Reviews

“While I was masturbating, more rainforest disappeared”

by Evan Hansen May 2, 2010 Aaron Kunin

In a poem called “Life,” which appears in his most recent collection, (Pitt Poetry, 2010), writes: “The feeling that mysticism / is the only way to be polite…. / While I was masturbating, / more rainforest / disappeared….” These disclosures feel true—and inevitable, given what at least I believe about climate change and humans continuing [...]

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Some Sort of Truth: Dorothea Lasky’s BLACK LIFE Hurts Like Joy

by Lonely Christopher April 15, 2010 Dorothea Lasky

Dorothea Lasky is a poet of petulant grace. The particular way she does is she carves into the alphabet for poetry’s hurtfully buried, metastasized epiphanies of black life. Thence comes the fragments of jagged wonder she strings together to decorate her verse with pretty conflict. Her wonder (love and awe) is heavy and plain, stilted [...]

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Ben Lerner’s “Mean Free Path”

by Evan Hansen April 4, 2010 Reviews

Ben Lerner is damn smart. In case you aren’t convinced by my saying so, you need only stop and examine one his books the next time you have a chance. Just the titles of , , and most recently, suggest that the enclosed works have elaborate scholarly underpinnings. Lerner’s cerebral poetry isn’t chip-on-the-shoulder intellectualism or [...]

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Book Review: Map of the Folded World (John Gallaher)

by Poetry Blog Editors April 2, 2010 Poetry and Poetics

Easier Than Learning Klingon Jason Crane reviews John Gallaher’s Map of the Folded World In the realm of wrong answers, someone always has the radio on. – “I Will Sing the Monster to Sleep, & He Will Need Me” ~ I’ve been watching the middle seasons of Stargate SG-1 again. If you’ve never seen the [...]

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