Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
very surreal and visceral poems that intertwine addiction, faith and identity. some poems felt a tad too abstract for me personally but others were very effective. favs include: ‘Some Boys aren’t Born they Bubble’, ‘Against Hell’, ‘Portrait of the Alcoholic with Relapse Fantasy’, ‘Supplication with Rabbit Skull and Bouquet’, ‘Every Drunk Wants to Die Sober It’s How We Beat the Game’, ‘Neither Now nor Never’
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Reading criticism helped! I am new to modern “surrealist” poetry and this was challenging. Some moments really struck me and I’ll be thinking about these a lot. I might need to revisit.
There are acres of gorgeous golden id in this book of poems about addiction and diasporic Persian identity. In the poem "Tassiopeia," the speaker gives himself an origin story, likening himself to the fabled queen Cassiopeia, whose braggadocio led to catastrophe, and mythologizing his own unruly passionate nature: "[T]he womb is a clammy pulp.... I came out / hot as a punched jaw." This radiant self-mythologization manifests in poem after poem: "[M]y ancestor / was a dervish saint...." "I charged into desire like a / tiger sprinting off the edge of / the world...." But here and there between these dazzlingly romantic images of an idealized self, the poet's persona also expresses real self-reproach for a youth marred by "coldness" and "carelessness": "I answered every cry for help with a pour with a turning away...." "I spent so long...misnaming / lovers and tripping over the homeless...." And he recounts the challenges, physical and spiritual, of recovery: "I live in the gulf / between what I've been given / and what I've received. // Each morning, I dig into the sand / and bury something I love. / Nothing decomposes."
One of my favorite poems was "Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards," which takes one simple idea and spins it out to the maximum extent:
"The car's tires leave a trail of orchids.
A bouquet of orchids lifts from its tailpipe.
Teenagers are texting each other pictures
of orchids on their phones, which are also orchids...."
One poem that coheres into a successful whole is "My Kingdom for a Murmur of Fanfare," which ends,
"All I want is to finally
take off my cowboy hat and show you my jeweled
horns. If we slow dance I will ask you not to tug
on them, but secretly I will want that very much."
"Ways to Harm a Thing" begins,
"Throw scissors at it.
Fill it with straw
and set it on fire, or set it
off for the colonies with only
some books and dinner-
plates and a stuffed bear
named Friend Bear for me
to lose in New Jersey...."
Akbar is a poet who really knows how to turn a phrase: "eternity looms / in the corner like a home invader saying don't mind me I'm just here to watch you nap" might be the best, but I also liked these lines, addressed to the object of the speaker's fruitless "craving": "If you / could be anything in the world // you would."
One of my favorite poems was "Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards," which takes one simple idea and spins it out to the maximum extent:
"The car's tires leave a trail of orchids.
A bouquet of orchids lifts from its tailpipe.
Teenagers are texting each other pictures
of orchids on their phones, which are also orchids...."
One poem that coheres into a successful whole is "My Kingdom for a Murmur of Fanfare," which ends,
"All I want is to finally
take off my cowboy hat and show you my jeweled
horns. If we slow dance I will ask you not to tug
on them, but secretly I will want that very much."
"Ways to Harm a Thing" begins,
"Throw scissors at it.
Fill it with straw
and set it on fire, or set it
off for the colonies with only
some books and dinner-
plates and a stuffed bear
named Friend Bear for me
to lose in New Jersey...."
Akbar is a poet who really knows how to turn a phrase: "eternity looms / in the corner like a home invader saying don't mind me I'm just here to watch you nap" might be the best, but I also liked these lines, addressed to the object of the speaker's fruitless "craving": "If you / could be anything in the world // you would."
as soon as i finished this book the automatic string lights on my porch went on & it was kind of magical
Longer book that expands on 'Portrait of the Alcoholic.' It's not as seamless and concise–it felt like the book went on a for a little too long and was split into too many different parts. For the writing itself, there were definitely phrases and lines that I felt were trying way too hard to land and shot themselves in the foot, i.e. "oversoft", "The calculus of desperation yields everything in miniature."
There were a few moments that felt overtly self-pitying and made me roll my eyes, because they were so "I'm a poet and everything sucks. This is the Worst Life" like bro I totally agree being contemptuous of other people's pain is the worst evil etc etc but come on getting to do any sort of creative activity even as a hobby is a 1% kinda thing. It's okay for the life to be tough in its own way, everyone suffers, but It is Not the Worst Life.
Nit pick, I saw the word 'inconsolable' too many times in this poem. Siken used inconsolable perfectly that one time in Scheherazade, no one else should use it again. Also that one poem (can't remember which) about a man standing in silence and only silence remaining was a huge ripoff of Boot Theory. But all art is derivative so it's chill.
Okay! Now that I'm done complaining. This was still fantastic. When the writing hits, and it does very often, I feel that it's unparalleled. Kaveh Akbar is so so good at the unexpected and making it both subtle and devasting:
- "to walk in sincere wonder, like the first man to hear a parrot speak"
- "I worry sometimes there is no true wildness."
- "least favorite songs on favorite albums"
- "watching your beloved sink to the bottom of a lake and noting his absence in your log."
- "Or you arrive home / after a long day to discover your children have grown / suddenly hideous and unlovable."
-"two hounds will fight over a feather / because feathers are strange."
-"One way to bury / something is to bury it / forever."
He uses a lot of pretty esoteric words in his poems and sometimes, they really are just so freaking sick:
- "the dream, then: to interrupt into a sturdier form, like a wild lotus bursting into its tantrum of blades."
- "I believe in luck and am barely troubled by its volatility"
Even with all the flaws, it still hits harder than most poetry does.
There were a few moments that felt overtly self-pitying and made me roll my eyes, because they were so "I'm a poet and everything sucks. This is the Worst Life" like bro I totally agree being contemptuous of other people's pain is the worst evil etc etc but come on getting to do any sort of creative activity even as a hobby is a 1% kinda thing. It's okay for the life to be tough in its own way, everyone suffers, but It is Not the Worst Life.
Nit pick, I saw the word 'inconsolable' too many times in this poem. Siken used inconsolable perfectly that one time in Scheherazade, no one else should use it again. Also that one poem (can't remember which) about a man standing in silence and only silence remaining was a huge ripoff of Boot Theory. But all art is derivative so it's chill.
Okay! Now that I'm done complaining. This was still fantastic. When the writing hits, and it does very often, I feel that it's unparalleled. Kaveh Akbar is so so good at the unexpected and making it both subtle and devasting:
- "to walk in sincere wonder, like the first man to hear a parrot speak"
- "I worry sometimes there is no true wildness."
- "least favorite songs on favorite albums"
- "watching your beloved sink to the bottom of a lake and noting his absence in your log."
- "Or you arrive home / after a long day to discover your children have grown / suddenly hideous and unlovable."
-"two hounds will fight over a feather / because feathers are strange."
-"One way to bury / something is to bury it / forever."
He uses a lot of pretty esoteric words in his poems and sometimes, they really are just so freaking sick:
- "the dream, then: to interrupt into a sturdier form, like a wild lotus bursting into its tantrum of blades."
- "I believe in luck and am barely troubled by its volatility"
Even with all the flaws, it still hits harder than most poetry does.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
A million tears! I loved this so much; it was so beautifully violent
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced