American Incident (Salt Modern Poets S.) [Paperback]

Brian Henry (Author)

Book Description

Series: Salt Modern Poets S. | Publication Date: November 15, 2002

Composed of a scattered novella ("Patricide in C Minor"), a performance text ("Resistance"), lyric poems, anti-lyrics, verse essays, prose poems and their de-formed counterparts, short fictions, hybrids, parodies, dramatic monologues, and works less amenable to classification, American Incident revels in polyphony and political disquiet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This capacious third volume from a much-remarked young poet-critic offers versatility, up-to-the-minute references, and edgy verbal fireworks framed by a remarkable range of forms. Henry begins with a series of almost flirtatiously indirect short poems, declaring in "Marginalia" "I promise to get concrete real quick." Soon enough come the first of several dozen distantly related prose poems, all entitled "Patricide in C Minor," and tantalizingly like fragments of a (racy, fast-moving, somewhat confusing) novel. Other offerings include a several-page script for solo theatrical performance; monostichs and distichs; a pantoun composed entirely of quotations from George W. Bush ("Beating Around the Bush"); and the quiet, brusque short poems of the title sequence. Most of the book, however, comprises aggressively digressive personal lyric, stylistically reminiscent of Susan Wheeler, Dean Young, or the Australian poet John Tranter. Frequent subjects include sex and male lust; youth and travel; writing and writing programs. Henry (Astronaut) makes his self-consciousness the foundation for everything else his art attempts: he writes that "artifice's mirror includes itself/ in what it reflects; it shares the blame." A later poem asks "How often do I need to say persona, persona, persona." If detractors will find such moves showoffy or unserious, others will find them virtuosic and exciting. The volume represents an advance on Henry's previous poetry not only in its startling quantity, but also in its quality: it will match, and perhaps extend, his growing transatlantic reputation.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Reading American Incident is an exciting, deeply unsettling experience. Few poets have Brian Henry's eye and ear for the gridlock of everyday life in America today, where "A warning light is flashing on the dashboard: / we need tax relief now," and the suburban front porch turns out to be the setting for the "Patricide" series-paragraphs that use a whiplash effect to dramatize the intractibility of our daily problems. But Henry's satiric thrust is by no means condescending: his malice is directed at himself as well as everyone else. American Incident is brilliant, funny, reckless: one of the best books of poetry I've come across in a long time. -- Marjorie Perloff This capacious third volume from a much-remarked young poet-critic offers versatility, up-to-the-minute references, and edgy verbal fireworks framed by a remarkable range of forms... The volume represents an advance on Henry's previous poetry not only in its startling quantity, but also in its quality: it will match, and perhaps extend, his growing transatlantic reputation. Publishers Weekly Henry's wildly comprehensive lexicon and stylistic bag of tricks take us traveling through traditional and experimental poetic worlds... Few poems today induce aesthetic delirium and delight like Henry's best. -- Christine Hume American Letters & Commentary The real subject of Amercan Incident is violence-familial, political, and especially sexual. the idea of violence, threats of violence, and acts of violence run through virtually all the selections here, but are nowhere more obvious than in "Patricide in C Minor," where that violence extends to the text in ways perhaps more unsettling to readerly expectations than descriptions of broken bodies. -- Joshua Harmon West Branch Henry is a keen observer who writes from a constantly changing perspective, often employing the techniques of montage and catalogue and typically eschewing a fixed point of view. -- Philip Nikolayev Jacket Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: Salt Publishing; 1st ed edition (November 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1876857528
• ISBN-13: 978-1876857523
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,030,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Henry is the author of eight books of poetry: Astronaut (short-listed for the Forward Prize), American Incident, Graft, Quarantine (winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award), The Stripping Point, Wings Without Birds, Lessness, and Doppelgänger. His work has been translated into Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, and Slovenian, and his books have been translated into Slovenian and Serbian. He has co-edited Verse magazine since 1995. His translation of Tomaž Šalamun's Woods and Chalices appeared from Harcourt in 2008, and his translation of Ales Šteger's The Book of Things appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Embarrassing Incident, August 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: American Incident (Salt Modern Poets S.) (Paperback)

If you're not interested in poetry so much as what poetry might be for, then welcome to Mr Henry's airless classroom of poetic "technique". There's some good--not great--writing here and the references and bag o'tricks on display leave no doubt that Mr Henry was always at the head of his class (which is their intention, no doubt). You don't get too far into the book without realizing that the desperate alterations of voice and register are not "signs of a restless and probing poetic intelligence" (the typical explanation offered for such pointless post-modern kerfuffelry) so much as an attempt to hide these poem's essential hollowness. Anyhow, the beat goes on. There are undoubtedly nine or ten people who read this and are sure Henry's a genius.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Uselesness of Schema, September 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: American Incident (Salt Modern Poets S.) (Paperback)

I'm not too fond of this book, though there are a few phrases I like here and there (phrases, alas, are not poems). I, for one, am very aware of the artificiality of "production" when I read these "poems" and take it as a given that there are indeed no critical schema that can account for the non-poetic posturings of poseurs. Henry has some talent, however, albeit in its infancy, and I'd check out a book of his from the library if I saw one. I might even buy it if he were seen to break free from the academic self-consciousness that has stunted the work hitherto.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too much like a hacky master's thesis for my taste...., March 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: American Incident (Salt Modern Poets S.) (Paperback)

This reviewer is happy with many of Henry's decisions as a magazine editor, and feels that Henry does a good job including the good and excluding the bad. Henry's own work as a "poet," however, is to this reviewer a mere byproduct of the international M.F.A. revenue-generating arrangement. In fact, in this reviewer's opinion one could compare Henry's book "American Incident" to, say, a megavitamin health shake in a pyramid scheme purporting to sell megavitamin health shake home kits-the product itself isn't particularly valuable or worthwhile; rather it's the `recruitment possibilities' and perks that are important. Frankly, this book could have been written by any moderately verbal, relentlessly self-promoting individual with lots of time but no additional gift. On one level, that may be part of Henry's presumed appeal-i.e. if Henry's poems continue to be printed, then some of those hordes who are mortgaging their futures writing and trying to publish cloddish poems feel justified and encouraged. If American poetry has any integrity left after an extended institutionalized assault by reciprocating egoists and faddish `right-thinkers,' Henry's next book should begin to demonstrate real growth and real facility with language, an improved ear, and greater depth of feeling and of thought than that which is available in "American Incident."