Status
purchased
Call number
Genres
Publication
Penguin Books (2014), Paperback, 80 pages
Description
"A breathtaking new collection from one of today's boldest and most adventurous poets; Colloquial and incantatory, the poems in Patricia Lockwood's second collection address the most urgent questions of our time, like: what if a deer did porn? Is America going down on Canada? What happens when Niagara Falls gets drunk at a wedding? Is it legal to marry a stuffed owl exhibit? What would Walt Whitman's tit-pics look like? Why isn't anyone named Gary anymore? Did the Hatfield and McCoy babies ever fall in love? The steep tilt of Lockwood's lines sends the reader snowballing downhill, accumulating pieces of the scenery with every turn. The poems' subject is the natural world, but their images would never occur in nature. This book is serious and funny at the same time, like a big grave with a clown lying in it. "--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member rivkat
I knew of Lockwood’s incredible “Rape Joke,” but bought this book of poetry after Mallory Ortberg’s amazing takedown of the sexist New Yorker review of it. So I came in primed for sharp observations on sexual relations, and they are there, embedded in colorful and outright loopy metaphors
Show More
that judder around like fireflies, flashing now and then. Given the poems’ repeated themes of sexual vulnerability and desire, often expressed by converting women or men into animals (rarely both at the same time), it’s hard not to think of Sylvia Plath, though with less depression and more mania. They’re hard-edged, artificially flavored, full of plays on words and breasts. A longer volume could’ve gotten overloaded, but this was just right. “What have we dumped in the ocean? All/the dolphins have begun growing breasts./Now dolphins are women when you want/women and fish when you want fish,/at last…./A triangle pokes above the water/and says better shapes below—circles are/the most sought-after shapes of course/but teardrops are also accepted.” Show Less
LibraryThing member reganrule
'The Father and Mother of American Tit Pics' won my heart.
LibraryThing member dasam
I wish I admired Lockwood's collection, I really do. There are some poems that come close to successful, and one ("The Rape Joke") which really hits home. Too many poems seem please with little dirty jokes or attempts at humor. "List of Cross-Dressing Soldiers" "The Fake Tears of Shirley Temple"
The main conceit that nations and landscapes are treated as if human bodies and beings, and vice verse, just doesn't work here for me.
Perhaps it is just me. But I really wanted to admire this collection. But as Lockwood might write, "Naaaaaaah."
Show More
and "The Descent of the Dunk" all come close. Too often I feel that what strives to be free and experimental is just undisciplined and needing rewriting.The main conceit that nations and landscapes are treated as if human bodies and beings, and vice verse, just doesn't work here for me.
Perhaps it is just me. But I really wanted to admire this collection. But as Lockwood might write, "Naaaaaaah."
Show Less
LibraryThing member jphamilton
This poetry is so different that it almost seems like it is from another planet, a deliciously bizarre and sexual one. Patricia Lockwood’s most recognized and powerful poem has got to be “Rape Joke,” which became a viral sensation. Most of her poetry has a sexual element and is rarely subtle,
Allow me to quote something from The Rumpus, “Lockwood writes strange, brilliant, fantastic poems. One of the foremost poets of our generation.” Fantasy takes her poetry all over the map and shows how inventive and weird she can be.
When the book was released in 2014, it was selected as a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Flavorwire, BuzzFeed and The Strand, Powell’s, and Barnes & Noble. Another review said that, “This book is serious and funny at the same time, like a big grave with a clown lying in it.” Which is so very apt, as it uses an outstanding image, one that sticks in your gray matter, just like many of Lockwood’s poems.
I’m choosing to not describe her poetry in much detail, as I feel her poems are best experienced up close and personal, and not yammered on about by a newt like me. Myself, I was hooked on the first page. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly “what” it was that I was hooked on, but her poetry is so unique that I was driven to see where it was going. If you have any interest, find some of her poetry and let it reach into your brain.
Show More
it’s out there and often very funny. That all becomes obvious when you read the titles of some of her poems: “Search ‘Lizard Vagina’ and You Shall Find,” “The Whole World Gets Together and Gangbangs a Deer” (Bambi is mentioned), “The Father and Mother of American Tit-Pics,” and “List of Cross-Dressing Soldiers.”Allow me to quote something from The Rumpus, “Lockwood writes strange, brilliant, fantastic poems. One of the foremost poets of our generation.” Fantasy takes her poetry all over the map and shows how inventive and weird she can be.
When the book was released in 2014, it was selected as a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Flavorwire, BuzzFeed and The Strand, Powell’s, and Barnes & Noble. Another review said that, “This book is serious and funny at the same time, like a big grave with a clown lying in it.” Which is so very apt, as it uses an outstanding image, one that sticks in your gray matter, just like many of Lockwood’s poems.
I’m choosing to not describe her poetry in much detail, as I feel her poems are best experienced up close and personal, and not yammered on about by a newt like me. Myself, I was hooked on the first page. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly “what” it was that I was hooked on, but her poetry is so unique that I was driven to see where it was going. If you have any interest, find some of her poetry and let it reach into your brain.
Show Less
LibraryThing member eas7788
I mean, just not for me, I guess? A lot of cleverness and skill, but a lot of it comes off as a trick, an angle. Maybe I'm too old? The repetition within the poems and then the use of repetition in almost every poem gets to be too much. But there are some good phrases, good lines, etc.
Language
Original publication date
2014
Physical description
66 p.; 6.11 inches
ISBN
0143126520 / 9780143126522