Still Mostly True by Brian Andreas

       In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger invented Instagram, which is still one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Instagram has been the launching pad for a number of poets’ careers, for better or for worse, capitalizing on short-form poems with just one or two sentences with line breaks and maybe a doodled accompaniment. Often these poems take the form of tidbits of wisdom or advice. Often their tone is designed to be relatable. Well, with Brian Andreas’ 1994 collection Still Mostly True: Collected Stories & Drawings, we’re not quite at the age of Instagram poetry, but we’re in a similar mode of an outsider’s “unpracticed” hand.

Andreas provides a series of short poems, the collection of which can be read start to finish in one half-hour sitting. Most of the poems are two or three sentences with some silly conceit, accompanied by a doodled image that is simultaneously childish and grotesque. Even the fonts of the book are cartoonish—one the huge print of a children’s book, the other the artist’s chicken scratch.

Most of the poems, I have to admit, I felt compelled to gloss over. Here’s a sample of a representative one that I feel encapsulates the simplicity of structure and the not-entirely-landing-humour of the collection: “He won the grand / prize of a vacuum / cleaner & all the / canned goods he / could carry & / when they told him / he couldn’t believe it. // I thought I was / buying drink tickets, / he said” (“Winning Ticket”).

There are a couple of poems in the collection that touch on something sincere. Maybe it’s because it’s such a naive approach, but once in a while the poems hit on something deeper. I’m not going to pretend that these poems will revolutionize our interior worlds, but two stood out as touching reflections.

One untitled drawing is accompanied by the following poem:

he has a hole
where his
heart used to
be because
it fell out when he was running from scary
things one night in a dream & it hurts all the
time now & he doesn’t know how to fix it &
sometimes I think he doesn’t even remember that it’s gone

I appreciate this sense of lack. It’s a bit lackluster to chalk it up to a dream but if you stretch your imagination a little, it feels a little more meaningful.

The other poem gets stupider but there’s still an emotional core worth talking about. The poem goes as follows: “he wore a pot on his head in all / kinds of weather. / I never learned / to cook / I got it / after my / mother died. / he said. I just / know it would / make her happy / that I’m using / it.” Sure, the premise is dumb and implausible, but there’s something sweet about not using the pot for its intended purpose but wanting to bring comfort to his deceased mother.

Anyway, the poetry collection isn’t particularly memorable. It’s not especially developed; the poems wash over you in rapid succession and once they’re done, I was ready to stop thinking about them. The drawings are whimsical but, again, don’t have enough of a distinct visual style to leave a lasting impact.

Nonetheless, happy reading!