skateanddonate's review against another edition
3.0
Not sure what to say about this book. It has a great title! Unfortunately it didn't meet my expectations. I guess I was expecting a book of poems that created a story from the title. Maybe it was just me, but these were the most frustrating poems. Maybe they are what other have called "innovative." To me they were just plain frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love abstract poetry. What I don't love is poems in a format that you HAVE TO read them forward, backward, sideways and skip lines to understand how they flow. To me that was d*mn irritating. kind of like writing a poem then putting the lines in a blender and randomly spitting them out on the page for the reader to figure out what order the lines should go in. At least it was a great title which has gotten me thinking about a plot for my next book.
laurelinwonder's review against another edition
5.0
I finished this collection the other day, but I've been trying to find the words to review it. I'd like to quote Goodreads reviewer Farren to being:
"This is not a noir murder mystery. This is a book about the peculiar loathing of and desire to murder the childhood self. The narrative reality and chronological progression is fractured--the poems surface in just the same way that thoughts and memories do, in an unpredictable associative progression. Childhood, puberty, sexual violence, fake wood-paneled rec rooms, slumber parties, panties, dead horses. This book activated all kinds of mewling childhood memories. Will have to re-read and re-read and re-read."
A stylistic note is that many of the poems here are printed in columns, you know the style: there are two columns of phrases, so that you can read the poem left to write, or top to bottom and then top to bottom again. McGlynn’s poetic eyes are split: one serving as photographer, while the other acts as profiler, so that we are witness to what occurs within, and beyond, the frame. Working in a lyrical investigative mode, often using a columnar fragmentation. Needless to say, this is an intriguing work that can be read a few times, and more is likely to unfurl.
"This is not a noir murder mystery. This is a book about the peculiar loathing of and desire to murder the childhood self. The narrative reality and chronological progression is fractured--the poems surface in just the same way that thoughts and memories do, in an unpredictable associative progression. Childhood, puberty, sexual violence, fake wood-paneled rec rooms, slumber parties, panties, dead horses. This book activated all kinds of mewling childhood memories. Will have to re-read and re-read and re-read."
A stylistic note is that many of the poems here are printed in columns, you know the style: there are two columns of phrases, so that you can read the poem left to write, or top to bottom and then top to bottom again. McGlynn’s poetic eyes are split: one serving as photographer, while the other acts as profiler, so that we are witness to what occurs within, and beyond, the frame. Working in a lyrical investigative mode, often using a columnar fragmentation. Needless to say, this is an intriguing work that can be read a few times, and more is likely to unfurl.
beatrice27's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
poetkoala's review against another edition
4.0
This title was suggested to me by my Stand Up Poetry professor when I asked him if there were other things outside of our anthology that I should be reading. Because of the recommend-er, I figured that the subject matter would be humorous. Judging the book by its cover, I realized that I was mistaken.
(Brianna enters her local library and retrieves her poetry books from the inter-library loan shelves. On top of her pile is a book of poetry by Karyna McGlynn. She slides her stack of books onto the check-out counter.)
Brianna: (rain-soaked but cheery, carrying a large duffel bag) I'd like to check out these books, please!
(Librarian, who knows Brianna, looks at the cover and the title of the book on top of her stack and gives her a look that says something along the lines of, "Trying to tell me something, Brianna? Is this a confession?")
Brianna: (realizing what the look must be about) Oh! I've been writing a poem a day since September, so I needed more poetry to read.
Librarian: (raises his eyebrows) Good for you, Brianna. But you know copying poems from here doesn't count...
(Brianna chuckles nervously and stuffs the books in her duffel, leaving the library hastily.)
I have no intention of copying poems out of this book, but I had hoped I could use it as some sort of inspiration. On a whole, this book is nothing that I had expected. Significantly darker and more sexually charged than I would have expected, Kill a Girl is a fascinating read.
(Brianna enters her local library and retrieves her poetry books from the inter-library loan shelves. On top of her pile is a book of poetry by Karyna McGlynn. She slides her stack of books onto the check-out counter.)
Brianna: (rain-soaked but cheery, carrying a large duffel bag) I'd like to check out these books, please!
(Librarian, who knows Brianna, looks at the cover and the title of the book on top of her stack and gives her a look that says something along the lines of, "Trying to tell me something, Brianna? Is this a confession?")
Brianna: (realizing what the look must be about) Oh! I've been writing a poem a day since September, so I needed more poetry to read.
Librarian: (raises his eyebrows) Good for you, Brianna. But you know copying poems from here doesn't count...
(Brianna chuckles nervously and stuffs the books in her duffel, leaving the library hastily.)
I have no intention of copying poems out of this book, but I had hoped I could use it as some sort of inspiration. On a whole, this book is nothing that I had expected. Significantly darker and more sexually charged than I would have expected, Kill a Girl is a fascinating read.
vulpasvulpas's review against another edition
3.0
for me, mcglynn is a lyricist of poetic opulence, but much to my dismay I had difficulty connecting with this piece on my first read. gutsy and nearing self-indulgent in its form, I regretfully just didn't have enough time to spend with it. her anomalous verses need time to marinate, and while a few of the poems suction-cupped their exceptional odes over my eyes, I still felt I was doing a disservice to her overall prowess by rushing through in order to meet its due date. this one is heavily deserving an intimate re-read.
decafjess's review against another edition
2.0
To paraphrase another reviewer, it had some memorable lines, but I had no idea what was going on through the book and that doesn't appeal to me.
