Gates of Eden by Ethan Coen  (16)
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
"The loudest has the final say,/ The wanton win, the rash hold sway,/ The realist's rules of order say/ The drunken driver has the right of way." Coen has proven himself a brilliant and original filmmaker; he is responsible, with his brother Joel, for Fargo; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; and Miller's Crossing, to name just a few. He has also published a collection of short stories, Gates of Eden, which received good reviews. So it should come as no surprise that we now have his first collection of poems. Sadly, to call it poetry is to be kind. These are, at best, sophomoric rhymes, bawdy jokes, and off-the-wall nonsense. They are perhaps the equivalent of marginalia or doodles mindlessly jotted at the bottom of film scripts. Observations and reductions that are more fitting to standup comedy, these pieces are often funny but are seldom anything more. Mr. Sands is a boarder who, after setting off a bomb in his room, can no longer knot his tie. "Tale of the Yukon" tries to retell a Jack London tale in four lines. There is the analysis of dreams, a parody of Bukowski, and a few dozen limericks (including a handful of "clean limericks" under the title, "What, Then, Is the Point?"). There is even a "Lament" in which Coen compares his poems honestly to those of Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Keats. It is enough to make one look back fondly on Jewel and Suzanne Sommers. Maybe it's I, but I just don't get it. Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Coen follows up the well-received short story collection Gates of Eden (1998) with a volume of poetry. As one might expect of a man who, in collaboration with his brother, Joel, has made some of the most interesting movies of the past 15 years (Fargo; O Brother, Where Art Thou?), the poems are strange, unconventional, and often ridicule the traditional poetic establishment. The collection's highlights are in two-dozen pages worth of unimaginably filthy limericks, the arguably least obscene of which involves a well-endowed rhinoceros making love to a Sherman tank. These are bawdily hilarious, but when Coen leaves their five-line, rhyming structure, he often flounders with awkward rhymes and singsong meters that rouse more cringes than laughs. Oscar Wilde once said that "all bad poetry is sincere," but many of Coen's unabashedly insincere poems prove otherwise. He verifies again that moviemakers and pop singers do well to avoid poetry. But each offering of celebrity poetry brings new readers to verse, which can't be all bad. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
"The loudest has the final say,/ The wanton win, the rash hold sway,/ The realist's rules of order say/ The drunken driver has the right of way." Coen has proven himself a brilliant and original filmmaker; he is responsible, with his brother Joel, for Fargo; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; and Miller's Crossing, to name just a few. He has also published a collection of short stories, Gates of Eden, which received good reviews. So it should come as no surprise that we now have his first collection of poems. Sadly, to call it poetry is to be kind. These are, at best, sophomoric rhymes, bawdy jokes, and off-the-wall nonsense. They are perhaps the equivalent of marginalia or doodles mindlessly jotted at the bottom of film scripts. Observations and reductions that are more fitting to standup comedy, these pieces are often funny but are seldom anything more. Mr. Sands is a boarder who, after setting off a bomb in his room, can no longer knot his tie. "Tale of the Yukon" tries to retell a Jack London tale in four lines. There is the analysis of dreams, a parody of Bukowski, and a few dozen limericks (including a handful of "clean limericks" under the title, "What, Then, Is the Point?"). There is even a "Lament" in which Coen compares his poems honestly to those of Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Keats. It is enough to make one look back fondly on Jewel and Suzanne Sommers. Maybe it's I, but I just don't get it. Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Coen follows up the well-received short story collection Gates of Eden (1998) with a volume of poetry. As one might expect of a man who, in collaboration with his brother, Joel, has made some of the most interesting movies of the past 15 years (Fargo; O Brother, Where Art Thou?), the poems are strange, unconventional, and often ridicule the traditional poetic establishment. The collection's highlights are in two-dozen pages worth of unimaginably filthy limericks, the arguably least obscene of which involves a well-endowed rhinoceros making love to a Sherman tank. These are bawdily hilarious, but when Coen leaves their five-line, rhyming structure, he often flounders with awkward rhymes and singsong meters that rouse more cringes than laughs. Oscar Wilde once said that "all bad poetry is sincere," but many of Coen's unabashedly insincere poems prove otherwise. He verifies again that moviemakers and pop singers do well to avoid poetry. But each offering of celebrity poetry brings new readers to verse, which can't be all bad. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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