A new volume of poetry or, for that matter, any writing by John Leax is always a treat, and his latest, Tabloid News, does not disappoint.  The fifteen poems included in this slim volume had their genesis in a great "what if" question, the kind good writers ask.  Finding himself in front of the tabloids that line the supermarket checkout lines everywhere, Leax asked "what if the stories under the headlines were true?"  What if, to quote one headline, "leaping turtles" did invade the United States?

The resulting poems --- meditations (if you will) on the fear and longing that likely lurk beneath the radar of the stories --- are often funny, as you might expect, but also quite thoughtful, probing the reasons why some of us are, to one degree or another, are attracted to such outrageous stories.  Reading poems with titles like "Bat Boy is Missing" or "I Want to Have a Space Alien's Baby," I had the same sense one has in seeing the oddities or freaks on the midway at the fair --- curiosity, disbelief, shock, repulsion, and pity.  Do we read because we desire to know if there is something beyond our mundane existence?  Or maybe because the loneliness or strangeness the characters that people these stories feel may reflect some of our own sense of alienation, our own sense of being alone in our own peculiarities.  Whatever the reason, such stories of the strange and bizarre never seem to leave us, and Leax does good work by helping us see them from the inside out.

One of my favorite of these poems is entitled "Bizarre Creature Spotted in Louisiana Bayou," about a half-human half-alligator creature:

He has no memory of birth.
He does not know if his mother
clawed away the steaming vegetation
of her nest when he began to squeal
and peck his fingernails against
a shell or if she cried at a sudden,
gripping pain and labored
through a night to push him
headlong into life.

The poem goes on to recount his discovery of his bodily oddity and the lonely existence he was consigned to and yet not altogether unhappy with:

Some afternoons, when he is sure
of his hiddenness, he heaves himself
upright, a tripod, balanced on hind legs
and tail, and sings.  Around him the birds
grow still, their silence an underscore
to the breaking joy of his risen hope.

However good some of the poems are, however, others make we wonder if their incarnation as poems is entirely apt.  Some, like "Duck Hunters Shoot Angel," seem to beg for a short story format --- short shorts perhaps.  I think what is missing in some, as I read them aloud, is a certain cadence, a music, one of the ingredients that, for me, typifies a poem as opposed to a bit of prose.  Missing too is the economy of language, the compression of meaning into few words that typifies a poem.  Thus, in a handful of these stories, I sense that Leax chose the wrong vehicle to tell a great story.  Still, this is an inventive package, right down to the tabloid-spoofing cover with the quip "As Seen in Books and Culture!"  Kudos to publisher Wordfarm for risking precious time and funds on poetry and good packaging.

Read Tabloid News.  After doing so, you won't need the real tabloids.  You might even find yourself mirrored in the bizarre characters Leax brings to life.  All because a writer asked "what if."