Minutia becomes muse in Matt Payneas Aisle 7, a zine of poems whose parts have been pulled from grocery lists Payne scooped off the floors of his former grocery store employer. A literary exercise in improv, Aisle 7 takes each word and number from these domestic scribbles and turns them into poetic delight. I hung on every word of these quips that floated in and out of absurdity, with the purposeful intelligence and utter silliness of Wooden Allen circa Side Effects. The reader hovers between voyeuristic enjoyment of these lists of forgotten details and Payne’s interpretations of these sometimes-illegible jots. Cereal becomes deadly when paired with the word ’killer’, and the common becomes comical, and sometimes sexual, as sugar, butter and toilet paper leap from found object to artistic inspiration. Aisle 7 is not a poetic gimmick, but an ingenious demonstration of Payne’s ability to make the mundane memorable. (Karen Darricades)
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