Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg

I read most of Scary, No Scary in the bathtub last night. For poetry, it's not bad. At first I thought, well, this is too simple, too mired in nonsense. The lines, by themselves, are not shockingly good. I thought, this is awfully youthful stuff, as in, who cares.

Then I read a couple more poems and got it. There is a lot of repetition in this book, a lot of stacking of concepts and "characters" (like hummingbirds and darkness and falling and black holes and half-buried hearts). The poems become beautiful by accumulation, and the scope of the book broadens through the pages.

The more poems I read, the more I got into the space of Schomburg's ideas.

If you've ever heard the expression, "I don't know how to read that book," which is something smart people say when they're confused by what a poet is doing, this is a good book to read. I heard someone say that and thought, "When I don't get a book of poetry, I just figure I don't understand poetry. I never thought about different ways and techniques to read something." But this book provides an elementary way to understand how it, itself, should be read. It teaches the language as it's being read.

Also, the titles are really good.

A Cake Appeared by Shane Jones

I freaking love this book man. I think Shane Jones gets more wildly imaginative in the poems in A Cake Appeared than in his other work, which of course is all pretty wild in its imaginativeness.

I don't know how, but all these absurdities work when Shane writes them. Like facial hair breakdowns and stuff. They are good. There's a village in a dresser drawer.

It's pretty abnormal poetry. I don't think it's supposed to be taken too seriously.

But something serious happens anyway. Like, emotional seriousness happens even though the book isn't based on that.

If you were to ask someone why this book works, that person might say, "It works mostly because whoever wrote this didn't try to make something work." Someone else might say, "It's funny." Someone else might say, "Actually, it doesn't work because it's a little too much of nothing," and then that person might think, "Actually, that's pretty interesting."

If you were to ask someone about why this book works that person might say, "It's pretty good."

Anyway, this book was a lot of fun to read.

Wild Life Rifle Fire by Paul Siegell

Well now, this is a very peculiar book. It costs $10. Whenever I encounter a book such as wild life rifle fire, by Paul Siegell, I start thinking about money.

This book is a single poem. Words of the poem continue from page to page, and for the most part there isn't one single word on any of the pages because the type is set at, what, probably 72pt. Many of the words are interrupted by ASCII drawings (I think this is accurate).

The effect is shocking. I hope I didn't ruin the shock for anyone who buys the book, because it seems to me to be an important book. Probably there is a long tradition of this sort of stuff. Probably it is called "concrete poetry," you know, like a poem about a swan that looks like a swan. But this is different because the poem is nonsensical in a pleasant way. It's nonsensical in a friendly way, and also in a smart way.

The poem adds to the conversation about what is poetry.

I would say the book is worth $10. The cover alone, the title, if we are paying people for good ideas, is worth your $10.

I'm going to go home and make some chicken stir fry with a peanut sauce.

Killing Kanoko by Hiromi Ito

This collection of poems is really good. It is written with a sharp voice. Hiromi Ito is a Japanese poet. There is memorable repetition. I want to read it some more. I am going to write a review of it. It is very bright. One of the lines is "On days I can write poetry, I masturbate." Ito focuses on that line. She also writes, "On days I can write poetry, I do not masturbate" and "On days father can write poetry, he masturbates."

Another part goes, "On days I can write poetry, I have diarrhea."

Highly recommended. Buy it at SPD.

I don't understand it, but I can tell it's good. You might think that based on these lines Hiromi Ito would be like a 16-yr-old boy, but in fact she is in her 50s.