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hflh's review against another edition
challenging
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
This is an interesting experiment structurally and phonetically and it’s fun seeing each chapter have very distinct sounds and tones. A couple chapters actually made me feel dizzy which I can’t say has ever happened to me while reading.
I appreciated this unsettling reading experience, but I found the sounds got old and a lot of the chapters were too long for me so I zoned out at some parts it I’m honest. The afterward discusses several rules that guided the writing process which made me understand why some chapters were longer and appreciate it a bit more. This is definitely more of a structure experiment first and foremost so I’d recommend reading the afterward before the poems so you can appreciate them more.
It is quite sexual and sometimes violent in your raw and gritty art type way if that bothers you. And there is some unfortunate cultural generalizing and stereotyping (Eg “Congo bongos throb to voodoo hoodoo” when voodoo and hoodoo are distinct and neither are traditionally practiced in the Congo, making it’s reductive to include them lumped together just for the rhymes, especially when anything related to Africa or the African diaspora are already so often just clumped together).
There is also a moment where a person angers some people at a bar and is getting beaten by various crowds, including “Klu-klux cults kung-fu punch[ing] them”. It will depend on each reader whether this is considered appropriate or if, in this context they’re “just words”. To me, it felt poor taste to casually reference such a violent, racist group without meaningfully engaging with it just for the sake of the rules and structure of the poetry experiment. Even if the collection is just an examination of the English language, I don’t think you can separate these words from what they represent outside of phonetics.
Overall, it’s an interesting and quick read for considering the quality of vowels in the English language. But, it could be long and boring and sometimes reduced issues of culture and race which some readers will be put off by.
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism
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