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A review by mlindner
Fall Higher by Dean Young
1.0
I should probably say that this simply wasn't for me.
As a physical artifact there is really nothing to complain about, as is usual for Copper Canyon press books. I have many of their hardbacks and paperbacks and they are routinely fine products and a good value for the cost.
The poetry simply did not do it for me, though. There were moments of brilliance but they were often of one clause length or less. They felt very much like pastiches (as in hodgepodges) instead of as coherent wholes. Sentences frequently did not make sense and, to me, the poems as a whole had no internal cohesion. In most cases I had no idea what each poem was supposed to be about. Being poetry, some of this is, of course, fine. But a whole book's worth of it?
There was one poem which I liked overall ("Non-Apologia") even though it is guilty of many of the faults I just expressed. This poem, though, is about language, words, and poetry and thus is demonstrating these 'techniques' in service of showing what language and a poem can do. I do, though, think it could have been an even better poem if the pyrotechnics had been reined in slightly.
I wanted to like this book, as my love chose it for me as a birthday present. Sadly, I jut couldn't.
As a physical artifact there is really nothing to complain about, as is usual for Copper Canyon press books. I have many of their hardbacks and paperbacks and they are routinely fine products and a good value for the cost.
The poetry simply did not do it for me, though. There were moments of brilliance but they were often of one clause length or less. They felt very much like pastiches (as in hodgepodges) instead of as coherent wholes. Sentences frequently did not make sense and, to me, the poems as a whole had no internal cohesion. In most cases I had no idea what each poem was supposed to be about. Being poetry, some of this is, of course, fine. But a whole book's worth of it?
There was one poem which I liked overall ("Non-Apologia") even though it is guilty of many of the faults I just expressed. This poem, though, is about language, words, and poetry and thus is demonstrating these 'techniques' in service of showing what language and a poem can do. I do, though, think it could have been an even better poem if the pyrotechnics had been reined in slightly.
I wanted to like this book, as my love chose it for me as a birthday present. Sadly, I jut couldn't.