Book review by David McLean

"Real Tits, Fake Smile" by Misti Rainwater-Lites
Very superficially reviewed by David McLean

This book is a venture into the dark waters of modern and classical culture by MRL that is consistently appealing. It's poems to shake your groove thang at, it deserves at least a wifted thong. To the best of my knowledge, Misti has never actually written a bad poem, and assembled in this collection these particular offerings collaborate to create a beautiful collage of
thoughts from the sick mind of Misti that is actually frighteningly normal. It's a sad fuck who isn't mad, as they say, and insanity is an exceptionally adaptive response to this asylum we jokingly call "our" western civilizations. So the superficial madness is just the ink an Instant Octopussy sprays to hide herself from all the ravenous dickheads.

Stand outs are "Rat Bitch" - about masturbating to internet porn and being "a rat consumed with the tease of the cheese." Then there's "The Night Gushes Blood" - a lovely "we're all dying" poem where I must say the word "gash" was conspicuous by its absence, though it only occurred in my head in this poem.

One that every man should be ashamed of is "Not Rape at All (Really Bad Sex)" about the man answering to the call of the lordly balls and their need to empty. Maybe men haven't been as much pigs as Misti's husband, but then they're not me either. She doesn't mention it, but a good vengeance that's been applied to me is abstinence not so much from sex as showering coupled with an insistence on cunning linguistics.

This is basically a very colorful hip confessional poetry by a more modern and more reliable Anne Sexton, it really deserves a much wider audience and I would heartily advise the reader of this to buy it pronto. The language is exquisitely crafted.

I repeat, buy it! It's cheap and good, not as good as coke but much more fun than ecstasy and, really, economically a much more realistic investment than a few grams of Charlie. Buy it and be part of the solution! The solution? Some of the best poems here are really rather upbeat - "Move Over, Madness" for one. That's the solution, looking at this shit we live in and saying: "It's got its upside. I'd take another ten thousand years."

Basically this is a book by a bitch with her ass on the line, who never stops, somewhere inside, being a "good girl" in the sense of putting the best possible face on it. And she likes her pussy and isn't afraid to say it. Now I hope that all men like their dicks. Why don't we praise our dicks more in poems? Nothing wrong with dicks, we just have to use them right. And that's why my "best of" award here goes to "Not Rape At All." It says something and makes me really want to check that my bitch actively wants to each time. So she did something with that poem.

Wait are you waiting for? Go to http://mistirainwaterlites.wordpress.com/ and press "order" and then "pay" for this and/or some others. It's all good shit.


Author bio:

David McLean has been submitting for the past year and has had around 300 poems accepted by 125 magazines. A chapbook "a hunger for mourning" with 53 of his poems has just been released by Erbacce Press.