rustbeltjessie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.75
rebadee's review against another edition
3.0
Melnick's poems in Landscape with Sex and Violence are powerful, devastating, and also surprisingly funny. That element of surprise and nuance keeps the reader poised, unsure of what will strike them-- word choice, a sudden shift in pacing, repetition. This may also keep readers from fully engaging with the work. There was a lot to process, and because of that I may have come away with a shallow reading on my first go through. Though I was unsure where to begin, I do know that I will revisit these poems and will likely again find myself surprised.
pyrrhicspondee's review
5.0
Kind of like a puzzle, the poems individually sometimes confused me. But they all fit together and the weird edges and odd patterns make sense as a whole. (I've been doing a lot of jigsaw puzzles during this here pandemic.)
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