I purchased this book on a whim maybe six months ago? Possibly longer. At any rate, I got it for one reason. As I flipped through, looking for something of interest, I saw the title "Someone Somewhere in Canada" and decided to read the first few lines:

The bad years seemed over at last as she flushed
her past life like a fetus down the toilet
and entered America.

I instantly fell in love with that. Amazing. If you don't like the message here, don't worry. It turns out that most of the poems are not as interesting as this, sadly. They are lovely with intricate rhythms and stellar word choice, but they aren't very quirky.

Those who like traditional free verse.

There are a handful of poems in the collection that I really, truly adore. As mentioned, they are not all as quirky and gruesome as the snippet included before.

My favorite is probably "Silence". An excerpt:

For a moment there is silence
disconnected from your tongue
still talking, as if the color
orange were abstracted from
its source--the fruit before us
lying emptied on the table

In my opinion, the $8 price tag was worth it for this poem alone.

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Created Oct 30, 2015 at 11:50pm • Submit your own review...