Posted on: June 25, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Revolution On Canvas / $12.95 / 224M / 1:30 / http://www.twbookmark.com / 

Poetry usually bores the hell out of me. Bands that have individuals that feel that they are set on this Earth to do anything but create music after making it big annoy me as well. However, this first volume of Revolution on Canvas is something I can get into. Note; this book is purely poetry (well, purely with the exception of a few different drawings from other band mates). If individuals are not big fans of poetry, then this book is something that they could easily miss out on. There is nothing in the way of layout changes between the poems in this book. Rich Balling, the editor, kept the poems as they were originally provided to eir. As far as I know, there is no rhyme or reason to the poems; they are not put in the book by any sort of alphabetical order or anything. However, the one plus is that the poems are grouped together by the writer.

Thus, all the poems done by Fat Mike are put together in a few pages of the book. Another solid organizational facet of the book is the fact that the table of contents is extensive, allowing for individuals to easily go through and locate the works by individuals that they like. While the bulk of individuals writing for this book are from emo acts, a few notable exceptions are present. These include Joseph Karam (The Locust), Tim McIlrath (Rise Against) and Jason Cruz (Strung Out). The poems in this work are not just the melodramatic collage of emo kids, but some really stand out as solid works. Bob Nanna (Hey Mercedes) has more of a prose style to eir poetry, which allows eir to create more of a story than was in anything else in this volume of Revolution on Canvas.

I would like to read other volumes of Revolution on Canvas, but hopefully each subsequent volume covers something different that musicians have created. The Spartan style of this volume should be a hallmark of future volumes. Perhaps the issue per copy of the book could come down to under $10, as the book goes pretty quickly. An hour and a half or two hours and individuals are all poetried out, without anything else to slake their thirsts from material from their favorite acts. Still, there are a few gems in the magazine that make up for some of the higher cost.

Rating: 6.2/10

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