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A review by billil1957
My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge by Paul Guest
4.0
I have to admit, I'm not the world's most patient reader of poetry. I get bored kind of quickly if the poems are too esoteric and I have a hard time with sing-song rhyming schemes. My favorites are Dryden and Pope, with a little Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath thrown in. I've tried to expand my range but attempts often end in half-finished books and a feeling of failure. All of which is to say that I was really amazed when I started flipping through this book at a poetry bookstore (Open Books in Seattle). The opening lines of each poem not only set the tone but somehow capture you right away -- like this one from "Oblivion: Letter Home 2":
Thanks for the cucumber lotion and coupons
you cut out of the Sunday paper
though I had to bury them in an old thermos
or sink them with bricks and twine
so nobody killed me. Reading the obituary
for Mr. Kondrackie was sad
though he once beat me with his cane
for guessing wrong. We all have our faults,
I think....
I'm not clever enough with poetry to explain why that grips me so hard, but pretty much every poem in the volume does it to me. Guest has been paraplegic since age 12 and writes with a stick in his mouth. Many of the poems convey the anger, frustration and sexual longing that you might expect from someone whose physical abilities are so much more limited than his emotional and intellectual ones. He published a memoir in 2010 (_One More Theory About Happiness_); I can't wait to read it!
Thanks for the cucumber lotion and coupons
you cut out of the Sunday paper
though I had to bury them in an old thermos
or sink them with bricks and twine
so nobody killed me. Reading the obituary
for Mr. Kondrackie was sad
though he once beat me with his cane
for guessing wrong. We all have our faults,
I think....
I'm not clever enough with poetry to explain why that grips me so hard, but pretty much every poem in the volume does it to me. Guest has been paraplegic since age 12 and writes with a stick in his mouth. Many of the poems convey the anger, frustration and sexual longing that you might expect from someone whose physical abilities are so much more limited than his emotional and intellectual ones. He published a memoir in 2010 (_One More Theory About Happiness_); I can't wait to read it!