Arbutus Reviews

This book is about obsession. From the cover that seems like some comic portrayal of old world propaganda, to the repetition of the words “Hitler’s mustache,” to the use and abuse of the symbol of facial hair, the book obsesses over its central figure and his emblematic grooming. The poems titles all employ the opening phrase “Hitler’s Mustache:” and then fill in with their specific focus of the moment. Here are a few:

“ Hitler’s Mustache: The List of Facts,”
“ Hitler’s Mustache: The Dinner Date,”
“ Hitler’s Mustache: The Seven Deadly Mustaches.”

Reading the table of contents I get the impression that Davis has a mind that free associates with an ease that can be detrimental to a book (the fear of course that the result will simply entertain the author and leave anyone else within eye sight behind), but with the obsessive symbol of the mustache Davis gives himself a hub to center the wild imagination around as he falls into list-making, word play, self-conscious use of poetic forms, and social criticism. Take these lines from: “Hitler’s Mustache: The Mustache Is a Riddle, Except It Can’t Be Answered”

“ Consider cops and fascists of all sorts who enjoy the presence of upper / lip fur. Think of the urge to sculpt facial fur and a fur patch concerned/ with world domination. There is always some black hole. Some mus-/ tache pointing to the holes in the bucket. Flower beds are watered but / people go thirsty. Those beds are beds of dark mustache.”

Davis makes these leaps and is able to shore out criticism that if it were not couched with the surreal reoccurrences of the mustache might come across as strident, cheeky (or overly cheeky), or sentimental. He is able to romp through the twenty-first century through the lens of mustache. No one is immune as he follows the above stanza with:

“ More importantly is the fascist in each of us. The rope that climbs us / like children in elementary school, some extended snake that is too / easy to grip.”

The book, ultimately, is about poetry and composition of art. Whether this comes through in Davis’ tributes to other authors like Robert Bly (a wonderfully funny poem if the reader has heard Bly read live and repeat his lines for effect) and Russell Edson, his self-aware formal poems (“Hitler’s Mustache: The Teenage Mustache Sestina”), or specific lyric moments: “I would prefer the poem to the mustache.” (From “Hitler’s Mustache: The Fragmented Lyric Poem.”). With his references to trap doors, knock knock jokes, and songs Davis creates a mosaic of composing hinged on that initial act of composition: sculpting lip hair. The mustache is so deeply symbolic in this book that it seems to defy its own symbolism. It is both mustache and not mustache. It is both symbol and not symbol. In terns it is literal, surreal, an object of love, of hate, literary, and a sweaty teenage kid jumping around making noise in his garage with his punk band.

Hitler’s Mustache is a weird book, in the best sense, and deserves to be read for its humor, strangeness, and because, well, it is a book of poems about a mustache. How can you resist?

— Jeremy Voigt