dianakamau's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
deepblueseamonkey's review
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
4.0
Fort Ballads (Ballad of Grace)
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Adventures in Shangdu
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Engines Within the Throne
Get Away from It All
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Adventures in Shangdu
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Engines Within the Throne
Get Away from It All
steveatwaywords's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Stark, prophetic, vulnerable. Cathy Park Hong offers us three "chapters" of human experience, settled into folklore and alienation, ironically limited and yet full and tragic in those limitations. Together she offers parables of colonization and barbarity in otherness, of industrialization and "humanity as resource," of that final privation when a digital age erases an already fading identity. And she does each in diction and verse which itself mirrors the failings of its speakers.
This is no traditional poetic collection; much is challenging to puzzle through, but apart from the individual chapters/titles which each offer a graphic scenario of moment, the synthesis is remarkable plotting, an expose on a (d)evolution of civilization and the victim idiocy which impels it. The totality is dizzying, and I will be thinking of this work for some time, and seeking more of Hong's writing.
This is no traditional poetic collection; much is challenging to puzzle through, but apart from the individual chapters/titles which each offer a graphic scenario of moment, the synthesis is remarkable plotting, an expose on a (d)evolution of civilization and the victim idiocy which impels it. The totality is dizzying, and I will be thinking of this work for some time, and seeking more of Hong's writing.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, and Racism
ifpoetshadmerch's review
3.0
3.5 stars
This felt to me like one of the more inaccessible collections that I’ve read during this streak. Not necessarily a bad thing! It’s helping me learn about what I like in poetry—definitely prefer the lyrical to the narrative. There’s a theme of conquest that runs through the collection, and Hong definitely has a conqueror’s grasp on poetry. There was some very impressive word play going on. I was particularly a fan of the series of odes in the Wild West section where only a single vowel was used in each of the poems.
This felt to me like one of the more inaccessible collections that I’ve read during this streak. Not necessarily a bad thing! It’s helping me learn about what I like in poetry—definitely prefer the lyrical to the narrative. There’s a theme of conquest that runs through the collection, and Hong definitely has a conqueror’s grasp on poetry. There was some very impressive word play going on. I was particularly a fan of the series of odes in the Wild West section where only a single vowel was used in each of the poems.
jheinemann287's review
2.0
Just like Dance Dance Revolution, Engine Empire is a demanding collection of experimental poetry that felt like it needed to be lectured about in a literature course to be appreciated. I wanted to like it more than I actually did.
sabrina_u_witch's review
5.0
EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS. World cloud is my favorite. Clever, weird, creepy, pretty, hyper-real, hyper-surreal. just pretty great overall. If you like poetry and prose , that is.
poetryamano's review
5.0
Wrote a review about this one for The Volta:
http://thevoltablog.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/cathy-park-hongs-engine-empire/
http://thevoltablog.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/cathy-park-hongs-engine-empire/
teatimewithelli's review
2.0
I read this poetry collection for my „Global Poetry“ class. I can not connect to postmodernen experimentalist poetry very well and Hong‘s collection was sadly no exception.
The part of the collection that I liked a little more than the rest was „Shangdu, my artful boomtown“.
The part of the collection that I liked a little more than the rest was „Shangdu, my artful boomtown“.
gregbodwell's review
While much of it went over my head, there were a few poems that I really enjoyed. I’ve never read anything like it!
hjfs's review
4.0
I'm not going to write a proper review of this book, because I want to spend a lot more time with its poems. I didn't like the first section almost at all, but I liked the second section quite a lot, and I absolutely loved the third section. My favorite poems in this first read were Who's Who, The Golden State, and Fable of the Last Untouched Town.