The Black Automaton (The National Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Douglas Kearney (Author)

Book Description

Series: The National Poetry Series | Publication Date: November 1, 2009

"Douglas Kearney's innovative new collection makes me tremble like a 'mouth and mind full of fish hooks.' . . . These poems literally vibrate with Kearney's precocious intellect and passion. They hum, they bang, they bite. What else can I say? I have never encountered poetry like this before."—Terrance Hayes

Editorial Reviews

Review

"First, you have to see Douglas Kearney's visual poems, which cheekily diagram cultural memes as if they were parts of speech (as they are). The Black Automaton has its share of sharp, tender lyrics, too... these exploit the political possibilities of puns and the way meanings hinge on inexact resemblance. Kearney's poems tweak and skewer pop culture and literary sources from Paul Laurence Dunbar to T. S. Eliot to traditional ballads and blues... Kearney's work turns poetic and cultural conventions disquietingly inside out." --Catherine Wagner

Review

"Douglas Kearney's innovative new collection makes me tremble like a 'mouth and mind full of fish hooks.' It makes me think of the despair at the heart of ecstasy; of restlessness as a kind of anodyne. These poems literally vibrate with Kearney's precocious intellect and passion. They hum, they bang,, they bite. This is a jaw-dropping, electrifying book. What else can I Say? I have never encountered poetry like this before." (Terrance Hayes )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 95 pages
• Publisher: Fence Books (November 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193420028X
• ISBN-13: 978-1934200285
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #102,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to Breathe Nights, April 28, 2010

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Black Automaton (The National Poetry Series) (Paperback)

I went to a recent reading in Oakland in which Douglas Kearney read from his new book, The Black Automaton. Wow! What a showman, he came in and tore the place up with his exciting readings, well really performance showcases, that made full use of his many voices. In fact he was so fine it made me wonder, yeah, but what about reading the book, will the book still be good without this tremendous theatrical energy pushing it alive like a fire lit under the stage?

It is a book fueled by music and by sight, and these elements speak freely within Kearney's pages which, he told us, he had designed himself. He is like the Orson Welles of poets, starring in, writing, directing, producing, composing the score and here, drawing and detailing the entire thing. Good going, for even if one or two details look askew, the book profits from the organicity of its concept and the polish with which the tiniest detail is buffed up. On racial matters, about which experimental poetry has had a checkered history, we turn to Kearney for a brilliant new viewpoint. Folk tale, fairy tale, hip-hop, legendary materials from a huge swath of cultures and coteries, he has brought together, like a master weaver, all the colors of the night and day, but this metaphor suggests an easy silken road, and the actual experience of "reading" the book (including deciphering some of the concrete poetry sections in which, for example, a page in which the words "blowing down" look to be repeated, stamped on each other, superimposed dozens of times, with little tributaries of other words floating away from the general explosion) isn't always so easy. I felt a little twinge going in, not knowing my early 80s rap lyrics as I should, nor the contemporary Saturday morning cartoons out of which some of this diamondine music has been mined. Here it is, and I wonder what it looked like when the judge for the National Poetry Series, Cathy Wagner, picked it out of the pile on her desk, of all the other semi-finalists she had to read.

Oh, what was that Keats poem about first seeing something great? And the subject feels like a Conquistador? Somehow in the midst of reading "The Black Automaton" one will tingle with that similar sensation, reprovable or not. Let me conclude by saying that you don't need the man himself to make his book a sensation event in your life.

5.0 out of 5 stars More than poetry, February 23, 2011

By 

Evan J. Peterson (Temple Laboratories) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Black Automaton (The National Poetry Series) (Paperback)

I adore this book. Douglas Kearney is quite a polymath--he designed the book's art and filled it with intriguing poems. It's funny, extremely clever, avant garde, and compelling. Kearney's experimentation includes poems in the form of flow charts, and they're brilliant.

The Black Automaton uses science fiction and humor as filters to tackle serious subjects of politics, race, and class. This is more than poetry, and it is absolutely deserving of the award bestowed on it. I recommend it to many of my friends.