumble.<BR>\r\nI hear scuffling in the lobby<BR>\r\nand through a Dutch door<BR>\r\nsee Ernest whaling away<BR>\r\non one of the men his wife flirted with.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nButtoning my collar, I'm ready to split<BR>\r\nwhen Ernest's wife backs me against the wall<BR>\r\nshoves her hand between my legs,<BR>\r\n\"I hear cadet cock's the best there is,\" she says,<BR>\r\nher wig as crooked as her smile.<\/P>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<P><strong>Thanksgiving Fulough<\/STRONG><BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nFirst time home since I enter P.M.C:<BR>\r\nMess Hall grease oozes out of my skin<BR>\r\ncreating a mountain chain of zits,<BR>\r\nmy hair is sheared down to my skull<BR>\r\nlike I had psycho-surgery,<BR>\r\nand I've switched<BR>\r\nfrom puffing a pack of Luckies a day<BR>\r\nto two packs of Pall Malls.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nNobody's in the neighborhood.<BR>\r\nmy best buddy's already at war,<BR>\r\non sick leave in `Nam,<BR>\r\nshot in the hand<BR>\r\nat the Bay of Saigon<BR>\r\nwhile painting the side of his boat.<BR>\r\nI'm so tired from pre-dawn drills<BR>\r\nand midnight push-up parties<BR>\r\nthat I sleep twelve hours a day.<BR>\r\nMy aunts resent me after<BR>\r\nI refuse to be photographed in uniform.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nI visit my ex-girlfriend in Danbury<BR>\r\nwho sings a duet with her fianc\u00e9e<BR>\r\nwhile he plays the piano<BR>\r\nin front of her father and mother<BR>\r\nwho toast the smiling couple<BR>\r\nwith glasses of peppermint schnapps<BR>\r\nwhile I hide in a cloud of cigarette smoke.<BR>\r\n<BR>\r\nAt night I go to a bar in Brewster<BR>\r\nchasing shots of Henessey with ale<BR>\r\nuntil carried out the side door<BR>\r\nlike a sack of empty beer bottles.<BR>\r\nI heave myself through hedges<BR>\r\ntrip over tree roots<BR>\r\nand pass out on Route 51<BR>\r\nmy legs straight and my arms out<BR>\r\nroused by two uniformed cops<BR>\r\nkicking me into consciousness.<\/P>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_691_3\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"justify\"><strong>Bob Holman<\/strong><BR>\r\n<strong>Bowery Poetry Club<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"justify\">Now that Journalists are finally asking some hard (but basic) questions about what really led the nation into the latest phase in the war in Iraq; questions of how individuals are prepared to fight wars may be better left to the poets. No poet is better qualified to ask these questions than Gil Fagiani. In \u201cRooks,\u201d his second collection of poetry, Fagiani, take the reader on a bare-knuckled tour of Pennsylvania Military College, against the backdrop of the Vietnam war.<\/P>\r\n<P style=\"text-align: justify\">Fagiani\u2019s work, like the PMC itself, is tightly controlled. The freshman (rook) year is best thought of as a factory where young civilians are forged into elite officers, eventually to command and pass the abuse onto the next generation of cadets. In Spit Shines, Fagiani recalls the discipline and punish that makes mountains out of molehills:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote><em>At the morning muster, Sergeant Kotowski<BR>\r\nSwaggers up to me<BR>\r\nPoints to a speck of dust on one shoe<BR>\r\n\u201cHey, douche bag,<BR>\r\nwhat did you polish your shoes with,<BR>\r\nBrillo pads?\u201d<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"justify\">The trick of military discipline is to give orders for everything, and consequences for the smallest deviation. The mechanics of battle and brutality, above all an ability to obey orders without question, are tested at the college. That\u2019s the only logical reason why cadets are sentenced to a thousand humiliations daily ranging from a sentence of eating dinner under a table, to demerits and restriction for failing to remove grease from the interior of a radio. Fagiani describes the process that renders men into parts of the machine:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote><em>When the door opens<BR>\r\nAnd Captain Doyle and his entourage enter,<BR>\r\nWe stand throbbing with pride:<BR>\r\nBrass bright<BR>\r\nShoes like burnished marble,<BR>\r\nGray uniforms crisscrossed with white belts.<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"justify\">Fagiani isn\u2019t writing protest poetry, at times his writing verges on journalism. He lets the reader draw his or her own conclusions, which much more respect than what was given to him in military college. While never once raising an accusatory finger, Rooks can only be read in the context of the era in which is was published, the War On Terror, not the Vietnam era. Rooks is a stunning, sobering, blueprint of a corner of the militarized mind, and as such offers the kind of subversion essential for dignified living.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n <script>\r\n\t\tjQuery(function () {\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('#myTab_691 a:first').tab('show')\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\tjQuery(function(){\r\n\t\t\tvar b=\"fadeIn\";\r\n\t\t\tvar c;\r\n\t\t\tvar a;\r\n\t\t\td(jQuery(\"#myTab_691 a\"),jQuery(\"#tab-content_691\"));function d(e,f,g){\r\n\t\t\t\te.click(function(i){\r\n\t\t\t\t\ti.preventDefault();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tjQuery(this).tab(\"show\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tvar h=jQuery(this).data(\"easein\");\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(c){c.removeClass(a);}\r\n\t\t\t\t\tif(h){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+h);a=h;}\r\n\t\t\t\t\telse{if(g){f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+g);a=g;}else{f.find(\"div.active\").addClass(\"animated \"+b);a=b;}}c=f.find(\"div.active\");\r\n\t\t\t\t});\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\t\t});\r\n\t\t\r\n\r\n\t\tfunction do_resize(){\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar width=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).width();\r\n\t\t\tvar height=jQuery( '.tab-content .tab-pane iframe' ).height();\r\n\r\n\t\t\tvar toggleSize = true;\r\n\t\t\tjQuery('iframe').animate({\r\n\t\t\t    width: toggleSize ? width : 640,\r\n\t\t\t    height: toggleSize ? height : 360\r\n\t\t\t  }, 250);\r\n\r\n\t\t\t  toggleSize = !toggleSize;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t<\/script>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Gil Fagiani<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":693,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[28],"product_tag":[63],"class_list":{"0":"post-692","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-poetry","7":"product_tag-gil-fagiani","9":"first","10":"instock","11":"shipping-taxable","12":"purchasable","13":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}