Scan barcode
mattdube's review
4.0
I'm not altogether sure what to make of this book-- ostensibly a book of poems, it's as much a piece of cultural excavation, mixing epigraphs from significant works of psychology and cultural writing of the 1950s with some prosey bits about what was actually happening at the time, few of the pieces collected here really read as poems. But they are interesting, and I really enjoyed them-- they are smart and moving, and while they are saved from being elegeaic-nostalgic by their critical apparatus and stance, they do inhabit that mid-century modern place that I know a lot of people really enjoy-- my buddy Peter Ramos, for one, would likely flip over this book.
This is another one of those books that aren't precisely poems, or don't work largely as poetry, a trend that I'm not altogether comfortable with; it reminds me a little bit of Zapruder's attempts in his last couple books to incorporate elements that aren't poetry. This, to me, works a little better, because in place of the attention to language, there's an attention to something else, excavation and a kind of argument that I do find interesting. But I still wonder about this stuff; if this is the bleeding edge of poetry (and again, I'm not sure it is), where does it mean poetry is going, and what is lost, as far as the expressive possibilities of language, if we leave the traditional interests (conceived in the broadest possible terms, as an interest in language's implicate order aside from content) of poetry aside. But who knows-- maybe it's a trend, and if it produces interesting books like this one, why would I complain.
This is another one of those books that aren't precisely poems, or don't work largely as poetry, a trend that I'm not altogether comfortable with; it reminds me a little bit of Zapruder's attempts in his last couple books to incorporate elements that aren't poetry. This, to me, works a little better, because in place of the attention to language, there's an attention to something else, excavation and a kind of argument that I do find interesting. But I still wonder about this stuff; if this is the bleeding edge of poetry (and again, I'm not sure it is), where does it mean poetry is going, and what is lost, as far as the expressive possibilities of language, if we leave the traditional interests (conceived in the broadest possible terms, as an interest in language's implicate order aside from content) of poetry aside. But who knows-- maybe it's a trend, and if it produces interesting books like this one, why would I complain.
jackieeh's review
3.0
My favorite by far was "The Status Seekers: Richard (Bud) and Judy" for the way it played with dramatic verse.