Whether watching teens practice cheerleading in a surveillance video or discussing death with a shoe salesclerk, these poems ultimately find a certain joy and redemptive love. Wit and wry observation mark these disjointed narratives from an agile new voice.
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From Publishers Weekly
The poems in Pecqueur's debut are sweet, sometimes surreal and often mired in pop culture. Phrases much overused in the contemporary American lexicon—"so sue me," "chill pill," "been there, done that"—all appear in a kind of postironic bid for the importance of the commonplace. Pecqueur finds inspiration at the barbershop and the shoe store, where a salesclerk "tells me, as he's lacing a pair/ of coffee-with-cream oxfords,/ that the song playing on the radio,/ a muzaked version of The Way/ We Were, has always reminded him/ of how everyone must die." This sort of smalltime philosophizing and romanticizing the minutiae of life can prove dull after a while, but the poet shows a knack for simile and a deep dedication to craft, as when a man's shirt beautifully becomes "the one whose mother-of-pearl buttons stand out from the turquoise/ rayon like a hermit thrush in a clearing." There are enough beautiful passages, and enough wry and surprising moments, to qualify this as a worthwhile read by a promising poet with a generosity of spirit and the knowledge that "joy is not impossible." (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Jean-Paul Pecqueur is a poet who has, in truth, in actual landscapes and stunningly immediate circumstances, wrestled with an angel. And the fact that his very particular, very contemporary angel wears the shape of a bird’s last breath and the elusive substance of human justice, troubles and delights me. These are poems of harrowing moment.”—Donald Revell
"Sardonic and humorous, cynical and complex, these metaphysical musings celebrate the nameless dread, the logic of the illogical. They address big ideas: life, death, heaven, shoe shopping. They twist and loop, follow to unexpected conclusions...."—Library Journal
"The voice in these poems is real and familiar but has rarely been captured in poetry. Read carefully and follow."—American Poet
"Pecqueur's brand of nonchalant sarcasm is a delight."—The Great American Pin-Up
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The debut poetry collection of prizewinning poet Jean-Paul Pecqueur,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Case Against Happiness (Paperback)
The Case Against Happiness is the debut poetry collection of prizewinning poet Jean-Paul Pecqueur, who has previously been published in journals such as "American Letters & Commentary" and "Rain Taxi". Some of the collected poems have been slightly refined since their initial publication in a wide variety of journals; all share a characteristic, keenly whetted insight into the human condition. A dry, sardonic wit distinguishes these unforgettable free-verse contemplations. "The Case Against Happiness": Our local painter discovered Paul Klee. / He's the line that marries profit and loss / to those children of our rocky coast, / hair perfumed with the stuff of grief. / The local dentist thinks a tree is a tree's / a tree. Baker refuses to discourse at all. / He calls this pragmatism. I call Patty / but Patty's never home. Wants to stay. / Wants to call it quits. I do too. I want / to say to Happiness, Happiness, if the mind / of the man on the so-called street of dreams / meets, will the day drop off its clothes again, / its dirty, dirty laundry. Our walls, brief walks, / lie down with stunted and alien trees. / Animals, we eat the very air they breathe.
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