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mattleesharp's review
5.0
This is Patricia Lockwood becoming fluent in her own language. So many of these poems are specifically about language and names and how we interact with our world through our language. The opening of her last book of poems described how poepeye was the first cartoon, the first cartoon was the word popeye, the lines in the word popeye stretched out into a single living dimension. And Lockwood continues that conversation in this book. Every word is alive. Every name is assigned before we get a say in the matter. Lockwood sets about the task of unnaming things, of using our own language as a weapon against us, as a confrontation. This book is laugh out loud funny in places and really challenging in others. A lot of people are reading this book through a "How does the rest of this compare with 'Rape Joke'" lens? Do not do this. Rape joke is an aberration. It is a great poem, but it is the least Lockwood poem in the collection. This will probably be the best poetry collection I read this year. I cannot recommend it highly enough. This writing is so individual and opened up so much rich inner dialogue for me as a reader. This comment is probably such a ramble, but seriously. Read this book.
amanizaha's review
The problem I have with poetry is that it never makes sense and always makes me feel stupid.
I started this an optimist, about my own capacities as well as Lockwood's prose, and finished it a defeated person. Because I surrender. I do not know what it is about People That Get Poetry that grants them access to some private, abstract wisdoms which mere halfwits like me cannot even begin to comprehend, but I just don't Get It. If anything were to allow me even a fleeting appreciation for the world of poetry, I thought it would be Lockwood's wonderfully absurd writing; yet now I'm here with another underwhelming experience and I'm thinking we just aren't meant to be, poetry and I. Sometimes it's just the idea we're in love with. :-//
(Removing my rating for this because it doesn't feel justified lol.)
I started this an optimist, about my own capacities as well as Lockwood's prose, and finished it a defeated person. Because I surrender. I do not know what it is about People That Get Poetry that grants them access to some private, abstract wisdoms which mere halfwits like me cannot even begin to comprehend, but I just don't Get It. If anything were to allow me even a fleeting appreciation for the world of poetry, I thought it would be Lockwood's wonderfully absurd writing; yet now I'm here with another underwhelming experience and I'm thinking we just aren't meant to be, poetry and I. Sometimes it's just the idea we're in love with. :-//
(Removing my rating for this because it doesn't feel justified lol.)
goodverbsonly's review
3.0
read for Contemporary American Poetry. A soft 3/5. the poems are very ambitious, but possibly too abstract. i’ll review a couple of them later maybe.
jansyn_liberty's review
4.0
I liked a few of her poems. Especially “The Father and Mother of American Tit-Pics” and “Rape Joke”
cdmcc's review
2.0
I love the premise of this collection (the correlation between bodies and countries), but at some point--and this was the case here--abstract just becomes abstruse and unenjoyable. And that's not to say that someone else wouldn't enjoy this, but if I'm reading poetry, I need more of an anchor on where and how to ground myself within the language.
reverendpear's review
5.0
I expected this collection to be good. And it blew that expectation outta the water. Fantastic poetry
shirahdevorah's review
4.0
Weird and wonderful. Lockwood does incredible things with images and verbs and nouns (I know, that's language) and in between all of the absurd finds ways to shock you into slack-jawed awe or disgust or something else strong.