Customer Reviews

The New Year of Yellow: Poems (Kathryn a. Morton Prize in Poetry)

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In the interest of full disclosure, I grew up with Matt Lippman, but that doesn't mean I HAVE to like his poems. Well, I do. They made me laugh, smile, get a little wistful and nostalgic and scratch my head more than a few times and go, "Huh?". I confess that I don't always "get" poetry, but when I do "get" it, I really enjoy it. Matt has a way of putting things that gets right to the core of what he's feeling, and often what he's feeling is something we have felt or are feeling too, like getting fat, getting older, going without sex, thinking about past loves and people we've known, and of course, MONKEYS.
So, I'm not a writer of poems, but I know what I like, and I sincerely enjoyed this book. I am looking forward to what is coming next from Matt Lippman!

Humor and poetry are often viewed like two reactive ingredients in a childhood chemistry set. The wrong combination of the two can result in a face-soiling explosion.
Humor will always be at least marginally subjective. There will always be different kinds of humor from slapstick, puns, irony, and tragicomedy.

Humor in poetry is often limited to the corner of the page and in some cases, such as the majority of light verse, deservedly so. In contemporary poetry, there are a few poets that consistently manage to produce humorous poems in large quantities. Billy Collins, Thomas Lux, and Tony Hoagland, quickly come to mind, but they are by no means the only poets capable of producing a laugh from a reader. It's no surprise though that Tony Hoagland selected Matthew Lippman's The New Year of Yellow as winner of Sarabande's 2005 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. Lippman's self-effacing humor, something common enough in comedian stand-up routines, is different from the over tired woe-is-me postconfessional poetry.

Lippman's attack on political correctness is especially welcome. "Because I'm Black, "Blonde and All," "Where Are All the Puerto Ricans," are prime examples.
I doubt political correctness is on the verge of dying out or worsening, but it is hard to miss whether on the news where casualties "are or the workplace. " It's not to say that Lippman has some offensive poems, but that his poetry doesn't disinfect reality either.

I recommend this collection for readers with an open mind and a sense of humor, traits more poets and readers should bring to a book.