A review by xterminal
The Troublesome Amputee by John Edward Lawson
3.0
John Edward Lawson, The Troublesome Amputee (Raw Dog Screaming, 2006)
I knew when picking up a poetry collection from a bizarro press that I wasn't going to be getting work that one would normally see published in The Paris Review. I tried to steel myself against that (though I tend to be a harsher judge of poetry than any other artistic medium) and just sit back and enjoy the ride. And surprisingly (to me), I found myself able to do so a good bit of the time where The Troublesome Amputee was concerned; it's not just because of my affinity for the overarching theme here, but because Lawson does have at least enough poetic chops to know when he doesn't have the poetic chops to tackle something. Because of this, the book veers widely in tone from stuff that sounds a lot like poetry that you'd see in B-zines (the kind that pay in contributor's copies), and some that just sounds straight-out bizarro, stream-of-consciousness rather than crafted. And for once, when reviewing a poetry collection, I'm not trying to say that like it's a bad thing.
“There once was a werewolf from Nantucket
who kept warm viscera in a bucket
With sharpened talons and teeth
he would rend human meat
to get at the marrow and suck it”
(“Werewolf limerick #1”)
I was going to say “that's the kind of stuff I see in micropress magazines all the time”, but it's probably above that level, at least slightly, for the way Lawson turns the conventional limerick in upon itself in the last line. Be that as it may, one way or the other it's a lot of fun. So's the rest of the book. Worth your time. ***
I knew when picking up a poetry collection from a bizarro press that I wasn't going to be getting work that one would normally see published in The Paris Review. I tried to steel myself against that (though I tend to be a harsher judge of poetry than any other artistic medium) and just sit back and enjoy the ride. And surprisingly (to me), I found myself able to do so a good bit of the time where The Troublesome Amputee was concerned; it's not just because of my affinity for the overarching theme here, but because Lawson does have at least enough poetic chops to know when he doesn't have the poetic chops to tackle something. Because of this, the book veers widely in tone from stuff that sounds a lot like poetry that you'd see in B-zines (the kind that pay in contributor's copies), and some that just sounds straight-out bizarro, stream-of-consciousness rather than crafted. And for once, when reviewing a poetry collection, I'm not trying to say that like it's a bad thing.
“There once was a werewolf from Nantucket
who kept warm viscera in a bucket
With sharpened talons and teeth
he would rend human meat
to get at the marrow and suck it”
(“Werewolf limerick #1”)
I was going to say “that's the kind of stuff I see in micropress magazines all the time”, but it's probably above that level, at least slightly, for the way Lawson turns the conventional limerick in upon itself in the last line. Be that as it may, one way or the other it's a lot of fun. So's the rest of the book. Worth your time. ***