London Grip Poetry Review – g emil reutter

Poetry review – DISTANCE TO INFINITY: Charles Rammelkamp commends g emil reutter’s willingness to issue vigorous poetic warnings about dictatorships around the world and especially in the USA

Distance to Infinity
g emil reutter
Alien Buddha Press, 2025
ISBN: 979-8263553647
$11.50      47 pages

In the Introduction to his powerful new chapbook about the lengths to which the Trump administration is going to consolidate power, g. emil reutter sounds the alarm about the rise of autocratic rule all around the globe, not just in the United States (“Never Again,” “Burn Baby Burn”, “Bang” “Counterclockwise” and elsewhere). But, yes, indeed in the United States under the Trump regime the rule of law and the Constitution are under assault as they have never been before. This is what gives Distance to Infinity its urgency. Poets have an obligation to raise their voices in protest and warning, reutter reminds us. ‘From now into the distance to infinity we must always rise up and speak the truth.’

The slide into authoritarianism may seem subtle (though also jaw-droppingly heavy-handed). Many may not notice in the course of their daily lives. Many may not be paying attention. After all, as reutter begins and then concludes the opening poem, “Traitor”:

	Subways grind along

	Freights sound their horns

	Commuter trains around their curves

	Buses heave to and fro

	As the people go about their business

	As they do everyday

But make no mistake, this regime is only in it for itself, for the accumulation of wealth and the consolidation of power. In the poem “Incomplete,” reutter implicitly warns about the rapacious lust for control, even as the grand vision of the border wall, Trump’s glittery Wizard of Oz promise in the 2016 election, is revealed as puny, pathetic, ineffectual, the fifty-two miles built to guard against ‘shit hole countries…garbage people,’ not to mention the laughable vow ‘take care of women if / they like it or not.’ These proclamations are ultimately ridiculous, easy objects of scorn and ridicule. But don’t take your eyes off of the ball: these people are still relentlessly coming after our democracy.

While reutter is concerned about the United States, he widens the lens to take in the whole world – Russia, North Korea, China, Rwanda and other African countries, the nations of the Middle East. And of course the tragedy of Gaza. In the title poem he widens the lens even further. ‘Endless yet universe is finite,’ he begins. With reference to Zeno’s Paradox he notes the impossibility of reaching a goal (peace? harmony?). The poem ends enigmatically:

	Endless motion, whirling, twirling
	       unbated, spinning at the speed of light……
		        INFINITY
			    Then Nothing.

Such an intriguing title! The assonance makes it fun to say; you can taste the poetry in the phrase. Yet it’s the poem “Pennywise” that, for me, conflates the universal picture of space and time with the immediate urgency of NOW:

	Space and time — dense
	as the man with little hands
	big tie, suit made in sweat
	shop, the grotesque comb over
	whisks of hair of eve changing
	color, pre-fab teeth, fake tan
	fake man shreds  constitution
	as if a f-5 tornado, destroys moral
	fabric as a runaway wrecking ball.

	In the wake of this destruction
	he peers out at us, the plastic
	smile, as Pennywise the
	dancing clown from the sewer
	of his mind.

	Never ending corruption dwarfs
	Teapot Dome and Watergate
	the rich get richer while this
	snake oil salesman spins tales
	of support for working people
	who pay more and more
	while he sits on his gold throne
	in his tower of babble.

	Nightmare continues as nation
	judders, divide by design. This
	will end either by the bright
	light of freedom or in the
	sewer gas of despair.

Donald Trump is a clown, no doubt about it. But like so many clowns, he presents a true danger. This is a truth to which g. emil reutter gives the full voice of a poet who heeds the alarm. Distance to Infinity is a full-throated expression of an apprehension that is quickly approaching panic levels.