Crowd Surfing With God Adrienne Novy Half Mystic Press, 2018 Crowd Surfing With God (Half Mystic Press, 2018) by Adrienne Novy takes poetry and its elements to a new heights. What makes Crowd Surfing With God unique is that it reads as a memoir of Novy’s speaker. From start to finish, a reader can follow the progression of the speaker’s identity. Unlike other poetry collections where the speaker can vary from poem to poem, the speaker’s voice in Crowd Surfing With God is steady and consistent; the speaker never leaves their own voice. The persona is their own, as they slowly reveal each unique part of their life and their voice; their struggles and their triumphs. In the slow unraveling of the speaker’s voice, the reader can also see the many facets of the speaker’s life, beliefs, and personality come to life with each turning page, reminiscent of a prose style memoir that spans from a childhood to present. Most notable in Crowd Surfing With God is the speaker’s ability to view their passions with a religious reverence. Navigating through childhood illness, chronic pain, transitioning into adulthood, religion, and sexuality, the speaker’s fierce passion for music becomes their saving grace. In the poem “pretty in my brand new scars,” the speaker sings: [Verse 1] Oh, secondhand emergency Say your prayers [to the sutures] [hospital chapel] […] [Chorus] [you] say your prayers & [call the surgery an orchestra of steel] [clean off the guitar frets with a scalpel] [repeat the baptism of the intravenous therapy] say your prayers say your prayers say your prayer Lyrically and stylistically, the poem is unique in its form and makes wonderful use of consonances like “say,” “surgery.” “steel,” and “scalpel.” A reader can hear the surgeon conducted orchestra of surgical instruments (a double meaning that is not lost on the reader). Comfort and curative measures are found not in the surgery and the intravenous medication, but in the verses and choruses of the songs that have been the speaker’s own personal anthem and psalm. This is not the only moment when music reaches out to catch the speaker in times of need. In several overarching works throughout the book, music is able to reach the speaker in ways that can only be described as divine intervention. In the work, “gerard way talks me down from a panic attack,” the speaker experiences a panic episode and turns to music to gain the upper hand on the symptoms. The speaker states: music is preventative for self-destruction // […] you have to inhale for four counts // […] healing will open on a new cord // Numerous references to music’s power do not water down its concentration. Instead, the musical allusions steep, increasing their potency and their ability to resurrect the speaker’s belief in themselves; a beat which reverberates throughout the text. Religion in Crowd Surfing With God is not found in a church, in a synagogue, in a mosque or in any other formal place of worship. Instead, religion is found in art and its many mediums. It’s found between the pages of a book, or at a My Chemical Romance concert; it can be found in childhood pleasures such as Finding Nemo and the Little Toaster which help ease the pain of a childhood illness. Crowd Surfing With God is a place where pop culture, creativity, and music thrive. As the dedication reads, “for sick kids, for queer people of faith, for punks,” Crowd Surfing With God is an inclusive place for everyone. Visit Half Mystic Press' Website

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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