[usr 4]
You are not going to die. You are not going to die. You are not going to die. You are already dead.
A beautifully written, dramatically photographed small, light book by Richard James Allen that tackles hard subjects.
Richard James Allen’s poetry manifests his lifelong engagement with Buddhist and Yogic Philosophies. It has appeared widely in journals, anthologies, and online, and he has been a popular reader at multiple performing arts venues, over many years. Richard James Allen’s previous books include: More Lies (Interactive Press, 2021), The short story of you and I (UWAP, 2019), Fixing the Broken Nightingale (Flying Island Books, 2014), The Kamikaze Mind (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2006) and Thursday’s Fictions (Five Islands Press, 1999), shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Richard James Allen is well-known for his multi-award-winning career as a filmmaker and choreographer with The Physical TV Company and as a performer in a range of media and events.
The front cover painting was created especially by Australian artist Michelle Hiscock and the book comes with images from author Richard James Allen’s film of the same title (yet to be released ) . Designed by Dylan Jones, the reader is drawn further into the chasms – or is that floating above this particular dimension? – of its vertiginous , shadowy tumbling apparitions of after Death.
Text Messages from the Universe is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, re-imagining in contemporary colloquial Western vernacular its depiction of the dislocated state of consciousness in the ‘Bardo’. There is also a reference to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
The book begins with a car crash and it floats between various levels of questioning understanding and consciousness. What is ‘real’? Does reality exist?
What does it feel like to know you are dead? .Text Messages is fluid – Time has stopped , been altered , a flowing slipstream that shifts between different dimensions , questions their life and attempts to define reality .But ‘seeking the finding is inviting the suffering’ .
It is a blurred existence, full of shadows and silent, internal screams .The person is part of a continuing narrative and there are hidden secrets the person can’t express .The person wants to escape , but where are they and where to ? Yet ‘ Whereas, you feel like you are never really there. Even when you are there ‘. In a deep sleep, can the person ‘reboot ‘ everything ? Do they really want to? Why do they have a strange attraction to dark dingy alleys ?
Crossing the street in one of the dimensions, the person receives Text Messages From the Universe.They feel as if they are flying, and become absorbed and regenerated as the sky .
In some of the photos, the dancers appear to be almost ‘flying ‘ while at others they are blindfolded and constricted .
A striking, marvellously written, thought provoking book.
Pocket Poets Series https://flyingislandspocketpoets.com.au/product/text-messages-from-the-universe-by-richard-james-allen/
ISBN: First Edition ISBN 978-0-6455503-1-3.
Author pic by Kyle Powderly