Customer Reviews

Madonna Anno Domini: Poems

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A remarkably self-indulgent first book by a writer too old to be this immature and irresponsible with the language. All formal flair...and very little else. Clover DOES experiment wonderfully and fascinatingly with the surface shimmer of his subjects, but this kind of willed approach to the making of poems results, too often I think, in work that borders on the offensive. (A meditation on the Holocaust, for example, becomes a light-hearted, witty exercise in form.) This is a major award--the Whitman--and likely to make Clover's career. Hopefully he will earn the coming gush of praise with a more deeply felt second book.

So my buddy Pete finds a bag of books outside his apartment one morning and takes it inside. A bunch of poetry books were in it, including this one by this dude Joshua Clover, who looks like he's trying to be a rock star on the photo on that little flap at the back of the book (shirt unbuttoned, dark shades, standing on his deck he was probably up partying all night after winning that Whitman prize).. I wasn't expecting much, poetry's not my thing, hated it ever since Whitman and Dickinson in high school, but there were some poems I could relate to, like the ones about the Gulf War (which I was in, Airborne all the way) though it kind of made me want to take this Clover dude to the wall since I was there and saw a lot of really crazy stuff and he's back at his little graduate school drinking coffee, hitting on my girlfriend, writing his poems, I think they're against the war. There's also a poem that you have to turn the book sidewise to read it, which is pretty different and cool I guess. All in all, this isn't too bad for poetry but I wonder if the poems would be better if Clover didn't strut so much? Like, de-frost your hair and see how that goes.

I read this book on recommendation and I am rather disappointed, but then again the friend who recommended the book to me is also in love with performance poetry. And now it makes sense: I bet if read aloud, if PERFORMED, this work would astonish me, for it is mostly made up of fly-by-night form-bound lines that have very little substance on the pages but I bet sound real nice out loud.I can't recommend this; in fact, I suggest serious poetry readers stay away from it.

This is the most confusing book of poetry I've ever read. I couldn't follow any of the material. However, I very much liked the sound of the poetry. If you like sound and don't care at all about logic, this could interest you. Otherwise, steer clear!

Very Good Book. I learn English from it. No need to live in '60s, Clover brings them to you. I read for wife and she kick me out. I still have book though, makes good fire. I recommend to anyone who needs encouragement.-

Okay, I can't imagine who'd want to read this book, but let's hypothetically say that you do. I see used copies everywhere--no doubt because it was thrust upon the members of the Academy of American Poets, who then relegated it to their "recycle" pile. So if you're intent on getting it, visit a thrift store, where discounted copies abound.

There is much that is surprisingly warm in this theoried and avant aesthetically conscious amalgamation. And while it surges with elitist-hip pretensions, it grooves to a back-beat of pop and populist rhythms, with many-hued chops against a background of blue. It is a cartoon philosopher and the future of anarchism railing against the bars with a baby bottle. Worth many reads. You can definitely learn from it.

who isn't happy to be a killing machine?,

joshua clover's meditation on small-town violence meeting today's tough issues is a profound meditation on small-town...

no matter how far we back away from ourselves this scene will not reveal itself as a movie set.

clover tails stephen wright on the going native episode, plucking observations about the state of words from the world of fin de siecle or whatever wherever with something like glee, but not glee, exactly, but without the staid proprietary stare of big time talkers in verse.

I am trying to invent a way for you to buy me back--

quote marks are so 20th c. clover's what poetry reads to itself late this afternoon.