Reviews

Churches by Kevin Prufer

jemmania's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

"How darkness makes beautiful the same fire daylight ignores. How that queer flower blooms best at night"

"The body, she was saying, is a contested zone between presence and absence, between consciousness and eternal sleep, between the earth and the afterlife, between ourselves and the terrifying ambiguity of the void."

Prufer's collection is a beautiful and often sorrowful reflection about death. His precise prose is astounding & profound.
Any of these dark and lovely poems featuring the grim reaper would make excellent lyrics for a heavy 'death' metal song. A great find that I stumbled upon at my local library by happenstance.

jenlowe's review against another edition

5.0

I think this guy's a genius. I preferred National Anthem, but Churches is a gem and there are other perfect bits and pieces in here.

eely225's review against another edition

4.0

The particular strength of the author’s poetry comes from his use of unexpected perspectives, along with consistently shifting perspectives that tend to add to the reading experience rather than muddying things.

leerazer's review against another edition

4.0

Prufer lays open a death-haunted America in this dark collection, entwining political and personal story lines in sprawling verses that frequently call upon fantastical images: missiles fired from the moon, post-apocalyptic settlements, self-aware bombs. He seems focused on displaying a society that is ill, that indeed seeks out violence and cannot do without it, as in this appeal to "terrorists" in Show Us:

We are a nation of gray old men walking rain-slick streets beneath black umbrellas. / Fill our tall buildings with your vines and blooms, sprinkle us with glitter and with glass, / with thrills and shards of foil and steel!

In a poem called Poetry, he personifies the poem, asking if it has any relevance today as it surveys all the wreckage:

I saw the whole thing. Here I am. Up here. / ... then down I'll fall past my neighbors' windows, down I'll tumble to where that car is burning, / to where that man sleeps inside it and the column of smoke is invisible in the night / and you won't notice my descent, no, you won't cry out, you won't turn and gather around me, you won't ask me any questions at all.

A recognition of the irrelevance of poets today, who are often said to only be talking to each other, in a tiny circle? If all a poet today can really do is rage while being ignored, at least he can do so with style.

while the baby boy slept in his box /
beneath the floorboards they walked across, /
and all night long /
his little dreams rose up on strings /
and filled the house /
that the morning light washed clean.

emmi19's review

5.0

Despite having to read the torn remnants of this poetry collection (courtesy of the puppy I was babysitting), I still throughly enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed darker poetry, and Prufer has a way of making the reader really think about the connections he makes within his poems. If you can get a hold of this collection, definitely do it (just avoid puppies).