Radio, Radio [Hardcover]

Ben Doyle (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"These bodies are not/ our bodies but we pull them close to stall the shudder," Doyle proclaims at the end of "The Miscarriage." And it is these words that best summarize Doyle's debut volume, winner of the prestigious Walt Whitman Award from the POETRY Society of America for a first book of POETRY. Doyle's observation is intense and often reduced to molecules, resulting in a verse that despite its occasionally surreal nature is strongest when close to home. Doyle replaces cultural references with witty, sometimes biting, and often veiled snapshots of a generic, subordinated experience: "our ankles matched/ electric fence tattoos." As this suggests, there are images straight out of the superhero comic books. And who else could write a sestina in which "met" becomes "Kismet" and "comet" or "again" becomes "Reagan?" Everything here is contemporary, with references to injection-molded plastics and a poem dedicated to the Sony Robotdog. Although uneven as a whole, this is one of the more original POETRY books of late and definitely worth reading. Rochelle Ratner, New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 71 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr; 1ST edition (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807126780
• ISBN-13: 978-0807126783
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,360,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent first book, April 12, 2001

By 

Aaron Bannister "Aaron Bannister" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Radio, Radio (Hardcover)

On first glance, Radio, Radio appears to be an "Ashberian" book, which so many young writers seem to be striving for these days. And the poems ARE concerned with "sound as meaning" and other elements of "Language Poetry" (humor, lack of context, dissolved narrative); yet the poems succeed through their own profound music, their own original humorous musings (as if language here were indeed dialoguing with itself), without the plaintive rhetoric of "confessional" poetry, and without the consolations of static context or sincerity to qualify them. They are, as is ambient music, the perfect background noise, and at the same time rewarding under closer scrutiny. Very playful and lighthearted on the surface, yet stimulating and insightful beneath their veneer. I highly recommend Radio, Radio if you're looking for poetry beyond linear/narrative verse that neatly packages metaphors with overly contrived conceits/endings. An excellent first book.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than "Creative Writing", May 20, 2001

By 

"h_wystan" (Key West, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radio, Radio: Poems (Paperback)

Whenever I hear someone gripe about creative writing programs dire influence over American Poetry, it is usually clear that "someone" was unable to secure a spot at a creative writing program of choice. Jealousy aside, why not attempt to actually say something substanitive about why a group of poems does not fufill you as a reader.

Who knows how a first book of poems will hold up over time, but it is clear that the formal, irreverent, intelligent and purely mad wit at work in "Radio, Radio" is the real thing. Many of the poems employ dark tones that cohere through a Keatsian style of moving into the imagination and back out to the actual so repeatedly and so quickly that the senses can longer distinguish the two. Keats is after all the major influence at work here and these poems accordingly are lyric and obsessive. Many people who haven't studied Keats closely will only see the influence as it is filtered through contemporaries like Ashbery or Tate and cry foul, but the influence is hardly obscured--an early (and the best) poem in the collection paraphrases "Ode to a Nightingale" repeatedly. This is an immensely enjoyable collection of poems. I for one will be rereading it, and I suspect other readers will enjoy it just as much.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally...., July 21, 2001

By 

"claypigeon13" (the region of unlikeness) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Radio, Radio: Poems (Paperback)

a book I can go to like I used to go to Championship Vinyl when I was a wee teen. By which I mean it's nice to find a book that's lively, full of life (rangingly intellectual without the defensive hang-ups of the didactically theoretical, not afraid of the body, not afraid, thankfully, of sentiment), that seems to enjoy language for its very balance between precision and imprecision, between the vertical depth of its etymology and its narcotic pharmacology. The book runs through the self-assured poses of the Rock 'n Roll-auteur...but they're just that, "poses", linguistic tricks, gestures, and acrobatics tried on at dizzying speeds in an attempt to counteract the underlying sense of ennui and emotional defeat attendant with (sorry) millenial America. Go to these as you might go to see a great band -- Built to Spill, GBV, the Replacements circa 1984 (yes the poems are a bit drunk at times) -- partly for the way in which their virtuosity allows escape and partly for the way in which they bring you back to what you want to escape from, newly charged. Sure, these poems might do a line of coke with your girlfriend in a bathroom stall, but when they come back out they still have the heart to buy you a drink and give you a ride home. In the end, these poems are hyper-kinetically intelligent, formally blinding, full of sweet bravado, and tuned into an ultra-high frequency. They're also fun. Judging by the comments of some others on here I'd say that may be a problem for some people....