Writing while drunk isn't new, and writing about "writing while drunk" isn't new, and writing about "writing about 'writing while drunk'" isn't new. And if I pursue that loop much farther, I'm going to need a drink.

Michael K. Gause's The Tequila Chronicles: Spontaneous Moments Preserved in Alcohol is a collection of twelve prose/poem/prose poem pieces: one for each month, and a different drink for each. They are the outpourings of a clearly drunk narrator, one convinced he has found enlightenment ("I was so splitting with words, so full of the Flood of Life that my eyes were engorged to the crest of beauty.") and the key to the ineffable ("It was only then that my sight was manifest and clouds parted, in me. My illumination became clear even to those around me."). The narrator is utterly convinced of his insight, certain he has gone beyond his audience's comprehension ("Modesty forbids saying that I am the one who learned to speak, but they met mutation with confusion and nervous laughter on all sides."). But it isn't the narrator's enlightenment that draws the reader through the book—the narrator's thoughts are as random and cryptic as you'd expect—it's the narrator's attitude.

At times the narrator is supremely confident in his voice: "O thund’rous Voice of Heaven, HEAR ME" in "April"; at other times, the narrator is tentative and reflective, searching for something he once had and has lost:

I know
there's no way to prove it,
but I know

I was

once

epic.

The heart of the collection is the narrator's psychological state, whether he is making grandiose claims about his insight or briefly sketching a scene for the reader. As a collection, the texts offer a few narrative threads: a street lamp appears and disappears, enlightenment is constantly sought, the narrator is clearly struggling to understand how drinking has affected his life, writing or otherwise. There is no resolution. The narrator does not rise above drinking and condemn it, nor does he finish with a euphoric celebration of Bacchus.

Gause's text intersperses drunken mundaneness with unexpected expressions or turns in the narratives, saving this chapbook from itself. The texts are fluid and do not dwell too long on any one topic, allowing the reader to dwell on the ones that are most interesting and skip quickly over any that threaten to bog down the pace. Tequila Chronicles is self-published by Gause and can be ordered through his website; it's enjoyable and well worth the read.

— Sarah Miller, Editor
Half Drunk Muse (January 2006)
Original Source

A chapbook containing prose poems that are, in the words of the author, “the result of drunken automatism, candid polaroids from nights of drunken writing. Editing was kept to a bare minimum to preserve the moment.” Gause manages to create pieces that are sometimes wise, sometimes charming, typically with a distinctive tone (if only the same could be said for most inebriated writing).

— Clayton Couch, Editor of Sidereality
Original Source

Is it lunacy to court the memory of youth, the way the rest
of our society does? Often I look upon these days a newborn,
cast upon the rocks at the water’s edge. There I quivered in the
face of stinging salt and a chill unknown in the womb.

These poems face the reader with a dilemma. If read sober, they seem rather too theatrical, promising the answers to great questions but delivering the rant of a kite-high drunk. If read properly, after a few drinks, the poems are much improved, but hard to read due to the imitation handwriting font Gause employs. Those interested in the Chronicles can belly up to Micawbers or Query booksellers with a $5 cover.

— Joel Van Valin, Editor of Whistling Shade
Original Source

We notice immediately the absence of a publisher, an ISBN or a bar code. This is basic self-publishing. This chapbook is available directly from the author, michael@thedayonfire.com and is also available from Micawber's, and independent bookstore in St. Paul (www.micawbers.com). Mr. Gause is active in readings and other cultural activities in the Twin Cities and collaborates on a cable access show on the arts called DIVE!

The glorification of alcohol has a long history in the poetry of both the orient and the occident. I was struck by Gause’s lines “Bring my wine in the night!/ Save herbs for the elders” and their resemblance to “Hinc abite lymphae, vini pernicies et ad severos migrate.” (“Water, thou of wine the bane,/ Go where’er it pleases thee,/ Hence, and join the sober train.”)

But there is not really very much alcoholic haze in these poems although Gause boasts that his editing was restrained, changing perhaps four or five words. Much of Gause’s attention is on the creative process itself. For a poet to write so extensively about poetry is mildly incestuous of course but this has no bearing on the value of the poetry.

So small a sample of his work – a dozen and one poems – can provide no basis for a definitive judgment. I found the poems to be not bad but good only in a peculiar way. The individual poem had often very little individuality but isolated lines had an excellence that was unexpected and welcome.

“But today, I am what yesterday wanted.”

“I am still too weak to rise and meet the day, held captive by
the golden bars erupting between the drapes, beginning above
the trees and ending at my feet with trembling breath.”

Some of Gause’s poems are in the format of prose and he sustains this alternative possibility with distinction.

He takes great pleasure in the typography used in his book but, elegant as it appears on the page, it is a style that is difficult to read and I would have been happier with something plainer. Poetry poses its own problems and needs no barrier of illegibility.

His biographical sketch indicates that he is working on longer works. I would enjoy reading them and would also hope that he would perhaps use greater editorial control. This book is not essential to anyone’s collection but is an unusually pleasurable experience.

—Bob Williams, Editor of The Compulsive Reader
Original Source

Didactic Winter
October
Cask Ale

The way some beer actually sobers you up.
The way I find myself attracted to coarse
women who affect perfect posture while smoking.

O but the price of that virgin womb!
The never-closing eye that
reminds us that we are no longer of Eden.

By this I speak in haunted terms of the father-son, teacher-taught of my shifting inner monarchy. The seal of Janus is stamped in molten steel, on each and every season my door. It is the Kings of Oak and Holly who, in that mythological tale of seasonal loss and glory, reign again their power from the otherin Time’s eternal floundering, overtaking the other in a sacred coup of assassination

I had trouble making out things material. Clarity only came when I chose to stop and consider the ineffable. It was only then that my sight was manifest and clouds parted, in me. My illumination became clear even to those around me

And tonight the curse is a single question: To go into the city and ingest its sweet stench of metal and purpose, linger in the eddies of ticking tragedies, and move ever closer to its middle eye; or make my way toward the hills and seek some illusion of safety, grasses and valleys of rain and revel in their foggy kisses? There the walls are strong to protect us from wounded innocence, the fickle touch of blade to bone.

I say let these inspirational spirits flow unfettered….forever!

© Ric Carfagna for Poetic Inhalation (original site of source no longer active)