Sin and I
by Travis Hupp
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9798891322882
Print Length: 166 pages
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Reviewed by Warren Maxwell
By turns heartfelt, raging, and sagacious—an intensely personal collection that calls out the hypocrisies of modern society while moving toward a state of acceptance
A powerful Author’s Note introduces this collection, describing how it was forged out of a clash between religiosity, homosexuality, and the deep bigotries that inhabit the church. Through this lens, the entire collection becomes a call to stand by one’s convictions and a searing statement of purpose.
This is poetry written by a repentant apostate, one who left the church to escape its prejudices and then returned to Christianity with the realization that to abandon God because of the earthly corruption of others is a sin in itself. The six sections that make up this book (Anger, Politics, Metaphysical, Despair, Hope, and Love) create a journey out of interior mental states, documenting the righteous anger, the longing for salvation, and the many passing thoughts that fill the days of a tumultuous, moral life.
“They’ll try to make you think
a density of lies
is a complexity of lies
But no
It’s just dense
It’s not deep
So it makes no sense to lose anymore sleep”
A broad spectrum of poem lengths and subjects fill these pages. Many pieces, like “It Hurts” are little more than four lines long, while others, like “Non-entity,” span several pages. The density and compactness of the shorter works often result in strong, impactful poems, while the longer pieces can feel sprawling and repeat. “Non-entity” is a condemnation of a “gutless, gunless gangbanging” you, “acting like you won something ‘cos you hurt me a little.” Individual lines are buoyed up with rhetorical power, even if the piece lacks much grounding imagery or a guiding arc.
“Instantaneous poetry.
Three words
Four syllables:
Life is lonely.”
While some poems are an obvious match for their thematic word, others occupy a grey area and could plausibly belong to any part of the collection. The poem “Trading” is found within “Love,” the final section of the book, but seems equally adapted to “Politics” or “Metaphysical.” “We Lingered” is also in “Love,” but its concluding lines “It’s all relieved so easily/It won’t survive/It isn’t art,” make it feel almost like the “Despair” section. While the Author’s Note lays out a clear path, the scrambling of themes within the poetry can make it difficult at times to follow the collections trajectory.
“In the final analysis, it’s all just
thematic material
We are all thematic material
Flesh wrapped around the ethereal”
The titular poem, “Sin And I” is among the collection’s strongest with its stark imagery and compact seven lines. “God says have faith in His son/The cards say hurt and move on/Logic says don’t count on the sun.” Some other poems veer more the stream of consciousness, where rhyme and repetition appear sporadically. Some poems rhyme the same word with itself, and other rhyming schemes are initiated and then dropped, creating some obscure forms and rhythms. These unique poetic choices seem almost to take inspiration from children’s book verses, diary entries, and campaign writing, never depending on a singular style.
Drawing from a sense of loss and a deep well of perseverance, an embattled voice animates the poems in Sin and I. Tenacious in their grip on individuality and resistance to authoritarian forces in society, this is a thoughtful, inspiring collection.
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