Vice: New and Selected Poems [Paperback]

Ai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2000

Winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Poetry.

Collected here are poems from Ai's previous five books—Cruelty, Killing Floor, Sin, Fate, and Greed—along with seventeen new poems. Employing her trademark ferocity, these new dramatic monologues continue to mine this award-winning poet's "often brilliant" (Chicago Tribune) vision.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You know the age-old question: Suppose you could handpick a cast of living or dead characters and have them all to dinner. Who would you ask? In this searing collection, Ai does the difficult work of choosing for us. She invites a whole host of often less-than-presentable guests, including presidents ("I have a deep affection for my wife, / but also for sweet, big-haired girls... who never complain of tired jaws"), paparazzi ("I am there for you, / a friend, not an enemy, / stalkerazzi, or a tabloid Nazi"), and prurient priests ("Lord, I crave things"). Elsewhere, Ai gives voice to Lenny Bruce, a grief-stricken Marilyn Monroe, and the spurned lover who confesses "A man could never do / as much for Imelda / as a pair of shoes." Donning the mask of our most famous (and infamous) politicians and celebrities, as well as our most vilified antiheroes, she gives new life to the dramatic monologue. And in poems "by" rapists, murderers, looters, hit men, and stalkers, she puts words in the mouths of the thoroughly muzzled. Like Whitman, she writes from the conviction that every voice--no matter how despicable or seemingly insignificant--deserves the chance to be heard. --Martha Silano --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

It is impossible to reconstruct the explosive initial impact of this poet's early work, which toys with American stereotypes, myths and truths in dramatic monologues that make everyone uncomfortable: "I move off. I let her eat,/ while I get my dog's chain leash from the closet./ I whirl it around my head./ O daughter, so far, you've only had a taste of icing,/ are you ready now for some cake?" In books like Cruelty (1973) and Killing Floor (1979), a midwife describes how "a scraggy, red child comes out of her into my hands/ like warehouse ice sliding down the chute," and the poet recounts how the dead brother of her lover "slides from the black saddle/ like a bedroll of fine velvet" while she makes love on the porch. In her third book, Sin, Ai (pronounced "I") struck an equipoise between narrative force and lyrical grace, represented here in poems such as "The Good Shepherd: Atlanta, 1981" and in several Chaucerian "Tales." The highly compressed lyric poems further evolve into extended narratives over the course of this selection, and by Fate (1991), they begin to turn more regularly toward cultural icons like Jimmy Hoffa and James Dean, while supplying enough of their own wattage to make it work. The newer poems, however, deteriorate into little more than lineated tabloid reportage of the likes of O.J., Monica Lewinsky and David Koresh (labeled "fictions"). While there seems to be an ambitious blurring of art and life attempted in these and other poems on lesser (!) figures, they don't quite yield fresh perspectives, or even the can't-take-your-eyes-from-the-screen force of the originals. Readers will nevertheless appreciate this summary of an impressive career as they await its next installment.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st ed. edition (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393320189
• ISBN-13: 978-0393320183
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #429,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful "Vice", April 20, 2008

By 

Louci A. Peed "louci" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vice: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

This book is an amazing collection of Ai's poetry. She deservedly won the National Book Award for this book. Her poetry touches political and social issues head on and she doesn't back down from her beliefs. Her passion speaks for itself.
Her language is easy, conversational. In Blood in the Water, Ai writes in reaction to a very public and very political affair, "My granddaddy told me a man is nothing but appetite/ sandwiched between his wife and mean lust./ I have a deep affection for my wife,..." There is a familiar comfort in the way she writes. This is poetry that affects and is effective.
Ai writes with her soul. Her "New Poems" are real to our time, but the earlier works are timeless. Her work, The Gilded Man, is inspired by events from 1561. It reads as if she were there to witness the killing and deaths that happened. She writes of "start[ing] with his feet and giv[ing] them to you to wear as earrings." and it feels like she is there ready to dismember the enemy.
Some of her works have the feel of Edwidge Danticat's Krik Krak. Ai, like Danticat, deals with the sufferings of African American people and their ability to overcome hardships. Ai's poem, Cuba, is that particularly reminds me of Danticat's works. Ai casually talks about death and giving back to the earth as if it's second nature.
Overall, Ai's Vice is a wonderful collection of poems that are eternal, current and touching in some way or another. The comfortable familiarity of her writing style makes this an easy read, while her passion and beliefs make the book moving and powerful. This collection was deserving of the Award and Ai's work is an amazing reminder that there are modern poets that can still touch us like Hughes and Whitman and Eliot.

14 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book. Read these poems aloud., November 19, 1999

By 

Alison (Fayetteville, Arkansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vice: New and Selected Poems

Ai is the first poet who ever meant anything to me, and this book is testament to her greatest strengths. It's a pleasure to watch her early poems develop into the dramatic monologues for which she is known. Ai is savage and compassionate--a great combination in a poet--but don't reduce her poems into a summary of subject matter. Her attention to the line and to real human voices make this a book you'll never want to loan.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable., March 16, 2006

By 

Ponyboy Curtis "www.stephenandrewpalermo.com" (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vice: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

Ai writes dramatic monologues, and persona poems. Thematically, her poems will break your nose, knock your teeth out, and leave you feeling slightly off kilter...her unflinching honesty, imagination, and sheer brutality are unsettling, maddening, and ultimately a mark of brillaince...