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Title: Monster Fashion by Jarret Keene ISBN: 0-916397-77-7 Publisher: Manic D Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.87 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "Cotton ball cloud dabbing The sky's slashed wrists."
Comment: from "Last Book Before World's End" pg. 81 of MONSTER FASHION. The French novelist Marguerite Duras wrote "If writing isn't all things, all contraries confounded, a quest for vanity and void, it's nothing." MONSTER FASHION shows us that Jarret Keene is on just such a quest. His poems attempt to reconcile opposites and antagonists, academia & pop culture, youth & age, courage & fear, life & death, sacred & profane...and succeed due to his subtle and bizarre sense of humor and an exuberant mysticism. He is the missing link, an academic who doesn't write like one. He writes like an ecstatic and slightly deranged desert essene mystic who somehow found himself trapped in a shopping mall and took refuge in the comic shop. The contradictions mirror the man himself. He is 95% catholic and 100% voodoo, he married his high school sweetheart and dances in his underwear on tabletops in dive bars, he teaches college and pukes his horror on neatly trimmed suburban lawns. This is an important book because it is unlike anything else.It is undescribable. Forget Ezra Pound, read this one.
Rating: 5
Summary: Monster Fashion -- Brilliant Fun, Masterfully Done
Comment: I sat down and read this whole book in one night-- the first time I've accomplished such a feat with a book of poetry since perhaps the much shorter Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Neruda. Most notably, I would say that Jarret Keene is more fun than you could possibly expect from your average thirty-year-old, not to mention thirty-year-old poet. However incredibly low-key and sarcastic his poetry is, though, underneath it all you can really see Keene's skill shining through-- especially his fantastic eye for rhythm. You can almost imagine a 75-year-old black man tapping his tired foot in the corner of Keene's study as he works.
But above all, his mesh of the hilarious and thought-provoking, everyday and monstrous, hip and painful, will leave you more content than you thought you could be at the end of a book of poetry. Whether you merely give his work a once-over or really try and delve deeper into its implications, I think you'll find this book a complementary (and necessary?) addition to any Contemporary Poetry collection-- even a currently non-existing one.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great book of debut poems
Comment: Jarret Keene's debut book of poems, "Monster Fashion," is a book that adds a sense of freshness and excitement in a genre that is often riddled with staunchy, boring and dry verse from the world of academia. All I have to say is..."Thank Goddess for Monster Fashion!" Keene's book is filled with comedic, familial and pop culture verse that most books lack. I like the fact that Keene has the ability to laugh at himself and not take himself so seriously in his work. We need more poets like this poetic holy ghost.
Among one of my favorites is "Scoped" where the character takes a dreadful visit to the doctor to find out why he's been 'passing blood'.
"He tells me to turn over
on my side and pull my knees
against my chest.
The glove snaps. And
sure enough, he's got his finger
inside of me, poking around."
Because of the immediate and sensitive description
in this poem, Keene does a superb job of making you feel
that you're there. From the "so-clean-it-smells examination
room," to the terrifying snapping of those smelly latex gloves.
This is the only poem that makes me cross my legs
with phantom pains.
"Monster Fashion" is not a book of poetry with just words sprawled out on the page without a sense of order. Keene proves that he is well-seasoned with some poems written beatifully in couplets and quatrains, which is one of my personal favorite forms.
Other poems such as "Heart, You're a Hospital Now" and "Ventriloquism Made Easy," are two more of my favorites where Keene practically yanks you by the arm and pulls you into his cut-throat psyche.
I love the smidgen of ryhme and alliteration in the beginnings of "Heart, You're a Hospital Now."
"Nothing is worse than a dying patient,
Except the surgeon, who gives your life lease,
Cuts you open, removes a sick piece,
stitches you up and grows impatient
of your bloated face."
Oh, I love the way the second and third line
ends with such emergence.
'gives your life lease,'
'removes a sick piece.'
The way the lines and words carefully entwine
and dance so immediately.
'removes a sick piece.'
Who doesn't want to steal that line and run for the hills?
This poem is crammed delightfuly with similiar, arresting lines
all the way to the end, which hurls the reader back
into reality.
Keene's verse in this book are exciting, entertaining, funny and beautiful. From epic poems such as "Ava Gardner, Queen of Earthquakes," to the short and brutal "Black Revolver," Monster Fashion offers something for the most rabid lover of the poetic word.
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Title: The Australia Stories: A Novel by Todd James Pierce ISBN: 1931561281 Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Contemporary American Poetry: Behind the Scenes by Ryan G. Van Cleave ISBN: 0321095782 Publisher: Longman Publishing Group Pub. Date: 07 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $32.40 |
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Title: Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America by Virgil Suarez, Ryan G. Van Cleave ISBN: 0877457921 Publisher: University of Iowa Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems by Denise Duhamel ISBN: 0822957620 Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction by Tim O'Brien ISBN: 0767902890 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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