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A few weeks ago I went to Groliers and
after reading a few random poems from Nod House by Nathaniel Mackey, I purchased it not realizing it was the second part of a series,and actually contained two supremely epic poems that he's been working on for decades. Before I even opened up Nod House at home, I did some research, and learned it is a continuation of Splay Anthem, and as luck would have it, the third volume, Blue Fasa was coming out in just a few days, so I went out and bought Splay Anthem, and then bought Blue Fasa twice (because some jackhole stole some of my books last week. The thing is, while I respect the stunning achievement of getting these two vast poems that intersect across not only these collections, but some of his previous work, I absolutely can not stand the formatting, and find myself being unable to read more than two consecutive poems before I want to throw the books across the room. Which of you, my literate, poety reading friends, have read even one, or perhaps even all three of these books? Did you also find the formatting off-putting, but thought the content was so strong that it was worth the challenge? Does formatting not usually bother you? Do you enjoy reading text where the author seems to break lines more for visual consistency than for line strength? Particulatly when they dangle one weak-ass word, usually a preposition or an article but sometimes an interesting noun for seemingly no reason that enhances the meaning of the poem? I really want to give this work a shot but I find the layout more than even a distraction, I find it a detraction. It boggles my mind that a poet would do this on purpose across all of their books just as it boggles my mind that someone would submit to this pain in the eyes on a regular basis. I mean, it's great that it's won all these awards but I can't help but wonder if some pretentious ass poetry award granters flipped through Splay Anthem and thought "Fuck, I can't believe this writer and this publisher went to all this effort to format this whole book this way. I'm either too stupid to understand why, or else too lazy to wonder. That sounds like award winning work to me." And then Nathaniel thought "They bought it. I wonder how many books I can do this for before people question whether I'm doing this because it seems jazzy or if I'm just fucking with the white people in charge of The Poetry Establishment." I, for one, can't believe you're still even reading this status. It was fucken annoying to write. I would say that I can't imagine how annoying it was to read, but clearly, I can.
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What Is This All About?This page is where the content from previous poetry blogs have been condensed. It's not on the menu, since most of these projects are over, or on hiatus, but the posts are still here to peruse. Archives
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