meganmilks's review
5.0
recommended by a poet and visual artist. so far, am loving this.
EDIT: yes. continued loving this.
EDIT: yes. continued loving this.
ampersunder's review
3.0
"Truly it's exhausting how many minds there are to swoop in and out of." -- Once around the Park with Omniscience
"The myocardiograph measured our heartache and it was more than the manuals said we could manage." -- Terror of the Future /1
"The myocardiograph measured our heartache and it was more than the manuals said we could manage." -- Terror of the Future /1
courtneyfalling's review
2.0
Years ago, in a writing workshop, I was given a prompt to match words with their linguistic or sound-based, rather than definitional, opposites. I could pair "overalls" with "layover" or "juniper" with "perjury," which somehow made perfect, inexplicable sense to me and what it was that drew me to writing at all, the unexpected but insightful comparisons and linguistic tricks people can create to shed new light on the world.
But those comparisons and tricks in themselves are not poems. They are, when used well, helpful techniques to ground or expand poems, but on their own they're just empty tools, vessels. Many of Harvey's poems here read like that exercise over and over, but without real content and meaning behind the wordplay. The extra-short poems are obviously unnecessary, but even in its best moments, this collection only offers an interesting line or two within a poem, nothing fuller or more significant.
This emptiness feels especially disappointing in context of "The Future of Terror" or "Terror of the Future" that Harvey tries to construct, which could have seriously benefitted from more social, interpersonal, and/or personal narrative to actually explore and represent their concepts. I found Harvey's assumptions of health and illness frustrating in particular, but the criticism stretches beyond just those assumptions.
But those comparisons and tricks in themselves are not poems. They are, when used well, helpful techniques to ground or expand poems, but on their own they're just empty tools, vessels. Many of Harvey's poems here read like that exercise over and over, but without real content and meaning behind the wordplay. The extra-short poems are obviously unnecessary, but even in its best moments, this collection only offers an interesting line or two within a poem, nothing fuller or more significant.
This emptiness feels especially disappointing in context of "The Future of Terror" or "Terror of the Future" that Harvey tries to construct, which could have seriously benefitted from more social, interpersonal, and/or personal narrative to actually explore and represent their concepts. I found Harvey's assumptions of health and illness frustrating in particular, but the criticism stretches beyond just those assumptions.
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