Reviews

Whereso by Karen Volkman

sam_bizar_wilcox's review

5.0

Volkman's writing is spectacular. She has a wonderful rolodex of language, igniting vital sounds and images throughout her complex poems. Her poems often draw attention to the veneers or surfaces on which they built or performed. I emphasize performance here because not only does her writing have a vibrant sonic quality, but the poems themselves often gesture to or are written as dumb-shows, pantomimes, and dances. Whereso takes inspiration from a carnival masque, a performance of exuberance or excess enjoyed in relief of the mundanity of reality, but the ideas of Whereso cannot be contained in performance. They slip out. They infect the reader, allowing them to take the rebellious ideas and attitudes often only found in a masque or art, and pull it into the everyday.

Put simply, these poems are fabulous. And Volkman is a genius.