The Strike Baby is the debut album by former North Carolina Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti, it's a poetry cycle about his relationship with his family, how a catholic upbringing informed his life and how his parents always did there best for the kids. Joseph's poetry delivery has a cool flat monotone for most of the album that reminds me of the delivery of Kenward Elmslie when he is reading something like Big Bar rather than singing his poetry.
The album opens with Zippo a deadpan poem about Josephs parents meeting for the first time in the 40's, this is a nice reminiscence of what for Joseph would have been a story he heard a lot as a kid, how carefully his dad lit those Camels with his Zippo.
From The Photograph Of The Church Steps September 3, 1947 is a cool description of his parents wedding photo, as he describes the various guests and what his parents think of them, as well as what they do or how they connect to the family. The poem was written when the photo was 45 years old.
The Strike Baby describes a harsh winter in 1950 with his dad on strike as Joseph was born into a stark future just before the strike ended.
Betsy Wetsy is an affectionate poem for his young sister and the things she did while very young. Singer is about a typically indestructible Singer sewing machine that his father gave his mum as a wedding present the old romantic that he was, the years watching his mum sewing all sorts of clothes.
The Cellar is about the things you can't talk about that might have gone on in the cellar, the memories of his sister and her teenage years spent in that cellar chatting to boys her parents might not approve of. Along with the hair-raising driving lessons and the clothes washed down there.
Your Leaving is about his sister leaving and getting married and the impressions he had of his sister's new family, as they get drunk the night before the wedding to the first Protestant to marry into their Catholic family.
Wheeling is about going out with a 16-year-old girl whose dad doesn't approve of you, most of us have been there. As he describes all the things that attracted him, as they wait for the factory to kick out in the industrial heart of Pittsburgh so he can see his father, unlike her dad who has a white-collar existence.
Knocked opens at the steel mill almost like a scene out of the Deer Hunter, with all the pollution and the hard toil of the steelmen, that made his dad make sure his son never followed him into the Mill.
Brooks Brothers Shirts isn't a Burroughs style cut up poem, more a tribute to his mum selling the shirts as well as the shirts she brought home for her husband and son to wear, making sure Joseph always looked like a prince, a total preppy.
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The Hollow was the woods Joseph went to hang out in, under the bridge, as he get into scrapes, playing among the tree houses, all the odd goings on, out of eye shot of their parents, eating fried squirrel, sitting in the rain, typical childhood adventures.
1961 is about yet another steel strike, all the wildcats and a house that needed painting, as his mum worked hard as a seamstress, as he talks of riots and VJ day the tumultuous 60's have begun, it must be time to drink some Lemon Ice.
High Mass on the joys and otherwise of going to church with his parents, how people get all dressed up for Church and how they behave.
Domenico Giuseppe is an airport scene, the surprise at searches for who knows what, how shocking that might be seem for anyone whose never been treated like that before this gets darker.
Bitter opens with him waiting for him elderly mum to answer the phone, to have one more chat, catching up on the family news, whose died, whose getting hitched etc, as the weather turns cold, things are harsh as the elderly family try to make it through the freezing cold at the funeral.
Maria Roselina is memory of cooking tagliatelle and the smells of the cooking sauce as Connie Francis sings on the stereogram, before the food is served with a nice Chianti bringing the family together as it always does.
The album closes with Steady Daylight a poem for his dads 105th birthday, that he's celebrating in a heavenly style, now he can do all the things he never got to do while working his socks off, he's reunited with his wife who died a year or so earlier than he did, this is a fond farewell to his parents, to close an interesting poetry album.
Find out more at https://josephbathanti.bandcamp.com/album/the-strike-baby https://josephbathanti.wordpress.com/
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