A review by snowmaiden
Tropic of Squalor: Poems by Mary Karr

3.0

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, and I am definitely not the right reader for it. Karr deals with some dark subject matter here, and her coping strategy is a thick layer of cynicism. For example, take these lines from "The Age of Criticism," where she describes the suicide of a fellow poet: "I believed there might be no one more alluring alive./ But she killed herself. Last April, widowed at sixty,/ she jumped off the high stadium of some snotty college/ where she taught, and whether she died from grief/ or scorn for self or someone gone, it still seems dumb." I usually like plain-spoken poetry, but this is so unadorned, except for that snideness that jumps out and grabs you by the throat. I just couldn't stomach it.