Ooga-Booga: Poems [Hardcover]

Frederick Seidel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0374226555 | ISBN-13: 978-0374226558 | Publication Date: November 14, 2006 | Edition: 1st

From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror,
rage, and desire.


Here I am, not a practical man,
But clear-eyed in my contact lenses,
Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others,
Seeking sexual pleasure above all else,
Despairing of art and of life,
Seeking protection from death by seeking it
On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels . . .
--from "The Death of the Shah"

The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from "the most frightening American poet ever" (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Seidel's 14th book finds his caustic vigor undiminished, his high-volume confidence as entertaining—or disturbing—as ever: gleeful antiwar protests and self-mocking, obvious rhymes zip easily among a bombed Baghdad, a deluxe version of Paris and a hyperbolically glitzy jetset New York. The volume's emotions swing, too, between the aging poet's obsession with death and his adjacent obsession with sexual prowess: "I spend most of my time not dying./... / I climb on a woman I love./ I repeat my themes," he announces. Many of the poems aspire at once to shock us and to sound blithely assured, with utterances no other poet would think to—nor perhaps want to—set down: "The vagina-eyed Modigliani nude/ Made me lewd," for example. Seidel (The Cosmos Trilogy, 2003) perhaps satirizes a Western capitalism in which no one can be rich enough, fast enough or man enough to satisfy his own ideals. Yet for every reader who finds brilliant, social critique, there may be another who wonders if it's all a joke. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

With the opening poem, "Kill Poem," readers familiar with Seidel may experience a flashback to "Scotland," the first poem in These Days (1989), given how elements of history, civilization, hunting, and killing are intertwined. And, indeed, this new collection has all the usual Seidel subjects, from fox hunts to violins to Paris and politics (Seidel even confesses twice, "I repeat themes")--but this doesn't diminish the intensity, skill, or bravery of his masterfully shocking style of poetic acrobatics. While some of Seidel's poems border on navel-gazing, others (like "Mother Nature," "The Bush Administration," and "The Death of the Shah") stunningly throw open windows of thought by allowing disparate elements to unite in enlightening ways. One may dislike Seidel's poetry, but most would be hard-pressed to disagree with his work's importance and originality, or deny his artistic courage. We need more poets like Seidel to rub us the wrong way, and induce us to think critically about our history, leaders, and actions. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (November 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374226555
• ISBN-13: 978-0374226558
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,686,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wisdom With A Slice Of Irreverance, December 9, 2006

By 

Ralph Hummel (Huntington Station, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ooga-Booga: Poems (Hardcover)

I came at this book from an unusual perspective. I'm a motorcycle-enthusiast, not a poetry connoisseur, and I heard about the author from a riding-buddy. (He, I and the author all live on Long Island and ride motorcycles.) I'm not the typical consumer of a book of poetry and I approached this one with some apprehension.

That dissolved almost immediately, however, when I got into the writing. It is easily-accessible and hugely entertaining. I found myself enjoying the time spent with a seasoned individual whose unique perspective is not only sagacious but fun. I never expected poetry to tackle subjects of real interest to me (e.g., sex) but this book does. Both the topics and the author's exploration of them amused and enlightened me. Chances are you'll enjoy it, too.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good strong stuff, April 18, 2007

By 

Book dallier (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ooga-Booga: Poems (Hardcover)

Seidel has no shame, as he shouldn't. No one is spared in this book--politicians, minorities, women, disease patients and happy people are all subject to Seidel's wicked treatment, which is his genius. Seidel is dour and curmudgeonly. Reading a Seidel poem is like hurtling over a cascade of brutal, brilliantly clear images. Whether by their beauty or their despair, each one manages to be frightening. The first reading of a Seidel poem is bound to provoke an intense emotional/visceral response, even among casual readers, while subsequent readings will reveal purebred poetic craft. His honesty insults you, me, and everyone else; anything less would insult art.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just stupendous, January 30, 2008

By 

Bartolo (New York City, New York USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ooga-Booga: Poems (Hardcover)

I'd been unsuccessful in finding a poet who inhabited my insane urban world; many carried the musty odor of academe, and/or lived in rural areas fomenting images of cows and trees, or in any case couldn't re-invent language to be sufficiently intense, or graphic, or vivid to address our existence. Ashbury and Muldoon were too difficult. Strand was too bland. Greger was only occasionally powerful. Komunyakaa came close but could never quite close the sale.

Then I happened on a review of "Ooga-Booga." And bought it. Bingo!

Why are there only two reviews here? Are Americans so indifferent to poetry, or so sentimentalized as not to recognize the real thing when it slaps them in the face?

I'm unsure exactly where Seidel should be placed in the pantheon: whether he has the gravitas of Yeats or the formal dazzle of ee cummings; perhaps he's just a bit shy of greatness, a la Auden. But whether these poems become classics or whether their big punch will fizzle some with age, they certainly are knockouts now. (Either "The Bush Administration" or "Barbados" would alone have been worth the price of admission) Seidel is the poet for our times: caustic wit, a twistiness of metaphor that can leave you gasping, irreverence, playfulness, a refusal to be bound by the pompous mantle of Literature, a complex understanding of relations between our inner and outer worlds, and--not least--a sense of moral outrage.

"The Cosmos Trilogy" is great too.

Mr. Seidel: stay healthy, keep writing! God knows you're a rare beast.