Customer Reviews

Just One of Those Things (Wick Poetry Chapbook Series 3)

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Sarah Perrier, Just One of Those Things (Kent State, 2003)

I've been sitting on this review for about eighteen hours now trying to figure out how to intelligently discuss a book that left me with no coherent thoughts whatsoever. You know how, sometimes, after certain, shall we say, intimate moments, one's language level spontaneously reverts to that of a three-year-old? Yeah. That's what this book did to me.

Just One of Those Things is almost unbearably sexy. Not that every poem in it is an overtly erotic poem (in fact, one of the best things about these lovely, lovely pieces is that Perrier has a deft hand with understatement), more that there's an atmosphere of the erotic that suffuses the whole book. It's impossible to excerpt a piece and give you this feeling (if you could, Perrier could bottle it, sell it, and make a fortune from the Viagra market), but if you inserted a poem about working on an auto transmission into the middle of this small book, it would come off sounding sexy. And when she's directly addressing the subject, well:

"Together,
we'll talk talk talk about the necessity of long-term
memory and the value of the grudge. Your flipchart
of my body parceled out like a butcher's map
shows the exact locations of too much and too little
with tiny stuck-on arrows, their sharp points as fine
as my revenge: reading poems instead of lectures,
each one a reminder of other men I left for doing less."
("Academic Affairs")

Spectacular. You want this. **** ½

I love this book. Unrequited love, casual sex, run-in's with ex-boyfriends, you'll find it all here. Single girls, pull up a chair. "Just One of Those Things" tells the stories of young ladies on the lookout, looking for love, finding love, having love, losing love. Perrier's poems tell these stories with wit, wisdom and grace.

A few of my favorites: In "Meeting You: A Definitive Plan," a girl desperate for connection falls for a stranger in a fish shop. "On the Principle of Pairing in Nature" is the story of a young woman stalking the wild prairies of night clubs and happy hours to find a suitable mate, without much luck.

Best title: "Ass," which fires off, "Sure, my ex tells me, you can say `ass'/with anything. For emphasis especially." With humor and bitterness, the narrator relates running into her ex at a backyard party and suffering small talk about how he has a crush on a girl at the office who has a fondness for "black bras and tattoos."

"Academic Affairs," about a fantasy love affair with a colleague, wins the prize for best first line: "Why don't you love me, and we can hit the road together,/cruise the lecture circuit and tell other single people/about the work it takes to make it work." And it only gets better with: "This is how/itinerant scholars of loss communicate: quote, footnote." This line breaks my heart, every single time.

"Just One of Those Things" finishes off with a fury. "Fresh," a stunning long poem, takes the reader on a break-neck journey back to a time of heady sexual exploration while mapping the wilds of the adolescent heart..

With humor, sass and sex appeal, Perrier writes new love lyrics for the new age. Sarah Perrier is the next big thing. Mark my words.

What a great book! I picked up a friend's copy of "Just One of Those Things" and couldn't put it down until I finished the whole thing. The voices in these poems knocked me out - strong, clear, desperate and ferocious. Great stories. There's a world of heart in these poems. Beautiful and surprising, every single one.

What a great book! I picked up a friend's copy of "Just One of Those Things" and couldn't put it down until I finished the whole thing. The voice in these poems knocked me out - strong, clear, desperate and ferocious. Great stories. There's a world of heart in these poems. Beautiful and surprising, every single one.