Scan barcode
A review by elliottblackbird
Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed
3.0
Indecency
Justin Phillip Reed
3.25/3.5 Stars
I now approve of my impulsive decision to buy this at almost the original full price, from a used book, because did enjoy quite a good amount of the poems, and I suspect a handful of them will grow on me with a second reread.
I saw many reviews speaking of confusion in interpreting the poems, and I can agree that there was a good amount of that which felt like lost wandering as a reader, but I think I've always been one for the more straightforward poems (in terms of readability and whatnot, even when remaining somewhat ambiguous) anyways, so in some ways, it's hard to fault as something other than the subjectivity of poetry and words with meaning. That said, there were a handful of poems I did really enjoy and will definitely be coming back to:
4 Stars
On Being a Grid One Might Go Off On
Retrograde
Orientation
To Every Fa***t Who Pulverized Me For Being A Fa***t (Note: censored for Goodreads purposes)
3.75 Stars
Any Unkindness
About a White City
They Speak of the Body and One Sits Up Straight
Paroxysm
3.5 Stars
Performing a Warped Masculinity en Route to the Metro
|p|l|e|a|s|
The Fratricide
The Victim Dissolves into tears
~
"[...]You too
once knew what it was to feel impressive. As the bed dissolves
into the walls, the walls disrobe themselves of their edges
and your resolve is now acute in the locking jaw of darkness."
(from: On Being a Grid One Might Go Off On)
~
"[...] For a second, you realize
that every single man in the room
has his back to another. Suppose
this were not true all of the time."
&
"[...] Nightly in the cold open
a character is assassinated, and you wonder if you won't eventually
play the part of every prone body, because no one looks long enough
to notice any difference. [...]"
&
"The apex predation, the brilliance in it,
this global verdant climb beyond—
Is this what it means to be lost in the night?
A paranoia. Unearthing tombs
and slipping inside of annullable memory.
You don't expect survival but
demand to survive nonetheless and believe
as if an afterlife—as if
an extant black mouth will be your legacy."
&
" you know that the night did not fall. it was dropped.
the evidence is yet uncollected.
the onomasticon in the mind makes room:
a round of hangman.
you eat the salience of waiting,
inhale it, and teeter as a reed in the wind at shore—
an indication of the will to move. [...]
say it will emerge like a body—
for what were you last destroyed?
for what did you last destroy?"
(each of the above, from: Paroxysm)
Justin Phillip Reed
3.25/3.5 Stars
I now approve of my impulsive decision to buy this at almost the original full price, from a used book, because did enjoy quite a good amount of the poems, and I suspect a handful of them will grow on me with a second reread.
I saw many reviews speaking of confusion in interpreting the poems, and I can agree that there was a good amount of that which felt like lost wandering as a reader, but I think I've always been one for the more straightforward poems (in terms of readability and whatnot, even when remaining somewhat ambiguous) anyways, so in some ways, it's hard to fault as something other than the subjectivity of poetry and words with meaning. That said, there were a handful of poems I did really enjoy and will definitely be coming back to:
4 Stars
On Being a Grid One Might Go Off On
Retrograde
Orientation
To Every Fa***t Who Pulverized Me For Being A Fa***t (Note: censored for Goodreads purposes)
3.75 Stars
Any Unkindness
About a White City
They Speak of the Body and One Sits Up Straight
Paroxysm
3.5 Stars
Performing a Warped Masculinity en Route to the Metro
|p|l|e|a|s|
The Fratricide
The Victim Dissolves into tears
~
"[...]You too
once knew what it was to feel impressive. As the bed dissolves
into the walls, the walls disrobe themselves of their edges
and your resolve is now acute in the locking jaw of darkness."
(from: On Being a Grid One Might Go Off On)
~
"[...] For a second, you realize
that every single man in the room
has his back to another. Suppose
this were not true all of the time."
&
"[...] Nightly in the cold open
a character is assassinated, and you wonder if you won't eventually
play the part of every prone body, because no one looks long enough
to notice any difference. [...]"
&
"The apex predation, the brilliance in it,
this global verdant climb beyond—
Is this what it means to be lost in the night?
A paranoia. Unearthing tombs
and slipping inside of annullable memory.
You don't expect survival but
demand to survive nonetheless and believe
as if an afterlife—as if
an extant black mouth will be your legacy."
&
" you know that the night did not fall. it was dropped.
the evidence is yet uncollected.
the onomasticon in the mind makes room:
a round of hangman.
you eat the salience of waiting,
inhale it, and teeter as a reed in the wind at shore—
an indication of the will to move. [...]
say it will emerge like a body—
for what were you last destroyed?
for what did you last destroy?"
(each of the above, from: Paroxysm)