Mike Allen has precise control of his lines and the poems are intriguing conversations with paintings and history.  They act as imaginative secret histories, but something even more interesting hides in the depths.  Taken together, instead of one by one, read as a cohesive examination of paintings and their historical context, the works complicate life and human existence in a way that few other authors are able to do.

              In other words, this collection is themed around the creators of contemporary art, with poems that examine Miro, Pollack, Picasso and many more.  But a scholar, or any astute reader, will know or sense that Allen has gone too far into the minds of the painter.  He stops running across the canvas with words and teleports right into the minds that created the works of art.  And Allen cheats.  He goes farther than biography or knowledge of any other human can go.  He finds the motivations that may or may not be real.  The emotional echoes that may or may not be gleaned from the brushstrokes or (at least in Pollack’s case) paint-laden knife slashes.  Mike Allen stares deep into the canvases and sees, intuits or fabricates things that aren’t there…but should be.  Or maybe they are.

              This is the magic of Disturbing Muses.  It’s as if, with the measured slice of his words, he’s succeeded in tearing through the canvas and gouging out secrets that the artists never shared.  Or Allen has managed to make up things that great minds never thought but could’ve.  And either way, the poems are quite an achievement because of this psychic feat.

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