Nutria Bounce
by Joel Dailey. 2005 Open 24 Hours, Brooklyn.
Book Review by Michael Basinski
For this one contact the press at: acoldgobot@hotmail.com And you can contact the poet via: Fell Snoop, the All Bohemian Revue, 3003 Ponce De Leon Street, New Orleans, LA 70119
Wow! This book is dedicated to Babette Deutsch! Do you know her? She poet, critic, teacher and not enough remembered. Do your digging and do it. These are poems full of the marvelous and terrific juxtapositionings of bits of language. This is not to write that they are somehow burdened by language theory or attempts at being obtuse, arrogant or opaque. Quiet the reverse is operating here in this poetry. The poems are fun and light and capture the language playfulness so needed in the somber and serious world of poetry. They are compelling and draw you into each and into the next. Fun to read poetry. Imagine that. Let me just randomly give you a hand full of these peanuts or m&ms or pretzels or whatever is your treat: OK: Here goes some of Joel Dailey: “I forgot to underline the symbolic portions so the/ Reader’ll get it Maybe a brace of asterisks wing/ By (I knew a woman who moved to NYC to become an/ Asterisk*) Ah the poetics of Everyday command me/ To move the frying pan six inches west?” Joel Daily isn’t afraid to let the images and ideas and language of mass society populate his poems. The poems as forms feel essentially verbal and are rich in satire and irony and humor. A madly riotous poetic venture and a must for those who love new poetry but not the seriousness and self importance of too much cutting edge poetry. Ah, how much pleasure to find a smart and exuberant book of poems willing to be read and ripe with its own pleasure and with no fear in sharing the hilarity that is everywhere in the medium we use to communicate.
Made with ♥ in Baltimore.
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