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seebrandyread's review
You know how when you repeat a word a whole bunch of times in a row, that words loses its meaning? That's basically how I feel about poetry after reading this book. I fully admit that I did not use the book the way it was intended which is as a textbook of sorts. These poems have been anthologized to give a broad scope of the elusive, ever-changing characteristics of American hybrid poetry and for teachers and students to use it as a learning tool. It offers snapshots of poets' work, but they're snapshots that demonstrate how their work fits under the hybrid umbrella.
The intro defines hybrid poetry as being a blend of two or more "schools" or traditions of poetry like Language poetry (focused on the units of words and their individuals definitions and connotations) or the New York School (observant of the everyday). That's a watered down take on something quite abstract and complex, but I'm not a natural poetry reader, and sometimes I need the watered down version. Before each section dedicated to a new poet, there's an intro to the poet and their work which helped a bit, but often the descriptions were as abstract as the poetry. I did find a couple little nuggets in the descriptions like "psychological origami" and "whirling poetic Cuisinarts." It should be every writer's goal to have their work compared to a kitchen appliance.
Most of the work in this book could be described as experimental. Whether it's linguistic, syntactic, or grammatical gymnastics, these poets are pushing any boundary they come across. Many of the intros mentioned cross-genre work many have done with visual art, but only one entry included any visual element that wasn't part of poetic structure. Maybe the editors didn't include this specific work for the other writers, but if they did, I'm not sure how the reader is supposed to get the full effect, especially if there's no way to look up the work.
Reading this anthology has helped me to understand better my personal taste in poetry. I don't care for fully experimental poetry; I need something to ground me. An experiment is a effort towards discovery, but I prefer to be more oriented in the known. I've had this book for a pretty long time, but I know I wasn't ready to read it when I bought it. I probably wasn't ready to read it now, but the point of reading outside my comfort zone is to exercise and challenge my brain. Even though my brain may not have kept up, it's still stronger.
The intro defines hybrid poetry as being a blend of two or more "schools" or traditions of poetry like Language poetry (focused on the units of words and their individuals definitions and connotations) or the New York School (observant of the everyday). That's a watered down take on something quite abstract and complex, but I'm not a natural poetry reader, and sometimes I need the watered down version. Before each section dedicated to a new poet, there's an intro to the poet and their work which helped a bit, but often the descriptions were as abstract as the poetry. I did find a couple little nuggets in the descriptions like "psychological origami" and "whirling poetic Cuisinarts." It should be every writer's goal to have their work compared to a kitchen appliance.
Most of the work in this book could be described as experimental. Whether it's linguistic, syntactic, or grammatical gymnastics, these poets are pushing any boundary they come across. Many of the intros mentioned cross-genre work many have done with visual art, but only one entry included any visual element that wasn't part of poetic structure. Maybe the editors didn't include this specific work for the other writers, but if they did, I'm not sure how the reader is supposed to get the full effect, especially if there's no way to look up the work.
Reading this anthology has helped me to understand better my personal taste in poetry. I don't care for fully experimental poetry; I need something to ground me. An experiment is a effort towards discovery, but I prefer to be more oriented in the known. I've had this book for a pretty long time, but I know I wasn't ready to read it when I bought it. I probably wasn't ready to read it now, but the point of reading outside my comfort zone is to exercise and challenge my brain. Even though my brain may not have kept up, it's still stronger.
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