areaxbiologist's review against another edition
4.0
There are nasty, dark and dreadful horrors seeping up through the cracks (line breaks) in these poems. After reading, I'm still wondering about trauma and it's immediacy. I liked "Oh, You Really Don't Want to Go into the Library" and the title poem. Really raw.
skateanddonate's review
3.0
Not sure what to say about this book. It has a great title! Unfortunately it didn't meet my expectations. I guess I was expecting a book of poems that created a story from the title. Maybe it was just me, but these were the most frustrating poems. Maybe they are what other have called "innovative." To me they were just plain frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love abstract poetry. What I don't love is poems in a format that you HAVE TO read them forward, backward, sideways and skip lines to understand how they flow. To me that was d*mn irritating. kind of like writing a poem then putting the lines in a blender and randomly spitting them out on the page for the reader to figure out what order the lines should go in. At least it was a great title which has gotten me thinking about a plot for my next book.
xterminal's review
5.0
Karina McGlynn, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande Books, 2009)
“I wake up somewhere in Ohio. Or, that's how it smells—“
While much is made of the first sentences of novels, no one really thinks all that much about first lines in a book of poetry. Maybe because a book of poetry is a collection, rather than a single work, in many cases. (And I bet half of you who can recite a single first line of a poem can do it from a book-length work, either Inferno, Paradise Lost, or Canterbury Tales. The rest of you... a Shakespeare sonnet. But you are in the way of my point, so clam up for the next four minutes, please.) But the first line of Karina McGlynn's I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl is such a slap in the face you can't help but think “here is someone who thought about it.” Which is pretty awesome. And so's the rest of the book. The poem that supplies us that wonderful first line continues...
“There's a phone in my hand, I'm thirty years old.
No, the phone's thirty years old. It's memory's been erased.
I'm naked but for one of those hollowed scarves.
It keeps peeling off like a seedpod.
I'm afraid my sense will fall out,
get lost in the snow and make more of me.”
(“Ok, but you haven't seen the last of me”)
...and you know, I could spend the rest of this review quoting that poem and this book would sell itself, because it's that good. Someone (can't remember who, book's back at the library) blurbed it as being noir, and I can see where she's coming from. There's a definite noir sensibility here, what a friend of mine recently described as “the dark side of existential exploration”, the feeling of nihilism that comes with knowing from the first frame of the film, or the first page of the book, that your protagonist is going to be swinging from a rope by the end. But—and I rush to note that this may just be in my head—when I hear noir, I tend to think plot and structure, and had it in my head going into this book that it was a thematic collection or a poem cycle (or god help us a “verse novel”). In case your mind works the same way as mine, I point out that such is not the case. There are relations, naturally, as there are in any poet's work, but there's not a story arc or the like. There are just poems, and they are the best poems I have read since I first discovered Richard Siken four years ago. (Yes, I have given five-star reviews to poetry books in the interim. Yes, there are grades of five-starri-ness.) They're unwashed and they're dirty and they're a little feral and they're unconscionably sexy, within the framework that if you find yourself in bed with them they're as likely to bite a chunk out of your arm as to allow you access. This is a book that doesn't like you. I mean actively doesn't like you. And it's all the more alluring for it. The best book I've read so far in 2011, hands down. *****
“I wake up somewhere in Ohio. Or, that's how it smells—“
While much is made of the first sentences of novels, no one really thinks all that much about first lines in a book of poetry. Maybe because a book of poetry is a collection, rather than a single work, in many cases. (And I bet half of you who can recite a single first line of a poem can do it from a book-length work, either Inferno, Paradise Lost, or Canterbury Tales. The rest of you... a Shakespeare sonnet. But you are in the way of my point, so clam up for the next four minutes, please.) But the first line of Karina McGlynn's I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl is such a slap in the face you can't help but think “here is someone who thought about it.” Which is pretty awesome. And so's the rest of the book. The poem that supplies us that wonderful first line continues...
“There's a phone in my hand, I'm thirty years old.
No, the phone's thirty years old. It's memory's been erased.
I'm naked but for one of those hollowed scarves.
It keeps peeling off like a seedpod.
I'm afraid my sense will fall out,
get lost in the snow and make more of me.”
(“Ok, but you haven't seen the last of me”)
...and you know, I could spend the rest of this review quoting that poem and this book would sell itself, because it's that good. Someone (can't remember who, book's back at the library) blurbed it as being noir, and I can see where she's coming from. There's a definite noir sensibility here, what a friend of mine recently described as “the dark side of existential exploration”, the feeling of nihilism that comes with knowing from the first frame of the film, or the first page of the book, that your protagonist is going to be swinging from a rope by the end. But—and I rush to note that this may just be in my head—when I hear noir, I tend to think plot and structure, and had it in my head going into this book that it was a thematic collection or a poem cycle (or god help us a “verse novel”). In case your mind works the same way as mine, I point out that such is not the case. There are relations, naturally, as there are in any poet's work, but there's not a story arc or the like. There are just poems, and they are the best poems I have read since I first discovered Richard Siken four years ago. (Yes, I have given five-star reviews to poetry books in the interim. Yes, there are grades of five-starri-ness.) They're unwashed and they're dirty and they're a little feral and they're unconscionably sexy, within the framework that if you find yourself in bed with them they're as likely to bite a chunk out of your arm as to allow you access. This is a book that doesn't like you. I mean actively doesn't like you. And it's all the more alluring for it. The best book I've read so far in 2011, hands down. *****
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