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A review by cellular_cosmogony
Necessary Poisons: Poems by Andrea Blythe
3.0
Rating: 2.5/5
Thanks to Interstellar Flight Press for providing me with a digital ARC to review.
Necessary Poisons is a collection of macabre found poetry , the source for which is Stephen King's unfinished epistolary novel The Plant. It is a fascinating collection, if a bit flawed. Sometimes self-imposed restrictions, like only using words and phrases from a pres-existing text, can ultimately expand one's creativity. In this collection the restrictions have mixed results.
Some poems, mainly the ones about the jackal, but also a couple of others, are a pleasure to read, with an eery mysticism to them, wrapped up in a rather elegant structure. Even if the meaning wasn't transparent, those poems had a fable-like quality to them that left me with a mixture of tension and wonder. The found poetry format also allows Blythe to uncover unconventional ways of using language that probably wouldn't have occurred to her without this limit.
However, other poems, which sadly make up the majority of the collection seem somewhat unfinished, and some of those are barely comprehensible, with no clear imagery, structure or lyricism to guide the reader through. These poems also don't have a great flow (I tried reading them out loud to test it) and could have used further reworking for that alone. Also, that's a total nitpick, but in the poem "Morning, Wrapped in Maple and Pine" there is a line saying "bellies/ and breasts sewn with belladonna/ and nightshade", when belladonna and nightshade are the same plant. I have no idea if that's something taken from King's text, but it seems like a rather silly mistake for a collection centering deadly plants to have.
I really liked the artwork in the collection - it's comprised of collages that the author did from public domain imagery. It's definite proof that one can add quality artwork to book, without the budget to hire an artist, but without resorting to AI image generation.
Thanks to Interstellar Flight Press for providing me with a digital ARC to review.
Necessary Poisons is a collection of macabre found poetry , the source for which is Stephen King's unfinished epistolary novel The Plant. It is a fascinating collection, if a bit flawed. Sometimes self-imposed restrictions, like only using words and phrases from a pres-existing text, can ultimately expand one's creativity. In this collection the restrictions have mixed results.
Some poems, mainly the ones about the jackal, but also a couple of others, are a pleasure to read, with an eery mysticism to them, wrapped up in a rather elegant structure. Even if the meaning wasn't transparent, those poems had a fable-like quality to them that left me with a mixture of tension and wonder. The found poetry format also allows Blythe to uncover unconventional ways of using language that probably wouldn't have occurred to her without this limit.
However, other poems, which sadly make up the majority of the collection seem somewhat unfinished, and some of those are barely comprehensible, with no clear imagery, structure or lyricism to guide the reader through. These poems also don't have a great flow (I tried reading them out loud to test it) and could have used further reworking for that alone. Also, that's a total nitpick, but in the poem "Morning, Wrapped in Maple and Pine" there is a line saying "bellies/ and breasts sewn with belladonna/ and nightshade", when belladonna and nightshade are the same plant. I have no idea if that's something taken from King's text, but it seems like a rather silly mistake for a collection centering deadly plants to have.
I really liked the artwork in the collection - it's comprised of collages that the author did from public domain imagery. It's definite proof that one can add quality artwork to book, without the budget to hire an artist, but without resorting to AI image generation.