Quote Originally Posted by brocktonblockbust View Post
Mayorga is very talented. I particularly liked the one entitled "I shagged Oscar's wife four times in one night". It was very touching and full of tenderness. The man just has a feel for language and knows how to put words together. "I love my Mum" is another very good one. It's all about how he has been made a man because of his mother. Lovely stuff indeed. "Penis mountain" is just downright weird though and he was quite likely off his head when he wrote that one. Still, all in all a top notch poet.
He IS talented. The downright weird ones are second on my list, but the touching ones that are often filled with tenderness I do prefer. About being "quite likely" off his head I have minimal doubts: he was well OUT of his head on "P M" in all likelihood. Only "Thirteen Disappointments of My Teenage Years" struck me as under-par.
To be fair to him he did write that after being stopped by Trinidad. So not only was he concussed and had red hair, but he was still finding his way as a writer. It wasn't as good as the later stuff, but there were still good moments. I particularly like the lines:
"a girl walked past, I whistled,
she turned around and looked at me,
I grabbed my crotch and gave her a wink,
but oh the rejection,
whisky and cigarettes did never hurt me like that."

Mayorga really captures the human condition with sentiments like these. Sure, it doesn't reach the maturity of his later work, but the sentiments are loud and clear. And don't forget, the man had red hair at the time.