Famous Americans (Yale Series of Younger Poets) [Hardcover]

Mr. Loren Goodman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300100027 | ISBN-13: 978-0300100020 | Publication Date: March 11, 2003

Eclectic and bizarre, this collection of poetry takes the reader on a rollercoaster of a ride through the absurdities of American pop culture. Employing a variety of forms (from epistolary to script to interview and beyond), this work proves to be as much about exploring frameworks as it is about examining the lives of famous and not-so-famous Americans. Goodman questions our concept of what it means to be an icon: he disrupts our assumptions, creating an alternative universe in which nothing remains sacred. This title is the winner of the "Yale Series of Younger Poets" competition for 2003.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Yale Series of Younger Poets is always worth investigating, and this year's winner is as surprising in its inventiveness as it is pleasing in its humor. Selected by W. S. Merwin, Goodman's hilarious debut collection contains a heady mix of pseudointellectual bombast, advertising hyperbole, and the sort of intuitively brilliant correlations found in folk art, such as the portrayal of Elvis as Jesus. Anyone who has ever worked with floundering students will find Goodman's takes on bad writing highly amusing, as are his forays into the minds of a piano-playing child and a Japanese caller struggling with English in a long answering-machine message. Form is content for Goodman, whether it's a letter, a giddily absurd report, strange and mangled voice-over commentary on such ludicrous topics as Einstein's brain and Napoleon's penis, ridiculous yet vaguely familiar movie scenarios, and an account of an underwater shoot-out at the OK Coral involving Billy the Squid. Smart, wily, and agile, Goodman achieves a Charles Ives-effect in this sweet and clever sampling of pop culture in all its goofiness and longing. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Famous last words for this terrific book are hard to come by but one such would be 'Wonderful'! Loren Goodman has made a veritable masterpiece out of leftover formulae for writing quite other stuff indeed. Famous Americans is my kind of people." Robert Creeley, author of Just in Time, Poems 1984-1994

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300100027
• ISBN-13: 978-0300100020
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,058,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars something out of the ordinary: humorous poetry, January 11, 2004

By 

spacedog "spacedog7" (boston, ma United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Famous Americans (Yale Series of Younger Poets) (Hardcover)

the booklist review above is pretty accurate, but i thought i'd add my 2 cents. this collection is quite good, although it should be noted that humorous doesn't necessarily mean light. goodman has a knack for unlikely juxtapositions and clearly loves playing with language in the form of non sequiturs and malapropisms. at their best, as in "yeast" which is a play on the poet yeats and in "touchdown to college!" which starts off as a badly spelled essay and which morphs unexpectedly into beautiful poetry, the poems' results are strangely moving. a little too often his poetry is simply gimmicky, as in the series of movie castlists which feature "max von sydow" in a slew of roles, or the life of benjamin franklin, both of which quickly become rather predictable. a quick read for some good laughs and chuckles, as well some moments of emotional reaction.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invite Don Rickles, January 23, 2007

By 

kevin griffith (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Famous Americans (Yale Series of Younger Poets) (Paperback)

This is a fantastic book of poetry, relentlessly goofy and original. Tired of the angst, the pretentiousness, the studiously casual stuff that passes for poetry these days? Check this book out. You will not be disappointed. If only more books like this won the major awards.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars funnyman, yes; goodman, not entirely, May 28, 2008

By 

Binh H. Nguyen "rawr!" (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Famous Americans (Yale Series of Younger Poets) (Paperback)

I am torn in my feelings about Loren Goodman's "Famous Americans" (2003). There're parts in the book that are genuinely good while other parts simply feel like "filler" material. The opening section, "Founding Fathers," has some gems in it.

Take, for instance, the first poem, "Recital":

Beethoven looked mean, but Liszt looked
tough. When Beethoven stared Liszt smiled without opening his lips
and said "What?" and Beethoven backed off to his little room.

"Recital" is a sort of preamble into what the reader is going to expect from the book. A book called "Famous Americans" contains, right off the bat, straight dead white males of the Old World. For a reader not well versed in the biographies of European composers, he or she will "get" instantly the sheer wackiness and inventiveness of the scene. Here, disparate historical/musical figures are placed on the same up-to-date stage, with just the right touch of laugh-out-loud cattiness.

The denizens of "Founding Fathers" comprise not only of male figures (Americans and otherwise), but also females (Gloria Vanderbilt), animals ("your cat"), things (Noakhail Express, 70's Chevy, a chalice-like cup), New York City, and various imaginary figures.

Other imaginative scenarios abound. From interviews and script for screenplays to a film showing and one-on-one conversations, one can see clearly the effect of Anne Carson on this young writer. Carson has single-handedly revived, in recent memory, the script and interview formulae employed by Goodman.

Goodman's experiments, seemingly fresh and innovative, can become rote and mechanical. For example, his "Psalm For The Soul Of An Expressionist Playwright," with its 37-line "When I hear the word _______ I reach for _______" gets to be tiresome.

The reviewer Brian Phillips, in the February 04 issue of POETRY magazine, succinctly writes:

"Loren Goodman, Merwin writes [in the Foreword], 'clearly loves nonsense for its own sake.' He also loves being clever, and most of the poems in Famous Americans are the kind of clever nonsense verse that many young poets are busying themselves with today."

Not a bad prognosis. "Famous Americans" has a whiff of the workshop (look at Goodman's biographical notes and this bit: "Mánager: Kenzo Koch"). It makes for an amusing read but most of the poems are merely fun exercises to try to get the creative juices flowing, which Goodman succeeds. I don't hear a distinctive voice in Goodman however, and the book, in the last analysis, does not amount to a truly great one.