Customer Reviews

Thieves' Latin (Iowa Poetry Prize)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Shippy puts the anti back in anti-poet. Daring and glorious.

Funny, eccentric, very smart. Tough, too. But I like my poems tough. ...

Shippy takes his readers on a thrilling journey into the deepest metaphors of contemporary American life. His poems occur, it seems, in those chilling moments when one is not quite awake or asleep. His language is devestating, assured. When I read the blurb, that descibed the book as surreal--I flinched--that word is so overused, or wrongly used. Not here. Keelan was right. This is the new surrealism. This is the first great poetry book of 2003.

Peter has never failed to amaze me...I'm delighted that the rest of the world has caught on to a brilliance that many of us have been amazed and inspired by for years. An absolutely beautiful writer!

The feeling grows as one turns the pages that Peter Shippy is one of the most original poets now writing in American. While the external surface of the poems is busy--byte-n surrealism to sci-fi baroque--they are secure and madly intelligent. No matter how wild his reality--and we have lovesick aliens, chop-socky crickets, a brain in a vat, a dog who digs Pier Paolo--these poems are a grand thing happening. A virtuoso verbal performance.

One of the best contemporary poets writing, and a force to be reckoned with. Buy this book.

A must-read if you plan on living tomorrow.

This is a world of brilliance--but also with great weird humor.