A review by beatsbybeard
Eunoia: The Upgraded Edition by Christian Bök

4.0

This is an incredible feat of constrained writing that thoroughly blurs the poetry/prose boundary. Each chapter uses only one vowel at a time, has certain narrative points it must hit (including one which ALSO tells the story of the Iliad), and follows many more "subsidiary rules" that are not laid out until the end of the book. A collection of poetry follows the prose, riffing on the poem "Voyelles" ("Vowels") by Arthur Rimbaud. These poems have their own subsidiary rules, and the sheer mastery of language left me gobsmacked on a plane above the Midwest. You can finish it in an hour or two, but be prepared to be scratching your head over it for a while.

(Here's a meager effort. You should try it too.)

A black mass, alas, has a bad rap that an Afghan can't.
Every egret enters, emerges, then exceeds the lengths these jewels decree.
I kill itching, sitting zits; I fight licking, hitting fits.
Onto food, Oslo owns hot dogs, bon bons, globs of corn on moss. (Oof.)
Ugly urns usurp unsung suns.