The materiality of glass takes on new meanings in Chicago-based poet, editor, and drummer Will Russo’s 2023 Rick Campbell Chapbook Award-winning collection, Glass Manifesto—a collection of sixteen poems inspired by a glass-blowing workshop that led Russo to examine the properties of glass as a substance and humanity’s relationship to it.
From scientific language taken from Wikipedia articles about the various properties and functions of glass to lines and phrases borrowed verbatim from John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” these poems tell of loss and uncertainty, and finding one’s way through those feelings. Glass Manifesto features many moments of humanity and tenderness throughout, but Russo’s meditations on the ambivalent, arbitrary nature of our brief existence on earth is best captured in “I” and “XVI” — the poems that bookend this collection. In “I”, Russo writes:
To demand custody of an earth
we cannot tame. There is volition:
a road bends, a storm
passes. Part idealist, part cynic, the sun
calls
my twenty-four-hour body
to perform. I do not perform —
I improvise,
Or mimic.
The poem stands out as a call to prayer, of resistance in the face of resignation, and finally of surrender—offering oneself up to a world we cannot control. This recognition of human agency and its limits sets the tone for the rest of Glass Manifesto.
These poems have an illusory quality, like that of a familiar image becoming unfamiliar when reflected on a convex mirror. Russo admittedly draws inspiration from the rhythm and musicality of words which “play the biggest role” in his language collection process. From Wikipedia to Ashbery, he uses many words and phrases for what they evoke, rather than what they mean. This, like glass, adds a layer of abstraction to the more experimental poems of the collection, like “X. Synesthete”:
I am always seeing the red grapheme like an adulteress.
How can I scaffold the logic — if not, then not?
In an interview with Anhinga Press (posted on Instagram), Russo mentions printing out old drafts and new works in progress, and taking scissors to the printouts to cut lines and rearrange them into new configurations for Glass Manifesto. This act of taking words, phrases, and lines from different sources and mixing them with his own lyrical aphorisms gives Russo’s poems their elusive, enigmatic mysticality. Like a mirage, their meaning moves further from reach the more you read them. Old images like these lines from “VI” hide behind layers of obfuscation and become new metaphors:
Veins of tree bark.
A purple rope like a bracelet.
Dads and their tummies, their tight little frames.
Sheepdog, leash lost, fur wet
collecting at the snout
In the end, what is left is often pure sound — the acoustic quality of language itself. This experimentation in condensing and crystalizing language into rhythm and lyricism reaches a crescendo in “XVI,” the final poem of the collection. A reflection on the fragility of our existence on earth and the world itself, Russo ends the poem with these haunting lines that play on Christian scripture:
Stranded,
the body’s soft, visceral dream.
Take. Eat.
Blood of my gums, shed for you.
An intimate exploration of the properties of glass as a substance — its many forms, manipulations, and means of enabling vision — and as a metaphor for “the systems that make up our world and external lives, how they can be mimicked internally, and the tension between noticing and being ignorant of them,” Glass Manifesto is a meditative collection of poems that call to resist the powers that move the world at times, or resign and offer oneself up to them at others.
About the Author
Will Russo is a New York-born, Chicago-based poet, editor, and drummer. He is the author of two chapbooks: Dreamsoak (Querencia Press) and Glass Manifesto, winner of the 2023 Rick Campbell Chapbook Award from Anhinga Press. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School, received his BA from Emory University and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is poetry editor at Great Lakes Review and reviews editor at Another Chicago Magazine.
Contributor Bio
Drishya (he/him ⸱ b. 1997) is a writer and artist based in Kolkata, India, publishing under a single name to protest India’s caste system. He was shortlisted for the Mogford Prize and nominated for the BBA Photography Prize – One Shot Award in 2022. He is @drishyadotxyz on Instagram and X.
Contents
Check out new poetry books published the week of 7/2 from Black Lawrence Press, LSU Press, Persea, Omnidawn, Bloodaxe Books and Central Avenue Publishing.
Check out new poetry chapbooks for June 2024 from Driftwood Press, Sheila-Na-Gig Inc., Diode Editions, Querencia Press, The Poetry Box, Finishing Line Press, Bottlecap Press and an Editor’s Pick from Tupelo Press.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 7/9 from Finishing Line Press, New Directions, Phoneme Media, University of Calgary Press and Curbstone Books.
July ‘24: A Fledgling Journal No More
We’ve completed our first volume, there’s a new featured chapbook poem, and we’re starting to look for a Poetry Editor to expand what we publish. Check out the editor’s note for July 2024.
Chapbook Poem: Whenua by Nicola Andrews
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for July 2024, “Whenua” from Māori Maid Difficult by Nicola Andrews, along with a few words from the poet.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 7/16 from Finishing Line Press, Soft Skull, Penguin Books, Regal House Publishing and University Of Minnesota Press.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 7/23 from Host Publications, W. W. Norton & Company, Carcanet Press Ltd., LSU Press, Finishing Line Press, The Song Cave and Wake Forest University Press.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 7/30 from Delete Press, Quale Press, Duke University Press, Seagull Books, Sarabande Books, Michigan State University Press and Alternating Current Press.
Southern Literary Tradition: On ‘Snake Lore’ by Jane Morton
In this essay, C.M. Crockford reviews “Snake Lore” by poet Jane Morton, a chapbook published by Black Lawrence Press in February 2024.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 8/6 from NYRB Poets, Belle Point Press, Finishing Line Press, Black Lawrence Press, Wayne State University Press, Milkweed Editions, Penguin Books, Bloodaxe Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Alice James Books, Mercer University Press and two Editor’s Picks from Coffee House Press and Wesleyan University Press.
Chapbook Poem: It’s okay to say the hurricane has an eye by Amanda Rabaduex
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for August 2024, “It’s okay to say the hurricane has an eye” from Resin in the Milky Way by Amanda Rabadeux, along with a few words from the poet.
Check out new poetry chapbooks for July 2024 from Seven Kitchens Press, Small Harbor Publishing, Belle Point Press, Orison Books, Variant Lit, Querencia Press, The Poetry Box, Bottlecap Press and Finishing Line Press.
Check out new poetry books coming the week of 8/13 from Querencia Press, Alice James Books, Finishing Line Press, University of New Mexico Press, Harbour Publishing, Knopf, Amistad, TriQuarterly and Red Hen Press.
Check out new poetry books coming the week of 8/20 from Querencia Press, Finishing Line Press, McClelland & Stewart, Zephyr Press, Tin House Books, W. W. Norton & Company, Red Hen Press, Graywolf Press, Wesleyan University Press and an Editor’s Pick from Copper Canyon Press.
Check out new poetry books for the week of 8/27 from Carcanet Press Ltd., Beltway Editions, Finishing Line Press,, LSU Press, Milkweed Editions, Tupelo Press, Guernica Editions, University of Nebraska Press and Texas Review Press.
Resistance and Resignation in Will Russo’s Glass Manifesto
“Glass Manifesto is a meditative collection of poems that call to resist the powers that move the world at times, or resign and offer oneself up to them at others.” Review by PCR contributor, Drishya.
Meet our contributor, Drishya, a writer and artist based in Kolkata, India, publishing under a single name to protest India’s caste system. Read about his writing life and other work.