A review by ste3ve_b1rd
Butterflies Lost Within the Crooked Moonlight by Matt Nagin

3.0

I don't usually read poetry and the form itself has little relevance for me. However, a number of these poems read like prose; like stories. The poems I like best in this book are those that get right to the heart of the matter. "Paradox" is short and to the point. "Cactus" is an ode to survival. "Endless Blanket" and "Annotations" are composed in a stream of consciousness style -- The first is a compressed "everything but the kitchen sink" analysis of the cosmos; the second concerns taking stock of everything that life has foists upon you. "Forever 21" makes me nostalgic for a year in my life that was actually very grim and yet -- What if I had the opportunity to go back and "live it right"? "Bombing at Sloan-Kettering" describes a scene that's familiar to anyone who knows how hellish stand up comedy can be -- Even in the best of circumstances (as opposed to the setting of this poem). My favorite of this collection is "Outside Hotel Gansevoort" which reminds me of how much New York City ended up changing (AKA "gentrifiying") particularly in the years since 9-11; how downtown became a party zone vastly different than the East Village where I lived in 1981 (when I was 21). In "Outside Hotel Gansevoort", I relate to the narrator's alienation; to his state of "the outsider looking in".