John Keene (1) (1965–)

This collection is not themed, but it does show the range of Keene's work. The sections of the book are themed--in content or form. And his form varies widely within the book. Some poems are paragraphs, others look like stereotypical poems on the page, others play with form and text and white space.

Topics vary widely--lgtb relationships and issues, baseball, music, places, poetry. My favorite thing about this collection is its accessibility. Most of these poems are not conversation with other poets. These poems can largely be understood by the average non-academic poetry reader (me).

Manzanita was my favorite section, probably because of the historical references and settings. I also really liked the poem Words in the section also titled Words.… (mer)

I've put off writing a review of this book for months, because I wanted to do justice to it. I can't. It's really good, really intelligent--Keene can write, and despite setting himself up for intellectual failure (the obvious problem with 'counternarratives' being that they create a Manichean world), he doesn't fail. The moral horrors of racism in the Americas are made entirely plain, as are the mechanisms used to keep it in place, but they're never attributed to some evil cabal. They are the social structures that form us. And technically, this is a lesson in combining formal skill and intellectual ambition with emotional heft.… (mer)