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klsreads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Miscarriage and Terminal illness
harridansstew's review against another edition
3.0
I really liked certain poems, especially "I don't cook, but I could make a baby."
jmarkwindy's review against another edition
3.0
If The Last Usable Hour, Landau's second collection, explores the meaning of desire in a supposedly meaningless world, The Uses of the Body explores the lack of desire in a world with endless meaning.
Yes, Landau's speakers are still trying to find reasons to stay happy in these poems, but they're also deeply embedded in the physical world. A Parisian summer blooms while marriage, motherhood, pregnancy, birth, and death (so much death) occupy the collection on a subjective basis. As a result, our speakers are constantly responding to impending happenstance, the happenings themselves, and their glorious aftermaths. The female body is at work here, and so is a complex, fierce mind.
Like The Last Usable Hour, lyric sequences are organized in sections primarily dealing with one or more of the aforementioned subjects. The compulsion to read each section as a long poem is more convincing here than in her previous collection since many of the thin, short poems need each other to exist in close proximity. Stylistically, a love child is born: The Uses of the Body features the familiarity and simplicity of Orchidelirium (her first collection) and the lyric architecture of The Last Usable Hour (which I actually prefer).
This collection is most effective when its speakers critique the world's demands, the demands of others (particularly the male gaze), and what they demand from themselves. I think the last section, "Late Summer," does this best by demonstrating a kind of wry astonishment and effervescent word play, two qualities I've come to expect from Landau's poetry. However, in an earlier section titled "Mr and Mrs End of Suffering," a speaker lies down for the night with her partner and thinks to herself:
Haven't we all felt this tug toward responsibility? One can't help but ask themselves whose responsibility is tugging at them—and if it isn't their own, why should they care? Our unique, creative "urge" is what makes this life worth living. Landau implores us to be true to ourselves and not to let anyone or anything "tamp it down."
Meanwhile, anxiety may rule The Last Usable Hour, but depression (postpartum?) rules The Uses of the Body. For example, we often get lines like, "...and the months go by like a dream not killing us yet." Later, some advice is given:
On the next page, a speaker laments time, aging, the inevitability of death:
But then:
Here, Landau is also our friend. These moments are healing for both the poems' speakers and their readers, but The Uses of the Body, while a more controlled effort than Orchidelirium, is too matter-of-fact for my personal taste. I find myself missing the participatory value of The Last Usable Hour, the mysterious open-ended cadences that transform my reading experience into something applicable. In short, we're told so much in this collection, but we aren't necessarily invited to conjure our own conclusions about what is said. Even so, I look forward to reading Landau's most recent collection, Soft Targets.
Yes, Landau's speakers are still trying to find reasons to stay happy in these poems, but they're also deeply embedded in the physical world. A Parisian summer blooms while marriage, motherhood, pregnancy, birth, and death (so much death) occupy the collection on a subjective basis. As a result, our speakers are constantly responding to impending happenstance, the happenings themselves, and their glorious aftermaths. The female body is at work here, and so is a complex, fierce mind.
Like The Last Usable Hour, lyric sequences are organized in sections primarily dealing with one or more of the aforementioned subjects. The compulsion to read each section as a long poem is more convincing here than in her previous collection since many of the thin, short poems need each other to exist in close proximity. Stylistically, a love child is born: The Uses of the Body features the familiarity and simplicity of Orchidelirium (her first collection) and the lyric architecture of The Last Usable Hour (which I actually prefer).
This collection is most effective when its speakers critique the world's demands, the demands of others (particularly the male gaze), and what they demand from themselves. I think the last section, "Late Summer," does this best by demonstrating a kind of wry astonishment and effervescent word play, two qualities I've come to expect from Landau's poetry. However, in an earlier section titled "Mr and Mrs End of Suffering," a speaker lies down for the night with her partner and thinks to herself:
I can see where I need to go
but never get there.
When I lie in bed my limbs go numb.
When the sky darkens.
The urge is there
but also the mandate
to tamp it down.
Always the urge.
Always the mandate.
Haven't we all felt this tug toward responsibility? One can't help but ask themselves whose responsibility is tugging at them—and if it isn't their own, why should they care? Our unique, creative "urge" is what makes this life worth living. Landau implores us to be true to ourselves and not to let anyone or anything "tamp it down."
Meanwhile, anxiety may rule The Last Usable Hour, but depression (postpartum?) rules The Uses of the Body. For example, we often get lines like, "...and the months go by like a dream not killing us yet." Later, some advice is given:
Jen says, Try to see the whole landscape
of your life, not just the part that's collapsing.
On the next page, a speaker laments time, aging, the inevitability of death:
I am twenty.
I am thirty.
I am forty years old.
But then:
A friend said, Listen,
you have to try to calm down.
Here, Landau is also our friend. These moments are healing for both the poems' speakers and their readers, but The Uses of the Body, while a more controlled effort than Orchidelirium, is too matter-of-fact for my personal taste. I find myself missing the participatory value of The Last Usable Hour, the mysterious open-ended cadences that transform my reading experience into something applicable. In short, we're told so much in this collection, but we aren't necessarily invited to conjure our own conclusions about what is said. Even so, I look forward to reading Landau's most recent collection, Soft Targets.
tiffanyg's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful. I devoured this book and then immediately reread it.
swalls95's review against another edition
2.0
Some nice lines/turn of phrase but nothing more than that. I didn't feel personally connected to it apart from this page:
Before you have kids,
You get a dog.
Then when you get a baby,
You wait for the dog to die.
When the dog dies,
it's a relief.
When your babies aren't babies,
You want a dog again.
Before you have kids,
You get a dog.
Then when you get a baby,
You wait for the dog to die.
When the dog dies,
it's a relief.
When your babies aren't babies,
You want a dog again.
milo_rose's review against another edition
3.0
(3.5)
"The uses of the body. Rinse, repeat.
To make another body.
September. Draw the blanket up.
Lace your shoes.
The major and minor passions.
Sunlight. Hair."
- from "Mr and Mrs End of Suffering"
"The uses of the body. Rinse, repeat.
To make another body.
September. Draw the blanket up.
Lace your shoes.
The major and minor passions.
Sunlight. Hair."
- from "Mr and Mrs End of Suffering"
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