Scan barcode
scarecrowskeith's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
mugren's review
4.0
Karen Green is David Foster Wallace's widow. Bough Down is a sort of memoir about the time leading up to his death and the days after his death. Beautiful and poetic.
frasersimons's review
5.0
A singular experience. Prose, art, poetry come together in a way that is elusive until it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy surrounding the heart of grief. I took quite a few pictures of some of the most beautiful prose I’ve read followed by opaque art; something I’ve always found hard to intercept. And even as I got to the ending, and I wondered what ending could be appropriate, it offers not even a subjective conclusion. Also thematically appropriate, I thought.
levitybooks's review
5.0
My #1 (favourite) read of 2020.
Video Review
Karen Green's Frail Sister is my favourite poem of all time. And I see, only now, that its poetic structure was first devised in Bough Down, an elegiac response to David Foster Wallace's death.
The way we talk about death has changed a lot in the last decade. The generation before me find it taboo to discuss causes of death. This is especially true of suicide. I am one of very few people in the world studying suicide, and I suspect this is largely due to its legalization in Canada. It remains illegal in some forms in many parts of the world and that makes it especially hard to talk about. That also makes it hard to understand. The problem then is that it is hard to know how to grieve someone who dies by suicide.
This is why I think Bough Down is beyond being a spectacular poem. It is a uniquely real and close journey through a peculiar occurrence of grief — both in its discovery and its particular subject. Sure, it's undeniable that it serves as an excellent poem in and of itself—were it fictional—with it's surrealist construction and a style rolling with human longing, wit, humour, hope and chaos. But its honesty, humble and raw expression is what set it apart. It takes guts and love to write like this.
Karen Green's Bough Down rivals and contrasts greatly with Anne Carson's Nox. Both are turning the book as an object into a very personal form, a diary you feel you should not have been able to access. And only when this is done can we get close enough to appropriately convey to the closest conscious feelings we could ever write.
-
Original Review:
Review coming soon for this fantastically f***ing sad, elegiac masterpiece. I need to gather myself.
Video Review
Karen Green's Frail Sister is my favourite poem of all time. And I see, only now, that its poetic structure was first devised in Bough Down, an elegiac response to David Foster Wallace's death.
The way we talk about death has changed a lot in the last decade. The generation before me find it taboo to discuss causes of death. This is especially true of suicide. I am one of very few people in the world studying suicide, and I suspect this is largely due to its legalization in Canada. It remains illegal in some forms in many parts of the world and that makes it especially hard to talk about. That also makes it hard to understand. The problem then is that it is hard to know how to grieve someone who dies by suicide.
This is why I think Bough Down is beyond being a spectacular poem. It is a uniquely real and close journey through a peculiar occurrence of grief — both in its discovery and its particular subject. Sure, it's undeniable that it serves as an excellent poem in and of itself—were it fictional—with it's surrealist construction and a style rolling with human longing, wit, humour, hope and chaos. But its honesty, humble and raw expression is what set it apart. It takes guts and love to write like this.
Karen Green's Bough Down rivals and contrasts greatly with Anne Carson's Nox. Both are turning the book as an object into a very personal form, a diary you feel you should not have been able to access. And only when this is done can we get close enough to appropriately convey to the closest conscious feelings we could ever write.
-
Original Review:
Review coming soon for this fantastically f***ing sad, elegiac masterpiece. I need to gather myself.
penpencil22's review
3.0
I really would give this 3.5, as I went back and forth between a 3 or 4. Sometimes I connected with the words and poetry. There were parts that cut so deep, like the "At least he" page that ended with "I don't want him at peace." The scene of the hanging from the dogs' point of view was chilling. But often there was poetry I just didn't "get." (Though I'm more fond of prose and narrative, and I do admit i have trouble appreciating abstract poetry at times). I just thought I should feel so moved, but I didn't. Also, as a side note, I really wish the pictures, the artwork, was bigger. Being able to fully see it would've been nice. But anyway. Overall, I definitely think it's worth reading, as it is altogether a haunting and beautiful work.
levijs's review
“I dream of standing on the shore and not seeing his ear whorls in every shell.”