I am sitting in a room not far from where Raj Dronamraju grew up. That’s where I am currently. Obviously I’m a bit of a traveler, having visited Raj’s current location, Malaysia, multiple times, with further trips extremely likely. My location may change but my online persona is forever.
Going through Raj’s online persona gave me quite a thrill. Of course you get the at this point obligatory blogspot. Blogspot is pretty much a placeholder for anybody. More than any other blogging site, Blogspot emanates hope about the future of writing. Check out Raj’s Blogspot presence where he offers musings on politics, music, and literature. All of which are fine and admirable things. What surprises me is the Xanga he maintains. I had a Xanga for roughly seven years. Boredom caused me to delete it, in order to further obscure my online origin story. The mere fact Raj has kept up a Xanga for this long (injecting Xanga with poetry no less) amazes me. Xanga is perhaps the worst blog in the world, having little to no redeeming qualities. Raj’s ability to bring some intelligence to it makes me want to salute him.
Raj has a bit more going for him then a web presence, which includes blogs, twitter, and the aforementioned Xanga. He has a couple of books out. I’ll go through them a little bit. Actually he has his third one out, so he makes me feel a bit lazy. Perhaps at some point in the future there will be a real, physical book I can offer. Until then I’m more than content to hold and read others work.
“The Return of the Magnificent Ninny and Other Poems” is a strange book spanning happiness, giddiness alongside despair and disappointment. I am glad to hear he plugs his ears at Monday night football. We have that in common along with a love of the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. The Ninny should be proud. Feeling up life sounds pretty sweet. Raj includes a strange humor, playing off of our knowledge of pop culture as shown in many of the poems such as “The Girl Whose Picture is on the Side of the Box” and “Ghost Story”. Many of these poems also explore the darker impulses, of wondering the purpose of class divisions, of have and have-nots, of total idiots, and our fascination with death. Often the poems reflect a disappointment with humanity and frustrations of sharing a planet with seven billion people. My favorite line is “I WANNA BE YOUR ICEAGE” from “The Death of Mr. Universe”. If anyone ever tries using that as a pickup line, please email me immediately.
“Solidarity with the Flesh-Eating Mosaic and Other Poems” is split into two separate parts. I enjoyed the many cave team leaders in the title poem. To me that expressed an aggravation with constantly being placed into yet more and more groups intended to accomplish something but really frustrating all parties involved. “The Million Dollar Quartet” describes ‘the penile envy military complication as companion’, perhaps a phrase I must use in a conversation at some undefined future point in time. “1984 Never Happened” explores our current obsession of gorging ourselves to complacency on culture. Actually, may I ask you continue to do so for the sake of my blog? Raj even explored the rarely seen life of a “Children’s Book Author”, people who have the best/worst job in the world. One of my favorite poems in the whole collection “The Psychedelia of Children” explores our need to maintain child-like freeform thinking, without logical connectors needed, kind of like a walrus shopping at Best Buy for a Flat Screen TV.
Both books display an intimate knowledge with consumer culture, holidays, humanity, disappointment, wonder, dreams, and other debris of our modern life. Raj’s work appeals to the witty curmudgeon living in each and every one of us.
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