June 21, 2010 03:30AM
Kim Parko's collection Cure All is another genre bender--are they prose poems or flash fictions?--but one thing they definitely are is superb. The imagination at work in these pieces is in full throttle and frequently veers toward the weird and creepy in fascinating ways. Much of the imagery deals with the human body in states of disease and death or with the female organs of reproduction but these subjects are always treated in allegorical or fabulous ways with juxtapositions which continually surprise and delight. Cure All is among the very best things I've read recently and Parko is another writer whose work I'll eagerly look out for in the future.
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Chelsea Martin's collection Everything Was Fine Until Whatever is an eclectic mix of "confessional" micro-fictions, wry and frequently LOL funny reflections and observations, "subliminal" micro-texts and artwork which is highly entertaining throughout. The biting wit and edgy sarcasm on offer here at times reminded me of the stand up comedy of Sarah Silverman. Fun stuff! Check it out.
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I was pretty much completely baffled by the poem contained in Mathias Svalina's chapbook The Viral Lease notwithstanding my recent growing appreciation for the work of a number of different poets e.g., Zachary Schomburg, Myread Byrne, Ross Stuart, Linh Dinh, etc. Svalina's poem makes me realize I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to grasp much of the kind of poetry that's entirely without the familiar anchors of prose narrative. Oh well, I'll keep trying.
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