Thoughtica by M. Scott Craig

Thoughtica Reviews

• 
  Grady

  Thought + Erotica = Thoughtica
  
  The cover design on this handsome book is one of geometric simplicity by Anissa M. Craig. It suggests orderliness and at the same time imposes shadows on the obvious red and black diamonds. So what does this have to do with what is inside the book THOUGHTICA my M. Scott Craig? Well, a lot actually. As in his previous delicious book CACOETHES he seduces the reader into a complex manner of presenting poems and stories and then casts an at times dark wand over his subject matter that spins out of control as it examines erotica in many forms. Or as Craig puts it 'Thoughtica is stimuli for the sensual brain. Educated Mindsex. Passion my come and go, but you always remember.'
  
  Attempting to help a reader anticipate what to expect upon reading Craig's new collection of writings is likely impossible. This is a book exploding with erotic writing but it is no way pornographic. Sensuous, yes, tantalizing, yes, stimulating - definitely. He takes us on paper where most of us have secreted lusty memories or thoughts in our mind's bank, brought forward only occasionally for self-stimulation. He has the gift to unravel those kinds of experiences and ideas and thoughts and fantasies form both the experience of the male as well as the female. Most of the poems and stories express the tension/release of sexual encounters while others merely play on our cerebral pixels to rearrange our own completed stories. And in accomplishing this he uses prose and poetry of the most sophisticated kind.
  SUNLIGHT RISES LIKE THE SOUND
  She escapes the jolt I give her
  Lying softly on clouds that wither.
  Faintly as the sky that falters,
  We dream each kiss on shaved Gibraltars.
  
  Sunlight rises like the sound
  That murmurs from our lips unwound.
  Clouds will pass and clouds will form,
  Love will treat us like a storm.
  
  Niagara color all around,
  We hide in clouds to not be found.
  We gently top each other's purr,
  She breathes in the jolt I give her.
  
  In this book Craig displays his ability to write complex short stories/novellas, as in MAID TO SHARE - a tale of a hired maid, Miranda Alba, who introduces the narrator to the thrills of entering puberty, his sisters to the joys of womanhood, and the mother and father to a resurrection of marital bliss. It is masterful writing. In MUSICAL MILKING he perseverates on the letter 'M' and creates an entire poem with words beginning with the letter. In THE STRANGE LETTER SHE LEFT WITH A NURSE Craig demonstrates how deftly he can recreate sex, and in the final 'novella' THE UNCOVERING OF A WOMAN he manages to create an exceptionally arousing tale dealing with the intimacy between a man and a woman - the unique aspect of the piece is his rather amazing understanding of female physical responses.
  
  And an aspect of M. Scott Craig that caps his growing promise as a writer of importance is his ability to related very contemporary techniques of writing and of thought into quasi-historical settings:
  AN EDWARD HOPPER CAFE
  She was the type I wished
  I would have found in an Edward Hopper
  Cafe, sitting in the sunlight before a
  Lone meal and empty chair.
  
  The colors of her tangerine hands
  Would have been richly drenched
  In his stroke of hand, as my own mind
  With each word she dripped.
  
  In a ghost town setting
  We could have slid into each other's
  Lonely world, with our fingers stretching
  For the same coffee, the same retreat.
  
  Stories on the front page
  Would have been blurry messages
  Next to the text we would have made,
  Her lips glowing with steam.
  
  All thoughts I ever have of
  Kissing a beating neck, of brushing
  With my fingers a brown-tailored hairline,
  In these fine square lines they occur.
  
  A face half-lit, a shape untwisted,
  Caught crisp and clean before my eyes.
  I will always think of her there,
  In an Edward Hopper Cafe.
  
  As Craig himself states 'There is no pain in eros, only in the heart.' And he has found it and shares it with such facility that the craftsmanship doesn't even show. But his gut and his heart and his lust are here. And that is plenty!
  
  Grady Harp
• 
  Pyxipyro

  Wow. Such an interesting mix of poetry and sensuality. Words caressing your mind across deeper and deeper paths. Thoughtica becomes more and more seductive as your read it. I loved it!
• 
  Monica

  Yay i won this in the giveaway seems like it'll be a good read cant wait :3