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lisamquinn's review
2.0
I really liked "The Return of Odysseus" so I thought I'd read more...it was just alright for me. Some kind of grossed me out...
xterminal's review
4.0
George Bilgere, The Good Kiss (The University of Akron Press, 2002)
Haywire, Bilgere's 2006 book, was very high up my best reads of 2010 list (“Every other poem or so Bilgere cranks up the wonder machine and lets fly with another piece that varies the theme somewhat” --review 6Aug10 ish), with the added note that 2010 saw me reading the highest average quality stuff I have so far this century. It is an impressive book indeed. The Good Kiss, his 2002 offering, is not quite up to the same standard, but that's kind of like comparing Family Plot to Lifeboat in the corpus of Alfred Hitchcock; you may not think it's at the top of the heap, but that doesn't mean it's not better than 90% of what you're going to read in the year you pick it up.
“Was man descended from the apes?
We didn't much care, although the speeches
For God or monkey banged on the rafters
Of the musty theater with all the passion
our reedy voices could muster. To us
It seemed enough that Heather's breasts
Nodded their secret affirmation
Of the world's essential injustice...”
(“Inherit the Wind”)
Bilgere's knack for coming up with just the right blend of loose-limbed diction and out-there word choice makes for a winning combination in pretty much every poem in this volume; if I sound less than enthused about it when comparing it to Haywire, the simple truth to be found there is that I sound less than enthused about, well, damn near anything when I compare it to Haywire. Make no mistake about it, this is excellent stuff and well worth reading. ****
Haywire, Bilgere's 2006 book, was very high up my best reads of 2010 list (“Every other poem or so Bilgere cranks up the wonder machine and lets fly with another piece that varies the theme somewhat” --review 6Aug10 ish), with the added note that 2010 saw me reading the highest average quality stuff I have so far this century. It is an impressive book indeed. The Good Kiss, his 2002 offering, is not quite up to the same standard, but that's kind of like comparing Family Plot to Lifeboat in the corpus of Alfred Hitchcock; you may not think it's at the top of the heap, but that doesn't mean it's not better than 90% of what you're going to read in the year you pick it up.
“Was man descended from the apes?
We didn't much care, although the speeches
For God or monkey banged on the rafters
Of the musty theater with all the passion
our reedy voices could muster. To us
It seemed enough that Heather's breasts
Nodded their secret affirmation
Of the world's essential injustice...”
(“Inherit the Wind”)
Bilgere's knack for coming up with just the right blend of loose-limbed diction and out-there word choice makes for a winning combination in pretty much every poem in this volume; if I sound less than enthused about it when comparing it to Haywire, the simple truth to be found there is that I sound less than enthused about, well, damn near anything when I compare it to Haywire. Make no mistake about it, this is excellent stuff and well worth reading. ****
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