Karen Chase

This is poetry destined for obscurity.

The first of the two long poems, "Jamali Kamali," isn't awful, but it has all the passion of a Hallmark greeting card. There are a few memorable lines in it, but that's because they are laughable:

Your muskpod —
I need
to smell
your chest.

"ZundelState" reads like it was written by someone who has heard about speculative fiction and dystopias, but didn't bother to read beyond Wikipedia. It contains gems like:

I'm playing harmonica in a zone called Rome, show more singing "I dreamt I
was walking into World War Three."
I say to Marianna "Our love's gonna grow ooh-wah, ooh-wah.
Let's go play Adam and Eve."

The whole thing is, to put it bluntly, risible.

Received via NetGalley. show less

Eclectic and charming. I attended an author talk at SML.